Gary Pinkel Press Conference Quotes
10/16/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 16, 2006
Missouri Head Coach Gary Pinkel
Opening Statement:
"We're in our preparations for Kansas State. We see a very, very good defensive football team and we see a young offensive team. Josh Freeman's the quarterback, and you see a guy that's getting better each and every week. We certainly have our challenges as always, and we'll do our best to play our best game."
On defensive lineman Ziggy Hood:
"Ziggy Hood played 20 plays in the game (against Texas A&M) which is unbelievable that a guy three weeks out of surgery could do what he did. We expect him to improve and get better and better. We have him second (on the depth chart), but as soon as he gets to the position where he's getting the reps we think he can handle, we'll move him back up to where he was."
On the defense:
"We were on the field a long time last week for several reasons. One is offensively, at least in the third quarter, we went three-and-out twice, and then we couldn't get out of drives. You can get out of drives a couple different ways. One way is third downs. You can get out of drives and get off the field. The other way to get out of drives is turnovers, and we didn't have any turnovers on defense. As a team, the offense has to stay on the field more, and that will certainly help our run defense, when you're not out there all those plays. We'll just work very hard on it. We work every week on it and we'll work to get better. You're going to wear down a little bit if you're on the field as long as they were."
On Kansas State linebacker Brandon Archer:
"He's just a real good football player. He's obviously a good athlete, he runs well, he's physical, just like their whole defense. This year he's really playing well and he's a very good player."
On tight end Martin Rucker not making any catches last week:
"We'll do everything we can to spread the ball and distribute the football. Sometimes you can design a ball but a particular defense, time-and-time, comes up again where the reads just don't go there because of the defense. It's not easy always to sit there and say you're going to catch it, we want him to be a big part of our pass offense, but sometimes it happens like that. The week before it happened to Eck, he didn't catch a football. The good news about all those guys is that they're very positive, they're very up beat, and we're going to work real hard to make sure we can distribute the ball. But we certainly want him [Rucker] to catch the football, there's no question about that."
On putting the loss behind them and focusing on Kansas State:
"It's very important, it's the same thing, you have to move on. There's a certain point where you learn, you make mistakes, you learn from it and you try to correct them. If you win or you lose, any wasted thoughts, going back and trying to reevaluate what you did when it's all over, it's not doing anything to prepare to play for Kansas State. Hopefully we're disciplined enough to do that, I think the kids for the most part are, and hopefully we'll play our best game."
On not focusing on the history against Kansas State:
"I think they know, and I also think that this is, if I recall, 2006. I can't do anything about the past, none of us can. That would probably be a wasted thought too. We can't do anything about that and all we can do is try to play our best football game. So we're going to work hard, obviously they're going to read about it, it's going to be out there, but hopefully we're disciplined enough to focus on what we have control over. And we certainly have control over 2006."
On the loss last season to Kansas State:
"(It sticks with me) a little bit because the (loss) came at the end of the season. Just like any other game though, you have to forget about it; win or lose. You just have to move onto the next one."
On whether homecoming is a motivation or distraction:
"You just try, as a football team, to keep any distraction out of the way. We'll do our best to prepare for K-State. We've been gone for the last two weeks, so coming back home to play is going to be nice. We're always trying to put on a show, but we just try to look at every game as a big one. I think homecoming does put something a little extra on top of it."
On loss last season:
"All losses are tough, especially like this game. Losing that way (last season) definitely did hurt. We obviously should have won that game, but we just weren't able to come out with it."
On facing a freshman quarterback this week:
"Josh Freeman is a really incredible athlete. It's going to be tough stopping him. He runs pretty well and has a real good arm, so we're going to have to pick it up this week at practice to get ready for him."
On the defense's resiliency:
"You have to finish. We got the ball back (Saturday), but the offense was not able to get the ball down field. Then, we got it back for them again. We knew we had to finish the game making plays."
On having less fun, but having more of a business attitude:
"We just need to remember to stick with the fundamentals; focus and be focused, then the fun comes along with it. We need to start finishing better more than anything else. We have to be able to give that ball to the offense one more time to see if they can do anything with it."
On experiencing one of his few losses:
"Yeah, it's a humbling experience. It's something that I never want to have to go through again; hopefully, I won't have to, but our focus is on K-State right now."
On giving up three turnovers, but still being in a position to win:
"When we had three turnovers, we still felt good about our chances. What we have to do now is go back and correct it. We had three or four drives that we could have scored on, but we didn't."
On never losing back-to-back games ever:
"I've already approached this; right after the loss last weekend. I got with some of the senior leaders, the captains, and some of the other team leaders telling them we can't have this anymore. We cannot have lows like in the recent past. When we do have a let down, we have to know our leaders are there to drive us to work better and harder."
