Mizzou/Kansas Post-Game Quotes
11/29/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 29, 2008
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MU Players | Kansas Coach Mark Mangino | Kansas Players
Missouri Head Coach Gary Pinkel
Opening Statement:
"Well, first of all, it was quite a battle. (Kansas) did things to win at the very end. Obviously, we're very frustrated and disappointed from our standpoint. It was a great comeback in the final drive for them. They did a good job, and I congratulate them for that. When you get a game like this, I tell my team these are very difficult losses. You're making mistakes, but you're battling and battling and battling back. I was proud of my football team for doing that, but the other side of that, is you're just disappointed that you didn't play better. I give Kansas a lot of credit for that. I thought they played a very good football game. Now we have to turn this thing around in 24 hours. They're not going to feel good about this for a while, but it's my job to get it going again. There's a lot of opportunity out there, and we're going to work really hard to get there. You can point to defensive plays, offensive plays, kicking plays, and say, `well if this happened, if this would have happened differently'...we win and lose together as a team. We'll get back to work and get ready to go for a great opportunity next week."
On Kansas quarterback Todd Reesing:
"He's a really good, great, player. He made a bunch of great players in the first half, throwing off-balance, making completions. We blitzed at the end and didn't get to him. We broke down a little bit in there and didn't execute like we wanted to. He had too much time to throw. If we had gotten the sack, it would have been a great call. But, he held the ball for quite some time, we just didn't get to him."
On attempting a field goal with five seconds left:
"Five seconds is just too risky. We thought we would run out of time and not have a chance...Anything around five seconds, we generally will not run a play...We wanted to have a chance to kick it."
On having two seconds put back on the clock after Missouri's challenge:
"That didn't help. That was a really critical call. Because that clock runs, and they would have had to use a time out. That was huge. When you're fighting for every second and trying to pressure the offense. But, things like that happen. There are a lot of other things that can happen in a football game that affect the outcome more than that."
On turning it around for next week's Big 12 Championship game:
"That's the message, but they don't really want to hear that right now. They're competitors, they made a lot of mistakes in that game. We had turnovers and a safety, problems with (Kansas') kickoff returns. There were a lot of different plays, but it came down to the last play of the game."
On the health of senior tight end Chase Coffman and sophomore wide receiver Jeremy Maclin:
"He made some plays, did some good things. But he was still struggling a little bit throughout the whole game. I would suggest he's not 100 percent, but he played through that...With Jeremy, I think it was his hip. It was a little bit sore, I don't know if the ball or ground caused it."
Coach Pinkel | Kansas Coach Mark Mangino | Kansas State Players
MU Player Quotes
Senior PK Jeff Wolfert
On the final missed field goal attempt:
"We got in a position where I could make that kick, and I felt like I put myself there... I made the right contact. They just got a hand in there, someone was at the right place at the right time and was able to make the deflection. It's a long hit, so I didn't have the normal trajectory. I don't feel like I mishit it, though. Like I said, they just got in the right place at the right time."
"On whether the Tigers thought a loss was possible:
Of course. It's a rivalry game, and everyone gets up for this game. You have to give credit to the Jayhawks. They played a hard-fought game, and it was back and forth the whole game. It was a great game."
Senior QB Chase Daniel
On Todd Reesing:
"We felt like we had a good chance to win the ball game. But Reesing is a scrapper, he has a never-let-die attitude, and obviously he brought them back to win the ball game."
On his three turnovers:
"I had a lot of turnovers. Our offense didn't have any turnovers, except for me. They're a good defense, and they played exceptionally well. It's not the weather at all--I'm not going to make excuses and say it was. I've just got to protect the football better. I tried to take the team back at the end, but they got the last shot and they pulled it off."
On how to bounce back:
"It's not hard at all, for the simple fact that we're in the [Big 12] Championship game--not Kansas, not Kansas State, not Baylor, no one else. We're in the Championship game. Would we have liked to keep the momentum up and going? Sure. But it's a big week, Championship week. We'll watch tonight and see who wins the Oklahoma--Oklahoma State game and go from there. We'll right ourselves tonight, because there's no 24-hour rule for this game. It's getting over it as soon as you can, because if you don't then you're going to get embarrassed by a great team from the [Big 12] South."
On focusing in the week ahead:
"They didn't have anything to lose, and we had everything to gain. But we're still in the Championship game, so we've got to go out together and put in a great week of practice. We've got to prepare for whoever comes out of the [Big 12] South, which we might not know until Sunday. We're just excited about that. It hurts right now, especially because it's Kansas and because it's a rivalry game, but we've got to get over it really fast. If we don't, like I said, we're going to get embarrassed."
On the atmosphere of Arrowhead:
"It was a great game--it's snowing, there are 79,000 people here--and I'm just definitely glad we got the chance to play out here at Arrowhead before next week. It's good to know what the surface is like and what the weather is supposed to be like. It's supposed to be even colder next week than it was today. We'll see what happens with that, but I'm sure we'll be outside practicing all week."
