University of Louisville Football Post-Game Quotes
September 22, 2007 | Football
Sept. 22, 2007
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Louisville Head Coach Steve Kragthorpe
"Nobody coached well today, including myself. I take full responsibility. Nobody played well today. We did not play well enough to win the game."
"We've got to continue to fight because there's a lot of football still to play. To do that, we've got to get back to practice and get ready for North Carolina State."
"We had far too many penalties and if you want to blame somebody for that, blame me. We can't have the things we had happen today and expect to win, and that's on me. I accept full responsibility."
(On the penalties against Mario Urrutia) "We took him out of the game, but we ran into some situations because of injuries where we had to put him back in for our two-minute package."
"I'm very upset and disappointed that we're not playing better than this right now. The buck stops with me. The turnovers are a big part of it too. You can't turn it over because it kills your drives. We had too many penalties and too many turnovers and you can't expect to do that and win. We've also got to do a better job of tackling and that's on me as well."
"I thought we had a good week of practice and we were really flying around. Obviously, we've got to defend the deep ball better. We worked and worked on that this week, we didn't do it on the first play and that's on me. We had the perfect coverage, a cover four, and they throw a post over our heads. Inexperience may be part of it, but it's my responsibility to get them ready to play."
"At this point, we'll continue to look at what we need to do to make us a better football team. We've got to defend the deep ball and be able to run the ball on first down."
Louisville Junior Center Eric Wood
"You have to prepare the same way for every game and I don't think that we prepared well enough for this game. I don't think everyone played well enough to win this game and the score showed. I could kinda feel that we weren't ready to play this game and as a leader of this team, I take responsibility for that and I can guarantee that it won't happen again.
"I want to thank the fans who stayed around til the end of the game. When Syracuse had a third and long late in the game, it was the loudest they had been all game. The people that left, we hope that they can come support us the rest of the year because we are going to bounce back.
(on preparing for the game) "We take one game at a time like we said at the start of the year. There are still a lot things that we can do to salvage this season. Two losses is not the end of the season but at the same time, I can't be sitting up here every week talking about how many mistakes we made and how things will get better next week. In order to have a good season, we have to prepare for every game like it's a national championship like people prepare for us."
(on Brian Brohm's not checking at the line) "We threw that football everytime we wanted to but you get a turnover here and a penalty there, and all the sudden you're second and 16. The setbacks are just killing us. There is a sack here and a drop here we have to overcome those things and we have to focus."
(on the personal fouls) "Those personal foul penalties are selfish penalties and those need to end. They're drive killers and they are drive extenders the other way around. We don't need to have them if we are going to have a successful season."
"There is no way we should be sitting here at 2-2. Absolutely no way. We have to stick together as team. We have a long season ahead of us. We have to take one game at a time like we said at the beginning of the season."
Syracuse Head Coach Greg Robinson
"It was very obvious that this is what we talked about on Sunday with the team, that we needed all three phases of the football team to play together. It was obvious from the offense, to the defense, to the kicking game that they all had great moments and did great things. We also had some trying moments. We still are a work in progress. It's obvious, we proved that in the second half. We still found a way to win the football game and that's most important thing. I'm very proud of out team and very proud of our coaches. We are 1-0 in the BIG EAST and that's what we play for. We talked about it on Tuesday. That's really the facts and that's where we're at."
(Thought process on throwing the ball today) "We thought there were some things that we could take advantage of and we worked all week on that throw. They did it beautifully. Good play fake and the protection was excellent. The route came to what we designed it to be. We chucked it out there ant let him run."
(Scoring right away to take the momentum) "Obviously it put us up 7-0. I think our team knew it would take 60 minutes. It was going to take 60 minutes of playing because they were a team that could strike as well. That's where I have to give it to our defense. That's darn good. It's too bad it got to where it did. I see so many things that were in there that we're so good. We threw the ball and had some runs that were very critical. They were trying to stuff the run and that's where Andrew Robinson did such a great job. I don't even know what his stats were, but they had to be darn good. The guys around him did a good job. They caught the ball well, it was really good to see."
Da'Mon Merkerson, Syracuse Freshman WR
"As a team we kept going. We kept grinding and if we did everything we had to do, we knew we would be successful. With the other games, we knew the mistakes we made were because of us. We were beating ourselves. We knew we had to stick together going against a great team like Louisville with a great offense. We definitely had to be together on this one."
(On his TD) "It was a post route. The defensive backs were playing coverage like an off catch. They were up on us but not jamming us. I extended him a little bit, gave them a head fake and got on his side and caught the ball."
Jameel McClain, Syracuse Senior DE
"It started at the beginning of the week. We gotta have faith in ourselves. It came from the whole week. We had to believe in ourselves. For me, it doesn't matter who you line up against. We are all football players and we are all human. There are no superhumans in the world. It was a great opportunity to play against a great team and a great win for us. It was something that we needed. We were rolling on all four cylinders in my opinion."
"We are going to have to watch film again because there were a lot of mistakes. There are always mistakes in every game. That's something we're going to have to correct and hopefully we can take advantage of what we did."
