Bobcat Quotebook
12/3/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
Opening statement: "It was an outstanding experience for us. We've played in some pretty hard-minded places. I thought tonight was just another example that the upper tier of I-AA football is at Appalachian State, Furman, obviously Montana, James Madison. We're not quite there. It was a good experience for our guys, a good experience for our coaching staff, to see how hard-minded you have to be. We had a great chance to give ourselves a chance to win a ball game there on the first play of the fourth quarter and we over-reached ourselves a little bit. We went for a fake punt in the second quarter with a couple minutes left, trying to hang onto possession and have our punt team be an extension of our offense. That got thwarted, but we only gave up three points at that time. Obviously we felt we had a chance to win that thing at the start of the fourth quarter, but the interception took it away from us. We just over-reached ourselves a little bit."
On the turnovers MSU forced: "He's a pup, Armanti's a pup, and he had some balls skeeter off of some guys' hands and some guys dropped the ball. I think he got a little confused at times, but he made a great adjustment. That quarterback sweep he ran after the interception return, down inside the five or 10, was one of the great plays of the night. He's a tremendously physically gifted guy, and I think for years to come everybody in this part of the country's going to be dialing up their TV every Saturday night watching that guy in the highlight video."
On Kevin Richardson: "He's a great player. He's not a post-season awards and honors candidate for no reason at all. He's a great, great player. He finds creases, he finds crevices."
On the unsportsmanlike conduct penalties: "The only thing that denigrated the game on both sides was the plethora of penalties that made this game feel like a stinker at times. That's too bad, because neither coaching staff coaches our guys that way. I think both teams got caught up in the moment. I think the Mountaineers were a little surprised that we met emotion with emotion, force with force, and the amount of personal foul penalties just took away from a great contest between two good schools."
On the end-around pass: "We ran a pass with Mike Jefferson throwing the ball, for gosh sake. If Mike was a quarterback we'd have given him a smaller number. We thought it was a perfect time and we thought we'd given Mike the right kind of instructions on what to do with the ball. They rotated a safety down, the safety came off the edge, and Mike still tried to make a play out of it. Like any young quarterback, they have to go through a series of experiences before they learn when to throw the ball away and not to just huck the ball down the field. Mike had a great career for us in one year, and he played outstanding every game. We just asked him to do a little too much in a key part of the ball game."
On the blocked punt: "The numbers were against us. When you get a punt blocked when they're not really rushing the punter you've probably got a problem, and that's really what happened. We had a couple guys on the left side over-reach a guy and all of a sudden they get a blocked punt, short field. A couple times tonight we gave the Mountaineers short yardage and they turned them into touchdowns. A good job by their offense in execution in the red zone.
Our defense was unable to come up with consistent stops. The Mountaineers kept us off-balance and kept us off the field. Yet, they go at such a fast pace on offense (that) you get shots. You get possessions on offense, and if you get possessions on offense you have to be able to make those work. We settled down after the first quarter, we got pretty good protection, Jack threw the ball decently, we got opportunities, we crawled back into the thing, then we threw ourselves out of it on the first play of the fourth quarter. And I'll tell you what, when we make that decision to call that play there's six coaches on headsets going 'Yeah, yeah, that's a great call,' but when it doesn't work the guy that called it is going, 'What'd we call that for.' Give the Mountaineers credit, they made a great play. No one's beaten them here since '02. Starting the fourth quarter down by seven, wow, that's what we wanted. That's what we realy strived for, whether it's 7-0 or 56-49, if we're within seven at the fourth quarter we're alright, we're going to be OK. But gawl, we turned it over right away and of course they capitalized, so good job by the Mountaineers."
On scouting App State: "We scouted one game, Coastal Carolina, because when we got the video tape and saw how well Armanti had played last week we paid Kevin no mind, we took the wide receivers off the desk, we said 'We've got to do everything we can to stop Armanti from being so multi-faceted.' Defensively we see this a lot. A turf team playing at home gets a great jump on the ball. It's not necessarily a big crowd compared to what we're used to, I mean we play in front of crowds that are way, way more noisy than tonight, but they get a jump on you on turf, and they turn the corner on you, especially at defensive end, and Marques Murrell can play some. He can go some."
On the character of the team: "It's the first time we've coached a football team at Montana State in December. At the end of September when we were 1-3 our guys never gave up on their coaches and never gave up on themselves. When you're a young kid growing up your parents always ride over the hill to the rescue, you don't really have the ability yet to dig yourself out of something you got yourself into. I think across the board at every position in every class our guys understood that we still had a chance at success in the 2006 season and they ran with that concept and we ended up deep in the playoffs. Good for us, and a good opportunity to play against Appalachian State. Coach Moore has been here a while and he has a consistent idea of what they want to do and how they want to do it. To me, the presence to be in the stadium against a team that has had so much success over and over again really drives home a point, not just to our guys that are coming back but to our seniors, how hard you have to be in every single game all the time. If we had not stubbed our toe against Chadron State, played better against Cal Davis, beaten one of the weaker teams in our conference we'd have played a game today in Bozeman. That would have been a lot of fun."
