Louisville-USF Postgame Quotes
November 13, 2010 | Football
Nov. 13, 2010
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Louisville head coach Charlie Strong
Opening Statement
"It was a very tough loss. Just to see them battle back and get the game into overtime - and it was my decision to go for it on fourth and an inch. We were running the football and decided that we could control the football and get the first down and then go and get the touchdown. And then we would be up by seven and they would have to drive the ball, which I didn't think they could go score on our defense. I didn't think they could go score seven points. Defensively, we played well until that long ball over our head. But defensively we were able to contain the quarterback - and that is what we went into this game wanting to do. Offensively, we never really got into rhythm. The penalties killed us. We would get a long run and then we would get a penalty, but we were never on rhythm. You look at the first quarter, we had a short field and felt like we could go down and get some scores. And then in the kicking game the coverage team- the kickoff coverage - we would go up 14-3 and kick the ball off and the guy returns the kickoff for a touchdown. Even before he missed a field goal at the end of regulation, we kicked the ball down there and the big tight end runs it down. That is something we have to address. Overall, I usually just like the way they battled. It just came down to getting that fourth and an inch."
On the kickoff return for touchdown
"It was the turning point because we were up 14-3, so if we kick the ball down there and go down there and stop them. I think at that time there was 2:50 on the clock before half. Our defense was playing well enough, maybe we could get them to punt the ball and drive the ball."
On going for it on fourth down
"The strength of our team is the offensive line. So you feel like if we get behind them, we're going to get an inch. And we ran the ball every snap until we got it down there. We got third and a yard and then fourth and an inch. You just feel like we can go get this inch."
On what happened when they didn't convert the fourth down
"I didn't see it. I just looked up and it looked like we got knocked back."
On USF's 48-yard touchdown pass
"What we said as the defensive staff is that the only way he would have scored was to scramble around and throw the ball over our head and that's what happened on that play. There was no pressure. We had a blitz called and they got in a formation where we couldn't run the blitz. And then they just threw the ball up over our head."
On talking to team after a tough loss
"We still have two games left. We still have a chance to go get bowl eligible. But we didn't play well enough to win a football game. If it's fourth and an inch and we can't get an inch, we don't deserve to win the game."
On taking the risk of going for it on the fourth down
"You figure we've been moving the football that far so we felt like we could get it - last week we did it at Syracuse. And then you go and kick a field goal and they go match your field goal and you're still staying in overtime."
On Bilal Powell coming back from injury
"Powell played very well today. He ended up with a lot of yards rushing which is so good to see. He's really the glue of our offense. He keeps our offense going. It was good to see him bounce back and play as well as he did."
On the fourth-and-inches call
"No, it was an inch and we felt like we could just get an inch and get behind him with the quarterback. Maybe just stick the ball out, but it was just an inch that we needed."
On missed opportunities in the third quarter
"In the third quarter - and if you look at the first quarter - I felt like we could have put the game away, because we had short fields in the first quarter and we didn't get to score. We got the one and got up 7-0, but we still had two or three other opportunities where we could have taken the ball and scored."
On the penalties in the red zone
"They gave good effort. The receivers are trying to block downfield because they know if they can block downfield and get Bilal (Powell) behind them, then we have a chance to go score. But we miss a block and all of a sudden the guy gets away and we try and grab them. But we can't do that, penalties are continuing to kill us. Even though we got one score, we weren't able to get the other ones."
On the timeout call before the first field goal attempt at the end of regulation
"I did (call it in time). I told the guys I wanted to call a timeout. So when I saw the center's head go down, that's when I hit it. That's when he stopped and he banged it. I felt like I had it."
On putting Josh Chichester in on field goal attempts
"It was just everybody go block it. We were hoping it was a low kick. It was 52 yards and he had to get it up. We thought maybe he could jump up and bat it down."
On finding a solution for kickoff coverage
"Guys just have to do their job. Guys have to go down and cover. We'll look at it and see what happened, but guys have to do their job."
On the running the ball in overtime
"We felt like we had run the ball down there, so we could just run it right at them, and that was the mindset. We were just going to run the football and knock them off the ball - which we were doing. We were getting first and ten, second and five. We were just getting five yards a clip."
Justin Burke (QB)
On the fourth down play in overtime
"I didn't get low enough and I didn't get enough push. To be one inch away. It really hurts but you have to make a play. Coach Strong believes in us in doing that but we didn't get it done."
On if he felt like he made it
"Yeah I did. I thought so, but again they made a heck of a play on that. They got a lot of push so who knows."
On his forward progress on fourth-and-inches
"I thought so but it's not our call and it's not South Florida's call. We just have to go make a yard instead of an inch.
On the decision to go for it there
"That is absolutely what everybody wanted to do. You have to get one inch and you win the football game."
On getting to that point and if it was fun to get it to overtime
"It's not real fun when you don't win. We didn't play well enough in the second half and it wasn't very fun. It's good to score and be resilient and to never give up. That was good but we didn't get the job done."
