University of Louisville Football Post-Game Quotes
October 11, 2009 | Football
Oct. 10, 2009
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Louisville Head Coach Steve Kragthorpe
(Opening statement) "I give a lot of credit to our players tonight. They did a great job of persevering throughout the game and battling throughout the game. We got down 16-7 at one point, but our guys continued to fight and scratch and claw and find a way to get it done. I want to thank the Lord for providing the perseverance to these guys so they could show it. We knew it would be tough coming in because they have a good team and we knew they'd be hurting a little bit coming off that UAB loss last week. We also knew they played without Fletcher and Brown, who are very good players, so we knew we'd have our work cut out for us tonight. Again, I'm just really proud of our team and the way they continued to fight and claw after we made some errors in the first half."
(On whether he was surprised Southern Miss kicked the ball to Trent Guy on the Cards' final drive) "Yeah, a little bit, but we had to have some big returns. They had one big return and I think they felt like they could contain him. I think the biggest key was where the kick was located. They had done a good job of locating it (the previous kicks) down inside the corner, two or three yards inside the boundary. The last one was about eight yards inside the boundary, which is exactly where we wanted it because we had a little counter return setup. We had been returning back into the boundary. Coach (Matt) Wells, our quarterbacks coach who also coaches our kickoff return unit, dialed that one up and we'd been working on it all week long. We felt like, at the right time, we'd jump on it and we did."
(On Trent Guy's kickoff return to setup the game-winning field goal after fumbles against Utah and UK) "I thought he made some real nice plays for us throughout the game. He had two catches for 29 yards and he had the reverse, which was a real nice play for us. It was big for Trent. He's a great guy and he has a great heart. He loves the University of Louisville. He loves this team and he loves the guys on this team. I know that more than being excited for himself, he's excited he was able to help the team do something good tonight and win the game."
(On Scott Long's 92-yard touchdown catch) "Unbelievable. We felt like we had a couple of other times in the game, but we had some other guys open too. We said we wanted to keep it in the yard and give him a chance to go get it and Scott went up and got it. We had a nice block down the field and the next thing you know, he's in the end zone. It was a huge play in the game, no doubt. We had him open a couple of other times and he ended up with five catches. Scott stepped up and made plays. He's a great leader for our team and a great person. It's neat to see him have some success because he certainly deserves it."
(On what was said on the sideline after Southern Miss regained the lead with 2:13 left in the game) "We said 'okay, we'll be in the two-minute offense.' We knew what we were going to do in terms of the plays we were going to run because we work on it every week and Adam was confident with the plays we had. We had a good two-minute drive on Wednesday in practice, so we were confident we could go down and get the necessary yardage needed for a touchdown, or in this case a field goal, to win the football game. Obviously, the return (by Trent Guy) helped a whole lot. It's a lot better getting it on their 30 than our 30."
(On the Cards' third down play and Ryan Payne's game-winning field goal) "It was a naked bootleg where we weren't going to throw the ball. We blocked up inside and if he could make a play with it, he'd make a play with it. If not, then he'd just take what he had. Ryan likes it from the right hash and he kicked that sucker. That thing was right down the middle of the pipes and a good, strong kick. All I said to him before it was to just go kick it hard. He has a tendency at times to try to place the ball. I said 'just go kick that sucker hard' and he did it."
(On the decision to start Adam Froman at quarterback) "I thought he had a good week of practice. Justin wasn't quite back to the point where we thought he could go full go, but Adam did have a really good week of practice. Again, I feel great about our quarterback situation because I feel like we have two guys that can play and two guys that can lead us where we need to go."
(On whether it's been difficult for him to block out off-the-field distractions) "It's actually not real difficult for me. I think it's more difficult for my family than it is for me because I come to work every day at 6:30 and I leave here at about 10 o'clock at night. By the time I get home, I go to bed before all the newscasts come on at 11:30 or 11:20 or whatever it is, so it's a lot easier for me. It's hard for my wife too. She calls me and says 'what the heck is going on?' I say 'I don't know.' She says 'have you talked to Tom.' I say 'no, I haven't talked to Tom.' She says 'well, everybody thinks you've talked to Tom.' I say 'well, I haven't talked to Tom.' It's not easy for me and it's not easy for anybody, but I'll be at work tomorrow."