On what makes App State so tough at home: "I think the turf, the surface, and the athletic talent, not necessarily in that order. They're good. They play so hard on defense they force you into long yardage, second and long, third and long, the defensive front pushes itself off the ball in vertical blast, and wow, that's really fun to watch. Offensively, you've got to realize what's happened here with the Mountaineer offense. Because of Armanti they've become something that they've wished they could get to. They were a little bit like that last year, but he's a special, special, special guy and the guys in the SoCon and the guys that are going to play them non-conference in the next couple years have their hands full, and it will be fun to watch - from afar. Because we sure as heck ain't going to play them, unless it's in the playoffs."
Can you believe Armanti Edwards is a freshman? "I believe he's a good player, regardless of his age. They don't ask you how old you are when they hand you the ball, they just say, 'Go with it.' Our freshman tailback showed a little of that tonight, as well. It was a great opportunity tonight to watch a good football team and a good program mature into something special here in the next couple of weeks, and we wish Coach Moore and the Mountaineers a heck of a lot of luck."
On how the rest of the playoffs shape up: "We wish everybody the best of luck."
How does the atmosphere compare to Montana? "It's not the same. I'm not going to lie, it's not the same. The empty seats, the crowd wasn't rolling loud enough for us to ever have to go no-huddle. You want me to mince words, I'm not going to do it. Having an eight-lane track around the field... at Montana they sit on top of you, and they are in it, and there's not an empty seat. It's coming, I can feel it here, we see it sometimes in some of the game films we've watched, but it's not where I think Coach Moore or the App State administration want it to be - every game, sold out, every seat, taken, put in more seats, put in more skyboxes. I wish tonight more people could have seen us play, because down by seven heading into the fourth quarter I wish we could have brought a couple plane-loads of people. What Montana has going is a little bit going is a little different than what (they) have going here. Here, athletically, wow. There, a lot of other things are going for them, too. Two titans at this level, but there's a big distance between Montana and Appalachian State, and there's a lot of the rest of us and we're trying to catch up."
What about the speed, what about the team? "Oh, yeah, the team, good team, great team, Appalachian State is an outstanding team. They are a lot like Montana on the defensive front, good speed, good linebackers, decent secondary play, good on offense, good on the offensive front, yeah, really good football team. I'm just talking about the difference in atmosphere between Montana, not Montana State, Montana and Appalachian State."
The difference in speed between Montana and App State: "I have no idea. I don't have a watch in my pocket, I don't do track times. They played pretty danged well."
On the turnovers MSU forced: "He's a pup, Armanti's a pup, and he had some balls skeeter off of some guys' hands and some guys dropped the ball. I think he got a little confused at times, but he made a great adjustment. That quarterback sweep he ran after the interception return, down inside the five or 10, was one of the great plays of the night. He's a tremendously physically gifted guy, and I think for years to come everybody in this part of the country's going to be dialing up their TV every Saturday night watching that guy in the highlight video."
On Kevin Richardson: "He's a great player. He's not a post-season awards and honors candidate for no reason at all. He's a great, great player. He finds creases, he finds crevices."
On the unsportsmanlike conduct penalties: "The only thing that denigrated the game on both sides was the plethora of penalties that made this game feel like a stinker at times. That's too bad, because neither coaching staff coaches our guys that way. I think both teams got caught up in the moment. I think the Mountaineers were a little surprised that we met emotion with emotion, force with force, and the amount of personal foul penalties just took away from a great contest between two good schools."
On the end-around pass: "We ran a pass with Mike Jefferson throwing the ball, for gosh sake. If Mike was a quarterback we'd have given him a smaller number. We thought it was a perfect time and we thought we'd given Mike the right kind of instructions on what to do with the ball. They rotated a safety down, the safety came off the edge, and Mike still tried to make a play out of it. Like any young quarterback, they have to go through a series of experiences before they learn when to throw the ball away and not to just huck the ball down the field. Mike had a great career for us in one year, and he played outstanding every game. We just asked him to do a little too much in a key part of the ball game."
On the blocked punt: "The numbers were against us. When you get a punt blocked when they're not really rushing the punter you've probably got a problem, and that's really what happened. We had a couple guys on the left side over-reach a guy and all of a sudden they get a blocked punt, short field. A couple times tonight we gave the Mountaineers short yardage and they turned them into touchdowns. A good job by their offense in execution in the red zone.