On the mood in the locker room
"It's down right now, but Coach Strong is good about getting us back up and believes that we can go win. We have got to go and take care of business in the next two weeks."
Has the benchmark been raised for the program?
"The standard is very high, so we have to go win football games. That's the standard , win every week."
Josh Bellamy (WR)
What was the feeling in the huddle about the fourth down play in overtime?
"We felt like we were going to get the inches. We practiced that all day, it just didn't work out. "
What coach Strong said in the locker room after the game
"Just pick your head up. We've got two more games to play. One here and one away, and we can still win the last two games and go for a bowl game."
Does this say something about his belief in the team to go for it on fourth down?
"Coach Strong believes in us on fourth and inches. Everybody on our team believes we can get fourth and inches, but it just didn't work out."
On his touchdown catch late in the game
"Right before that I told Coach Dugans and Coach Groh that they had a corner out there that hasn't played all year and I can run a fade on him. Justin Burke threw it up and I got it."
What did you think when the ball was thrown
"When it was first thrown I really didn't see it. Then it came into my vision in the last minute and I just turned and caught it."
Brandon Heath (LB)
On the USF kick-off return
"It was really deflating. We knew if we got another stop we probably would have went ahead and that took the air out of the whole game. You would never know what happened coming out of the half."
On how disappointing the loss was after a great defensive game
"This is a whole team, offensive, defensive and special teams. We win together and lose together. That's how it is."
On if this was the best defensive performance
"We had a lot of blown assignment, a lot of big plays that we didn't capitalize on. We put it on our shoulders too."
On the long touchdown
"The receiver just made the play. We had two people in position to go get the ball."
On eliminating big plays the last couple of weeks
"The plays they made were us missing assignments."
On where they go from now
"We come out and practice tomorrow. We've got another game Saturday. So we've got to be ready for West Virginia."
Mario Benavides (Center)
On going for it on fourth down
"Even with all that packed in there, I thought we got a decent push. Burke fell right in between me and the guard. The bottom line is that we didn't get it, but I guess I felt like we did."
On how far away the ball actually was from the first down marker
"It must have been four inches. It wasn't very much. But everyone was coming off that angle, the d-line has their ears peeled back and their butts up and it's just a different game when you get into those situations."
On what slowed the run game at the end
"I don't know. I felt like all day we were pretty successful with a couple of off-set zone plays with Bilal (Powell). We should have gotten that going earlier as an offense as a whole because they couldn't stop that zone play."
On whether or not coach Strong is going to take criticism for going for it on fourth down
"That's not on him, it on us. He believes in us. If he didn't go for it, I might feel even worse."
On coach Strong going for it on fourth down the last two weeks
"It gives us a lot of confidence. We're obligated to get it done. I mean obviously without him doing that we're obligated to get the job done, but even more so. I understand from his perspective, I know he believes in us."
USF head coach Skip Holtz
Opening Statement
"Great win for the program, really, a great win for the program. We've talked to our players all week about the score when we played up here the last three years, which was 104-39 or something like that, and I keep hearing that South Florida has never won here at Louisville and there were a lot of challenges that we put on this team. This team worked extremely hard all week, and I thought they really handled some adversity. We had a little bit of plane problems last night. We got in to the hotel at about 10:30 p.m. and kind of had our meetings, tried to get everything done because we knew we had an early wake up call this morning and get going. You almost felt like you went from Thursday to their putting the ball on the tee and you're just like `slow down,' it's going too fast. But these boys handled it really well and they came out and played together as a team.
I give Charlie Strong, Vance Bedford and the Louisville staff an awful lot of credit. They have a very mature football team with all of the seniors and upperclassmen and they're playing well. I thought they had a good game with what they were doing defensively, like bringing a lot of pressure and doing some of those types of things. But at the end of the day, I think this one came down to just a total team win. We could talk about B.J. Daniel's throw to Dontavia Bogan and the phenomenal catch he made at the goal line there on the deep ball. We could talk about Lindsey Lamar's probably one of the most impressive 100 yard kick returns you're going to see with the job that he did hitting it up the middle. You can talk about the defense coming up with a fourth-and-inches stop in overtime, which was just absolutely huge. And I know statistically this game wasn't pretty. Third down, we weren't very good. We kept having to punt the ball and we didn't punt it as well as we wanted. We didn't execute as an offense as well as we wanted. We let them run the ball too much like letting Powell have 31 carries and for 150 yards and you could look at all those things negatives to say `Wow,' but they believed, they competed and encouraged each other. This was a great team win and I'm just very proud of the players and the mind-set they had and the togetherness they had in that locker room and the smiles on their faces."