On Missouri's receivers:
"I trust all my receivers. Any receiver that's in the football game I trust, and I will give the football to. Jared Perry had two huge, huge catches--he hadn't been called all game, and then in the fourth quarter he catches a pass that if I hadn't thrown it sort of blind he probably would have walked it in and scored. Then his catch to get us down to field goal range was exceptional--so everyone you look at on the receiver side of the football, I think, played well."
Senior TE Chase Coffman
On his sprained toe:
"It was probably at about 75% for this game. It was a little tough, because I went out on the first play and tried to give it 100% and probably shouldn't have. I tweaked it a little bit, but I just jogged a little bit on the sideline and walked around to make sure I stayed moving, so it wasn't too bad."
On the loss:
"It's very frustrating--especially that it's KU. You come out to win every game, and unfortunately we didn't play as well as we could have today, and they came out with a lot greater intensity level and just played hard."
On how to bounce back:
"It's not going to be too easy, but we've got to get over it. The game's over now, we can't do anything about it, we've just got to get focused on next week."
Senior WR Tommy Saunders
On offensive mistakes:
"When you come out, you've got to just come out there and refine your eye. We didn't make some plays that we should have, and that's all it comes down to. It's a play here, a play there that we didn't execute."
On the loss:
"We've put all this hard work in since January, and there are expectations you put on yourself. Whenever you don't reach those expectations, you're going to be disappointed. I feel like this is the hardest this team has worked here, so whenever you put in that much work it's going to be disappointing."
Sophomore TB Derrick Washington
On the loss:
"We started off kind of slow in the beginning, and didn't really get going until the second half. We just came up short--we did everything we could to win the game, it just fell short. Once we got the run game open, that opened up the passing lanes for Chase, and he found everybody. Receivers had a great game. It's just what I said before, that we fell short."
On the Tigers' last few offensive drives:
"I thought for sure when we got in there for that last touchdown that we were going to win this game. I knew the defense would come up big. We just fell short."
On how to bounce back:
"I think we're going to come back strong. The players are mature--we'll get this out of our heads and go to work. We've just got to prepare for who we're going to play next. We've got a bigger game coming up next week, and we need to stay ready for that. I know we're going to be the underdogs in this game, and I kind of like that personally. We'll just go out and prove everybody wrong."
Junior DL Jaron Baston
On his interception:
"The whole defense on the sideline was just saying that we needed a turnover. I was out there, too, saying we needed a turnover. Then the ball came right to me, and I was just able to make a good play on it."
On the weather:
"It wasn't as bad as it probably looked out there. I expected it to be a lot more slipping and sliding around, but it wasn't too bad out there. It didn't change anything too much.
Junior LB Sean Weatherspoon
On how to bounce back:
"We definitely know what we have to do. We've got to focus up and have a great week of practice, and come out there next week and try to do better. We already know--everybody is going to doubt us. We'll use that as motivation and just try to bounce back. We know the whole world is going to be out there questioning us--there are three Top 5 teams in the [Big 12] South."
On the KU athletes:
"The guy [Todd Reesing] does a great job of scrambling and finding his receivers down the field. He just does a great job with getting them the ball. I really don't know what was going on, we've just got to get more pressure on the quarterback, and we've got to be able to capitalize once we do get it. They've got great players just like we've got, those guys receive scholarship checks every month just like we do. My hat goes off to those guys for making big plays."
Coach Pinkel | MU Players | Kansas State Players
Kansas Head Coach Mark Mangino
Opening statement:
"First of all I want to acknowledge the University of Missouri and their football team. They are an outstanding team, it was a tough fought game today. Offensively they have a lot of fire power, defensively they're gritty, they're tough. They play well on the special teams and it took a great effort on offense, defense and the special teams for us to win this game today. It ended up being a shootout to some degree, but our defense did make some plays in some key situations and got some turnovers. Our offense was very good. Todd Reesing played outstanding football today. Our offensive line played well. On defense, Darrell Stuckey just made plays, got turnovers, made tackles. He showed up to play. Our defensive line played well, our linebackers ran around and made plays. Several people have asked me if this is the greatest win we've ever had. We've had some great wins here, so I can't say that. But what I can tell you is it is the guttiest win we've ever had since I've been the coach of Kansas. We're a banged up team, we're beat up, we had some guys limping around for two weeks. How some of them played today, the only way I can describe it is courage. It's probably the gutsiest and courageous win we've had since I've been here."
On moving Dezmon Briscoe to returning kicks and punts:
"We were the worst in the country going into this game. I made some personnel changes a couple weeks ago that I thought were good but then the return didn't have rhythm so I just felt like we needed to change the return man too. And it ended up being good for us. The only thing we're running Dezmon (Briscoe) kind of thin. But he'll have some time to rest before our next game."