Our defense was unable to come up with consistent stops. The Mountaineers kept us off-balance and kept us off the field. Yet, they go at such a fast pace on offense (that) you get shots. You get possessions on offense, and if you get possessions on offense you have to be able to make those work. We settled down after the first quarter, we got pretty good protection, Jack threw the ball decently, we got opportunities, we crawled back into the thing, then we threw ourselves out of it on the first play of the fourth quarter. And I'll tell you what, when we make that decision to call that play there's six coaches on headsets going 'Yeah, yeah, that's a great call,' but when it doesn't work the guy that called it is going, 'What'd we call that for.' Give the Mountaineers credit, they made a great play. No one's beaten them here since '02. Starting the fourth quarter down by seven, wow, that's what we wanted. That's what we realy strived for, whether it's 7-0 or 56-49, if we're within seven at the fourth quarter we're alright, we're going to be OK. But gawl, we turned it over right away and of course they capitalized, so good job by the Mountaineers."
On scouting App State: "We scouted one game, Coastal Carolina, because when we got the video tape and saw how well Armanti had played last week we paid Kevin no mind, we took the wide receivers off the desk, we said 'We've got to do everything we can to stop Armanti from being so multi-faceted.' Defensively we see this a lot. A turf team playing at home gets a great jump on the ball. It's not necessarily a big crowd compared to what we're used to, I mean we play in front of crowds that are way, way more noisy than tonight, but they get a jump on you on turf, and they turn the corner on you, especially at defensive end, and Marques Murrell can play some. He can go some."
On the character of the team: "It's the first time we've coached a football team at Montana State in December. At the end of September when we were 1-3 our guys never gave up on their coaches and never gave up on themselves. When you're a young kid growing up your parents always ride over the hill to the rescue, you don't really have the ability yet to dig yourself out of something you got yourself into. I think across the board at every position in every class our guys understood that we still had a chance at success in the 2006 season and they ran with that concept and we ended up deep in the playoffs. Good for us, and a good opportunity to play against Appalachian State. Coach Moore has been here a while and he has a consistent idea of what they want to do and how they want to do it. To me, the presence to be in the stadium against a team that has had so much success over and over again really drives home a point, not just to our guys that are coming back but to our seniors, how hard you have to be in every single game all the time. If we had not stubbed our toe against Chadron State, played better against Cal Davis, beaten one of the weaker teams in our conference we'd have played a game today in Bozeman. That would have been a lot of fun."
On what makes App State so tough at home: "I think the turf, the surface, and the athletic talent, not necessarily in that order. They're good. They play so hard on defense they force you into long yardage, second and long, third and long, the defensive front pushes itself off the ball in vertical blast, and wow, that's really fun to watch. Offensively, you've got to realize what's happened here with the Mountaineer offense. Because of Armanti they've become something that they've wished they could get to. They were a little bit like that last year, but he's a special, special, special guy and the guys in the SoCon and the guys that are going to play them non-conference in the next couple years have their hands full, and it will be fun to watch - from afar. Because we sure as heck ain't going to play them, unless it's in the playoffs."
Can you believe Armanti Edwards is a freshman? "I believe he's a good player, regardless of his age. They don't ask you how old you are when they hand you the ball, they just say, 'Go with it.' Our freshman tailback showed a little of that tonight, as well. It was a great opportunity tonight to watch a good football team and a good program mature into something special here in the next couple of weeks, and we wish Coach Moore and the Mountaineers a heck of a lot of luck."
On how the rest of the playoffs shape up: "We wish everybody the best of luck."
How does the atmosphere compare to Montana? "It's not the same. I'm not going to lie, it's not the same. The empty seats, the crowd wasn't rolling loud enough for us to ever have to go no-huddle. You want me to mince words, I'm not going to do it. Having an eight-lane track around the field... at Montana they sit on top of you, and they are in it, and there's not an empty seat. It's coming, I can feel it here, we see it sometimes in some of the game films we've watched, but it's not where I think Coach Moore or the App State administration want it to be - every game, sold out, every seat, taken, put in more seats, put in more skyboxes. I wish tonight more people could have seen us play, because down by seven heading into the fourth quarter I wish we could have brought a couple plane-loads of people. What Montana has going is a little bit going is a little different than what (they) have going here. Here, athletically, wow. There, a lot of other things are going for them, too. Two titans at this level, but there's a big distance between Montana and Appalachian State, and there's a lot of the rest of us and we're trying to catch up."
What about the speed, what about the team? "Oh, yeah, the team, good team, great team, Appalachian State is an outstanding team. They are a lot like Montana on the defensive front, good speed, good linebackers, decent secondary play, good on offense, good on the offensive front, yeah, really good football team. I'm just talking about the difference in atmosphere between Montana, not Montana State, Montana and Appalachian State."
The difference in speed between Montana and App State: "I have no idea. I don't have a watch in my pocket, I don't do track times. They played pretty danged well."
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