(On the team's ugly win)
"No, there's no such thing as an ugly win. There's winning ugly, but there's no such thing as an ugly win. Those are two different things. No, it was ugly in a lot of places, but the bottom line is this team found a way to win. Ugly is when you look at these stats and see 2-of-14 on third down, and when you look at some of those numbers and see 87 yards passing, yeah, I would like to have that at 460 yards and 100 percent on third down and you lose? I say no thank you, I'll take the win we got and that's when I say there were a lot of things about this win that were ugly and would love to change. I thought they ran the ball extremely well, but the bottom line is they believed and came together. There were a lot of great individual efforts. I talked to them this morning for a long time about great football teams and one of the qualities they possess is depth. And it's one of those things where some guys are going to have to step up. We've got some bangs and nicks and Mr. Raymond was out and all of a sudden Jenkins, who's a freshman, sprains his ankle and he's out. Jerome's been playing on one ankle and you just start to look at some of the injuries that we have and the guys that were out of the game and a lot of young guys were in there. And the touchdown pass they throw and oh, Ricardo Dixon's in the game and he probably hadn't played 20 defensive plays all year and all of a sudden he's stuck out there. But like I said, they kept competing and I'm really proud of this team. It's a great tribute to the seniors and the way they kept believing."
(Lamar kick-off return for a touchdown)
"That's why I said it was more of the impressive 100 yard kick returns you're going to see because he broke tackles, turned and split it and ran into the pile, broke through some tackles, cut back to his left, slowed down let everybody catch up to him so he had some blockers, cut back in against the grain. And when you're down on the field you can't see and you're thinking, `How close is he to he sideline, did he step out of bounds?' I'm looking for flags and he kept running and when he cut it back inside it was pretty and he's a special player and he is just gaining more and more confidence back there for the very first one. And he said `Coach, I'll be honest, I was nervous and scared and everybody running after you and you watch him now and he wants that ball and he is getting a great feel for it. With his speed, he's got a chance to do some things. But I was impressed with Shield's return because that gave us the opportunity to kick the field goal at the end of regulation and all I kept screaming was `hold on big boy' because he was rumbling right on up the field. But like I said, great team win and we could talk about great individual performances on defense and offense. Like Demetrius Murray, he did a great job and he's been practicing but he's been limited and I didn't know how much he'd be able to play and he goes out and runs for over 100 yards in this game and just did a great job. I'm proud of this team."
(On the Maikon Bonani's coming back from missing the first kick to win the game)
"He's got an awful lot of confidence in himself and I'll tell you, the first one, he's got the wind and that was the thing, when we had to start the game going into the wind. It was obviously a field position thing. When we had to turn and punt it, we didn't punt it very well with the wind. But I'll tell you what, having the opportunity to have it in the fourth was huge. When you're sitting there looking at a 50 something yard field goal. When he kicked the first one, he had plenty of leg. It was half way up the uprights. I saw Charlie (Strong) over there leaning toward the official to call a time-out. He kicks the ball and kicks it through and the second one, he just barely hooked it out.
But boy, he's got confidence. Like I said, he went out there in overtime and didn't bat an eye. I've talked before about the confidence he possesses when he goes out there on the field. He's got that look and he just gives me that wink. It's like he told me when he first started and I said, `You're going to kick for the rest of the day,' and he said, `Be careful, I just might make it,' and that was a couple of weeks ago. But that's just the confidence he has in himself. He did a great job. It was good for him. A young player to be in that situation again, I guess he was there two years ago, as a freshman, and came through in the clutch and then turned around and did it again as a sophomore. I'm proud of him."
B.J. Daniels (Quarterback)
The throw to Dontavia Bogan and making the play to score a touchdown
"That was big. Bogan made a good catch- that was an unbelievable catch."
Defensive stop when Louisville went for it on fourth and inches
"That was big. All we had to do was kick a field goal. Our defense really came through. They have done a good job these past couple weeks."
Getting their first win at Louisville
"We are a self-motivated team. We don't worry about the outside stuff. We been preparing for weeks and just did everything we were supposed to do and everything coach told us to do. We had the opportunity and we did pretty well."
Maikon Bonani (Kicker)
On making the game-winning field goal
"To be honest I'm just glad to help the team. It goes to show how hard this team works during the week and during the game. When we got to over time and you see our defense rallying like they did and stopping them on fourth and inches, pretty much from there on I was like `I have to do my job.' I failed to do so at the end of regulation. I'm just happy to help the team."
On having a short memory
"I won't lie to you guys, I was really nervous. After I kicked the first one at the end of regulation and it went down the middle I was like `Dang it Coach Strong, you really did this to me didn't you.' I believe he called two of them. Good job by him. As I took my step backwards for the second attempt there was a gust of wind that picked up. I mis-hit the ball, so not to blame it on the wind. It was really my fault. At that point I just felt sad because I didn't do my job for my team. They had worked so hard and gave me the opportunity and I didn't finish it. Once we got to overtime and I had the quick turnaround I just wanted to go in there and be sure to make it."
On Louisville not having timeout to ice the kicker in overtime
"Honestly I thought they still had one. I failed to look up at the scoreboard and notice that they had none left. So I was nervous. I'm sure anybody would be. All I do every day at practice is kick field goals so they expect me to make them and I expect myself to make them. When it comes down to it, I'm so glad that we won."