On game-winning touchdown:
"Well, we really felt like we didn't need to get a touchdown. We felt we had some time to manage the clock and just get a chunk of yardage. But Kerry (Meier) got behind the coverage, and as I've said all year, if you get the ball near him, he's going to catch it. He had 14 catches, that's unbelievable. Considering he played today on one good leg."
On quarterback Todd Reesing's play:
"His (Todd Reesing) play was phenomenal. I get this feeling when I watch him you can almost see this competitive spirit that radiates from him. And in the fourth quarter you can just see that he was trying to take control of the game and was determined to pull a positive outcome in the situation we had. It was as early as Monday that he couldn't get his arm up, Tuesday we got him going, Wednesday a little more, but it got a little bit tight again. Thursday he felt pretty decent, but our main concern was the cold weather. Our trainers were worried about his arm getting stiff in the cold weather. But he fought through it. He also tore his hand up during the game, and they're stitching it up now."
On Kansas containment of Missouri's offense in the first half:
"I would like to tell you that we planned to do that. Certainly our game plan was we didn't want them to have their offense on the field for a long period of time. And we also didn't want them to get quick strikes. I think they're one of the top teams in the country with drives of two minutes or less, so we felt that if we could win time of possession, but moving the football, that we would have a chance. But we exceeded our expectations. It worked out really well. They had some problems with our short passing game during the first half and we were just able to pick little pieces down the field, then a big play here or there. It was important that we didn't let them jump out to a big league. When they get a big league, they get rolling and they can be dangerous."
On what it means to beat Mizzou:
"I'm happy for our kids. They've worked so hard. We've been going at this since winter workouts in January. They so badly want a winning season. For two weeks I've been saying `I just need to find a way to try to help our kids win this game, they deserve to have a winning season.' But it wasn't me that made the difference today, it was the players, they players make plays."
Coach Pinkel | MU Players | Kansas Coach Mark Mangino
Kansas Player Quotes
Junior QB Todd Reesing
On the final touchdown pass of the game:
"It's a little bit of everything. You have to be aware of people around you. You've got to feel people on your backside and use the sidelines you have to move around in the pocket. Sometimes it's luck, the offensive line did a great job of creating a pocket and they bought enough time for us to make a play. Without that blocking, that play doesn't happen."
On the win over Missouri..:
"It's unbelieveable. After last year's tough loss, to come back and win. They (Missouri) showed up thinking they were going to beat us and we came out ready to play. We just fought hard. We believed in ourselves. We kept going until the final click of the clock and we pulled away with it (a win). We beat a good team today, they're going to go play for the Big 12 for the second consecutive year in a row and they have talented players, offense and defense, and if you get a win against them, a win against a ranked team, it's a good momentum swing for us to take into the bowl game."
On getting a win after a bye week:
"We get towards the end of the season and the last game you're going to have a lot of guys banged up. The off-week was big for us to get healthy, like Kerry (Meier) and Jake (Sharp). They didn't do a whole lot during that bye week...myself included. We still practiced hard, we didn't sit around and do nothing. We had a good mindset to come into this game and we practiced hard all week and we brought it to the field. Our preparation paid off."
Junior S Darrell Stuckey
On covering the wide receivers:
"He (Chase Daniel) emphasized going one on one. You have to be better than the man across from you, and do whatever it takes to stop the man across from you."
On forcing the fumble:
"I said I had a bad angle and it was one of those things where I saw the ball come loose just a little bit and I saw him (Chase Daniel) relax a little bit, I went for it and the ball came out."
On the Big 12 Conference:
"It's the Big 12, we play a lot of phenomenal offenses. We got a lot of rap for our game against Oklahoma and the same thing with Texas Tech. The Big 12 is going to be great offenses, great quarterbacks. We got people for awards in every single category. We got three quarterbacks in the running for top quarterback and we got a lot of receivers up there too."
Junior CB Justin Thornton
On the win:
"We got a big win in here and it is definitely a boost for us. Hopefully get a decent bowl and get matched up against a good team and show what we got again."
On the pressure on Chase Daniel:
"We had Chase (Daniel) shook up a little bit at the beginning of the game. He was off with his passes, we had a couple different looks thrown at him but it was great for us. We created turnovers . (Darrell) Stucki played an amazing game two interceptions, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery all in the same game so that must have been great for him."
Sophomore P Alonso Rojas
On changing to a rugby punt:
"The main thing we were trying to do was to give our guys a little time to get down the field. Obviously, it's a little harder to do a rugby punt. I thought it was a good transition being able to change things up. First, we didn't know what was going on. In the end, it paid off. The guys did a good job of getting down the field and getting on the ball. It is just like a regular punt. If you don't get a good drop, than it's not going to go, you'll shank the punt."
