University of Louisville Football Post-Game Quotes
September 06, 2009 | Football
Sept. 5, 2009
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Louisville Coach Steve Kragthorpe
(Opening statement) "We had far too many penalties that killed drives. We missed a lot of open receivers. I thought Justin's communication with me on the sideline was good and I thought he was seeing things pretty good. He probably saw things too good, because he was seeing things a little too fast and he got a little impatient. I thought Victor had a good game and it was good to see Bilal back in game action. I thought he ran the ball pretty well. I thought our offensive line protected the passer pretty well, but we had far too many penalties. We had a good two-minute drive at the end of the first half and we screwed that up at the end. Burke was supposed to throw it in the end zone or just throw it away. We've only got six seconds left in the half, so you can kick a field goal there. Overall, we were real sloppy and we didn't play very well tonight."
(On whether Justin Burke was too amped up to start the game) "He overthrew those balls. The one in the corner, we had wide open and the one where we had Scott on the post wide open. He overthrew them, which typically, he doesn't do in practice because he'll usually under throw those in practice a little bit. I do think he was a little amped up. But again, I thought in terms of seeing things on the field, he was seeing things really well. His communication with me was great. There was never any question where he was like 'I don't know about this.' Every answer he gave me was exactly what we thought. The guy hasn't played a lot of college football and it's been a long time since he played at Lexington Catholic, so I thought in the second half he settled down pretty well. The touchdown drive to start the second half was really good in terms of putting the ball on the money to Scott."
(On the penalties) "I'll just tell you that we didn't play well and we were sloppy."
(On Ryan Payne handling the kicking duties tonight and others who didn't play) "Ryan did a good job kicking the ball for us tonight. We've got a couple of guys that didn't play tonight that didn't do everything we wanted them to do in training camp, so we decided not to let them play tonight. It's a privilege to get to play and if you don't take care of all of the things you're supposed to in training camp, then you don't get to play. Ryan stepped up and I thought did some good things for us."
(On the importance of getting the passing game) "That's one of the things we wanted to do early in the game. We wanted to be aggressive by coming out and taking some shots down the field against the coverages we thought we were going to see. We were trying to set up some of our play actions off the run and I thought we did a pretty effective job of that."
(On whether he saw what he wanted in the game) "I thought, for the most part on offense, our tempo was pretty good getting in and out of the huddle. There was only one time where we got close on one and we ended up getting a false start penalty. I thought the communication was good from the sidelines with the players and coaches. At times, we looked like we could be a pretty good offense because we had some good, crisp drives where we were operating by running the ball well and coming back with some play-action passes and shock passes down the field. But the one thing I didn't like was that we didn't convert our third downs."
(On the defense giving up some third down conversions)"We did give up some third down conversions. I thought we played good first and second down defense, but we did give up some third down conversions. We've got to get a better four-man pass rush. We had some defensive linemen that didn't play, but all of those guys will be back next week for practice and for the Kentucky game week, which will be good for us. We've got to get a little better four-man pass rush pressure because if you live by the blitz, you'll die by the blitz too. I didn't think, on third down, we got as much pressure as we wanted to."
(On the play of William Savoy) "I thought he did a good job. He's a good player. He plays with high effort and a great motor. I thought he did a good job against the run tonight too. He was not only a good pass rusher, but he was pretty stout against the run."
(On whether they can correct the mistakes from game one prior to game two) "I think so. It's like Lou Holtz said today at halftime of one of those games - 'you usually make your biggest improvements between week one and week two,' and we're going to have to do that pretty quickly. It's a bit of a different schedule now because I've been in a situation where you play your first game and then have a week off. We'll utilize the off week by practicing Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Then, we'll come back with our normal game week practice schedule."
"I don't think anybody is pumped up right now. You want to win every time you take the field and we won tonight, but I'm disappointed with the way we played and I think our players are too. I think there are a lot of things we have to continue to work on to become the team we want to be."
(On the play of the running backs) "I thought they ran the ball well once they got a little more patient. I thought early in the game, they were a little impatient, but I think everybody had to settle in a little bit tonight."
Louisville S Chaz Thompson
"We were just excited to be out there. We were overreacting on plays and we were over running players. That happens in the first game. We needed to settle down. When we settled down, we were fine. We came out in the second half and settled down. We started playing a little better. We still were not at our best today."
(Were you disappointed in today's performance) "I am not really disappointed. In practice, I've seen how fast we can be when everybody does the right thing. I know when we go to practice Monday, it will be a big issue with Coach."
(How would you explain to fans who talked about a blowout) "All I can say is in that first game you have first game jitters. We were overanxious. We were just glad to be out there. We're going to go in there and evaluate film, and in our next game we should be better."
