Mizzou/Illinois State Quotes
9/22/2007 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 22, 2007
Recap |
Final Stats |
Notes |
AP Photo Gallery 
|
Staff
:: Postgame -
Pinkel | Daniel
MU Players | ISU Coach Denver Johnson | ISU Players
Missouri Head Coach Gary Pinkel
Opening Statement:
"First of all I'd like to congratulate Illinois State, they really competed well. I was very impressed with their coach afterwards and wished them good luck on the rest of their season. I feel very good about the victory. There are always things to work on. We've got a break week now and then we start Big 12 play. I told my team the consistency of play is what we need to improve on. When we do things right we play better overall. I thought we were ready to play."
On the team's health:
"We're very healthy, we're in good shape. Danario Alexander will wear a small cast. He'll be able to play, but I don't know if he can catch. He'll be reexamined and we'll see. Whenever he can function without anything on his wrist then we can see if he'll play."
On the Nebraska game, Oct. 6:
"We've got a chance to get rested, I think that's good. We'll get a couple extra practices; we'll obviously be able to do a lot more video studying and a lot more walk-throughs. We have a pretty good plan. We feel pretty good about the plan. Just go out and do little things."
On Chase Daniel's performance:
"He did a pretty good job. He's a pretty good player. He's not Superman, he'll make mistakes. Every time he does make a mistake it'll make him a better player."
"I just think you take away carrying the football on offense and catching and I just think you can witness the impact of having a player like that in the kicking game and what he can do. He's a major, major factor in our kicking game and can help us in so many ways. He did it again and we'll probably see it more as time goes on."
Coach Pinkel | ISU Coach Denver Johnson | ISU Players
MU Player Quotes
Junior QB Chase Daniel
On the first play:
"(Illinois State) had not seen an empty backfield all year. We didn't know how they going to align to it and I don't think they knew how they were going to align to it. They were a six-percent pressure team all year; they came on six percent of their snaps. I didn't think they had 11 people on the field. They ran a guy out there and I thought they had 10. I was waiting to see if they ran a guy out on the field. They called tied a time out and we stuck with the play."
On Jeremy Maclin:
"He gets us great field position. He had an awesome game today and he'll continue to have great games. He prepares as well as anyone I know."
On interceptions:
"The first one we had a little line miscue and the other was just a mental error on my point. I can't make those types of throws in the red zone. I have to play a lot better."
On how he played:
"Obviously I didn't play well, it's good to get those picks out of my system and I can guarantee they are out. Of course you don't want four turnovers thrown just from the quarterback position in two weeks is uncalled for. I haven't played well at all."
Freshman WR/KR/PR Jeremy Maclin
About catching the ball on the run:
"It's probably almost like committing suicide. It's probably one of the hardest things to do catching the ball on the run."
On Nebraska giving up over 600 yards to Ball State:
"Hopefully we can do the same. We want to put up yards and score, that's what the offense is for."
On possibly breaking return records:
"I think we can. We have to go out there and execute and make the right reads on blocking. Hopefully we can break that record."
Senior TB Tony Temple
On the Nebraska game:
"We're just going to play our ball, whatever is open we'll take. Whatever they give us we'll take. I know Chase will have a big week next week."
Was this how you expected to start the season?
"Yeah, the first part of our season is non-conference. We wanted to be 4-0 going into conference play. We did that and now we have to focus on the Big 12."
On the bye week:
"You just focus and worry about the mental preparation. It's good we have the week off and we're not going to do anything different. We just focus on the fundamentals because that's our biggest thing."
Coach Pinkel | MU Players | ISU Players
Illinois State Head Coach Denver Johnson
On his team's offensive performance in the red zone:
"When you get down there, you've got to get points. Field goals weren't going to do us any good. If we wanted any chance at all to win the game, we were going to have to score touchdowns."
On the play of the offense:
"We moved the ball and took some time off the clock and shortened the game. Those were some of things we talked about offensively. We didn't want to go three and out very often, I don't think we did. We wanted to try to shorten the opportunities they had."
On team's defensive effort:
"First, defensively, they hit us with the man buster (Will Franklin's opening touchdown) on the first play of the game. I don't believe in consolation or moral victories but there were a lot of people coming into the game that thought they would hang a hundred on us. They didn't just run us out of the stadium."
On defending the Tigers:
"They are hard to defend schematically, they have great players. I think our kids went out there and competed. I'm proud of my football team. We had some opportunities and we took advantage of some and not so much on others."
On Missouri's performance:
"I've got to tip my hat to Missouri; they are a good football team. Playing a team like this defensively is like running a marathon. You're just absolutely wasted after it's over. We may have to take a day off this week in order to get our guys back physically."
Coach Pinkel | MU Players | ISU Coach Denver Johnson
Illinois State Player Quotes
QB Luke Drone
On his role in today's game:
"I had to try to come out and make the plays to keep us out of bad situations."
On today's match-ups:
"We were taking it early and it was working out for us. We were getting the match-ups we wanted and I feel like we made the most of them."
On jitters before playing a Big 12 team:
"We knew they were going to score points on offense so we knew we were going to have to throw the first punch and go in and get in on it."
On today's score:
"We thought the score should have been 21-21 at halftime. We get in the end zone once and on the one-yard line twice. We put both those in and it's 21-21 and we're getting the ball back in the third quarter. But we kind of shot ourselves in the foot a little bit."
On the first and second quarters:
"There were some key plays and if they would have gone our way it would have been a completely different game."
On heading into conference play:
"Playing this game right before we go to conference is a confidence builder. When you're playing the 25th team in the country and you go in and have your way on offense in the first half it's a confidence builder."
On Geno Blow:
"Geno did great today. He's a quick little running back. We were getting the looks to run the ball and he took advantage of it. He did a great job and you can't ask for more than that."
RB Geno Blow
On his performance today:
"The offensive line did a good job making holes for me. They did a great job up front."
On scoring chances in the first and second quarters:
"We felt we had good efforts but we came up short."
On playing the Tigers:
"Playing the Tigers gives you a lot of confidence because they are ranked No. 25 in the nation. This shows we can compete with anybody. We are I-AA but we can compete with anybody."
Reflecting on the outcome:
"I think we did great. We need to make some adjustments. We made a couple mistakes but we should be okay in conference. We can build on the positives."