(On the improvement of the offense and the consistency of having Froman in back-to-back games) "Continuity is important to us because we've got to have the same guys in there doing the same things over and over again. When you do that, then you've got a little better chance of being consistent. We were more consistent tonight, but not as consistent as I would like for us to be, particularly in the second quarter."
Louisville K Ryan Payne
(On the game-winning kick) "I was as nervous as heck. I am just glad my team could put me in a position to kick to pretty easy kick 30 yards. Not too bad. I was as nervous as heck. It was a-once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I might not ever get the chance to do it again. So, it's just an amazing experience."
Louisville QB Adam Froman
"This is what we needed right here. This is going to be momentum for us. We proved to ourselves we can win a tight game; Come back in the closing minutes, the closing seconds. We're going to UCONN next week; hopefully get one more."
"You can't put into words, this is exactly what we needed. To be a perfect situation for us it would need to be a blowout or something like this. We were going back and forth and we needed to prove we could win a game. We were down late in the game and came back to win it. There is no quit in this team during the entire game. Nobody got that look on their face that 'here we go again.' We were fired up and knew that we were going to win the entire time. This game absolutely goes to the o-line. Those guys worked their butts off all week. They caught some flack last week. Those guys were unbelievable. I didn't feel pressure all night long. Those guys couldn't have done a better job."
(When they scored with two minutes to go, what was the sideline like?) "We were jacked up. We knew we were going to do the two minute drill and we were going to go down and score. We all knew we are capable of returning a kickoff for a touchdown and Trent did a good job and we got good blocks and they put us in good field position. Ryan did a good job of putting it through the uprights."
(How much confidence does this team have in Payne right now?) "After that, 100% confidence. You don't get much more pressure-packed kick than that. Having the game on your shoulders and stepping up and having to do that, he did a great job. I walked up to him, looked him in the eyes, and told him that I believed he could do it. And, he did it."
Southern Mississippi Head Coach Larry Fedora
(On how the team will rebound going forward) "We're going to correct a couple things, but if we play with the effort that we played with tonight and as hard as we did tonight, then we will be fine."
"You hate to say it, but this (game) doesn't affect what we do in conference play. We have to win out; we put ourselves in this situation. We will play good with our backs against the wall."
(On why the passing game appeared to be more successful in first game) "We just felt like we were going to focus more on running the ball, we felt like we needed to establish the running game and get that going. We felt like we could and we did, I just wish we could have finished off a drive or two in the first half."
Southern Miss QB Martevious Young
(On the how frustrating it was to give up the game after late touchdown) "It was pretty upsetting, but we can't let that get us down, because we have a conference game coming up next week, so we have to stay confident in what we're doing, keep up the hard work and bounce back from it."
(On whether or not the big play to DeAndre Brown was available all night) "They were kind of trying to take it away in the beginning with the safety, but in the end it kind of started to open up."
(On whether or not anything looked different with Louisville starting a receiver at corner) "It looked like exactly what we saw on film"
(On what he thought about the team's effort coming off a tumultuous week) "I think we just came out and had a dedication game. I dedicated the game to him. We tried to play hard for him; we just have to get over all the emotion"
(On what the emotion was like in the locker room after the game) "Everybody is kind of down right now, we just have to pick each other up and be able to count on each other."
Southern Miss RB Damion Fletcher
(On what kept him off the field late) "Tory(Harrison) went in for me on a fourth and short, and he kept getting yards, so there was no reason for me to come back in if he was getting yards." But he did a great job towards the end of the game, there are no injuries or anything like that."
(On what he thought about Young getting his first start at quarterback) "I think he came in and stepped up and did a great job tonight. He just needs to work and keep doing what he is doing."