Louisville QB Justin Burke
"The picks were bad. I have to do a better job of taking care of the ball. But other than that, I think we had some really good play action stuff. We really ran the ball well. The line really held up. The protection was great today. We didn't have a sack I don't believe and I think we settled in and got some rhythm going."
(on the choices available at receiver) "Yes, we have a ton of toys out here. All you have to do is give them the ball. So it makes it easy on me."
(On the penalties) "I think just sometimes you get a little complacent. You can't get complacent in this game. We can't go through the motions like that every time. So the penalties, that's what it usually was from, just not moving your feet and all that. But we'll get those corrected and we'll have those set and ready for UK."
(On heading to Lexington) "It will be exciting. I have a lot of family in Lexington and a lot of friends go to school there. They tell me 'We'll root for you, but not for U of L.' It'll be a great environment to play in. We're excited for the opportunity."
"I think the first half was like my first year. I was the first year, first snap, first drive guy. I got that out of my system. And once I started to calm down and getting my feet underneath me and had the coach in my ear a little bit, that really helped. The biggest thing was I had all my players, all my teammates come up to me like 'We got you. We know what you can do. Just go out there and show it.' And I think we showed it in the second quarter, second half.
(So the guys came up to you and said they've got your back?) "Yes, they got my back and they weren't going to be upset with me or anything. And that was big to me. To have all those players come up to me. And have a shaky first half like that and then come back and play solid the second half."
(Was it nerves? Do you think you needed to settle down a little bit?) "I was too heads up. Honestly I wanted it too much. You just have to catch yourself with those types of things. And I didn't play great. I have to play better. And this offense has the ability to play better. And we'll be a lot better at UK, that's all I know."
Indiana State Coach Trent Miles
"My hat's off to Louisville. They're a very well-coached team, a very physical team. They outplayed us and did a good job. They've got some excellent football coaches on that staff. Larry Slade, Brent Guy, Coach Myers, Coach Delgado and obviously Coach Kragthorpe. I think they're a wonderful, wonderful football staff. They do an excellent job with their football team. I know in the past, he's had a little heat from people around here, but he's doing the right things and he's doing it the right way. They beat us. They were the better football team tonight."
"I'm proud of our defense. I thought they did a good job in bad situations. They had the ball in our territory numerous times and we held them to a field goal or got the ball back. My hat's off to the effort for our kids. We said before the game, we're not a team that's happy to just come and compete, we compete to win. We didn't win, we're disappointed, very disappointed that we didn't win tonight. But there are some positives that we can build off of and we've got things we've got to fix. We've had some critical injuries that just took us out of our game plan and anything we were trying to do. My hat's off to Louisville for the way they played."
(On the importance of competitive game and looking at the positives) "It's 17-7 at the half, but before that it was 10-7 and we've got the ball at midfield and we threw an interception. We had eight man protection and the quarterback gets pressured, gets hit when he's throwing it up in the air and you lose a possession right there. If you make those mistakes in an environment like this when you're the underdog, you've got a chance to go up either 14-10, tie it 10-10 or even just stay at 10-7 and then they come back and go right down and score and take control of the game. We had our moments, but until we start doing what we need to do we're not going to be able to take advantage of those moments. There are positives to look at, our kids aren't happy just to compete. That is a minimal expectation, our kids need to play hard. If you don't do that as a football player then you don't deserve to play. I don't want to be patted on the back or our players to feel like they've done something because they went out and competed, that's a given in this sport. If you don't do that, you're done. Our kids are learning and getting to the point where they're competing to win football games."
Indiana State RB Darrius Gates
(Compare what you saw tonight to what you think you'll see in conference.) "I think there were times when I bounced on the outside on plays designed to go between the tackles. They did a good job spilling the outside, which they have extra defenders where I didn't have blockers. Probably looked like they had me cut off and we had plays designed to go to the outside. In that drive where we scored in the first quarter, we ran outside of Thompson. I think, going into the season in our conference I don't think we'll see that kind of speed. "
(Going against that caliber of talent, what do you think it'll mean going against teams in the conference?) "I think it helped. It gave us a chance to see where we're at. Just to give us confidence. Go out there and take care of the little things, which we did. Today we minimized the mistakes and we still have mistakes we have to work on. It wasn't as much. We're getting better with minimizing mistakes. It was that would give some guys some confidence. We showed we could play with anybody. "
(Was there a sense of relief and moving forward after this game?) "I think it was.If we just feel a little better. We went out and played hard. Snapping the ball, and I don't think we did a good job the first week. Playing hard is a given. You should play hard every game. It's a given, so I think tonight we did better and can build on it to show we can do it. We don't lay down or give up. "
