Chase Daniel Weekly Press Conference Quotes
9/1/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 1, 2008
Opening Statement:
"It's good to be back. Good to be back with a win. You know, we have to fix a lot of things out there that we did wrong but we also did a lot of good things as well so we're excited about the fact that we're getting better. Southeast Missouri is a good football team. They're a lot better than they were last year so we just have to work on the things we can focus on and that's get better throughout practice."
On Tommy Saunders:
"Tommy is a little bit of a different cat. He' a workaholic, he's a leader on this football team which I think you can obviously tell by him being a captain. I think that's one of the best things that a person can be on your team, is to get voted by your teammates to be a captain, so he's come a long way in that aspect and I respect Tommy's opinion in everything that he does and a lot of guys go to him for advice. You see all the little freshman receivers following him around throughout practice. They're like his pets or something like that. He enjoys getting better, he enjoys the chemistry that me and him have, we found it a little bit better this off-season than we had in the past so obviously you can tell by his two touchdown catches that he had a great game. He's pretty mad about the fumble, but that happens. We just have to take care of the football but other than that I think he played a good game."
On Elvis Fisher:
"Well, I think if you look at Elvisand what he's been able to do…throughout the whole camp we knew he was going to be a high level player. Did we know that he was going to be as high level as he was last week? Probably not. He played well. The only sack that the whole entire line gave up was my fault. I should have thrown the ball away. I think not only him but our whole offensive line played exceptionally well."
On his own performance:
"Spotty. I didn't play as well as I wanted to at all. So I have to get better. Some of my throws were off, we had some drops. But that happens and we have to get better at it. When you look at the day I still threw for 330 yards, it didn't seem that much. It seemed like I threw for 150. We did some good things throwing the football. We have to be more concise about it. You know, the interception was just a dumb mistake. I shouldn't have thrown the ball…but it's hard when you're pumping away and at the last second, screens happen pretty fast. But I should have just thrown it away. But for the most part, I think I played well enough to win. Did I play as well as I like? Probably not."
On not being “thrilled” about the win:
"You look at what we're expected to do and what we actually did, you know to get a win against a top-20 opponent by ten points is something special and we should be proud of it but we also know that we didn't want to let them back in the second half and that happened."
On double and triple teaming of Maclin opening up other players:
"I think if you look back, Jared Perry has five catches for 92 yards. How did he even have…it didn't seem like that much, and Coffman had 120. It's just like it was such a s paced game I didn't even notice that until I looked back on the stats, and Tommy having two touchdowns and Andrew Jones even getting in on the action having a catch. Derrick Washington having a catch, I know it was only for four yards but in the past we wouldn't have thrown that to him. He's an outside receiver and we're throwing slant routes. If he does one wrong thing on that route, it's picked off by a corner, so we really trust our tailbacks in the throwing game, especially Derrick. They were definitely keying in on Jeremy, if you look back at the game film they were going to him from the slot receiver side and just trying to push him out of the play, and it happened sometimes and surprisingly they didn't get more flags called on it but that was their deal and they were able to take him out of the game on that aspect but then you look what he can do on the return game and set up our scores."
On Chase Coffman trying something new everyday (hurdling):
"I think he only needs to pull that out once a game, it seems like every time he tries that twice he gets caught the second or third time. But do have a 6'6” guy hurdle a guy…you watch it on film and the guy really didn't even try to tackle him he just bent down. To have a guy do that and stay on his feet and then drag people out of bounds is really something special."
On Coffman's potential this season:
"The sky is the limit with him. If Jeremy gets double, triple covered if people start keying on Jared Perry who's going to cover Coffman? It's going to be linebackers and safeties and we like our matchup with that."
On Jeremy Maclin going down and relief of knowing he's alright:
"I didn't even know he went down. He went down actually in the route. Like going and running toward the route and I was scrambled out to the left that was the one I got sacked on. And I come back looking and he's on the ground and there's trainers around him and I was like what happened? He was on the opposite side of the play, he wasn't even in the read on that play. When you look at it and see an impact player like that, to see a friend like that really, to see what he's gone through with his knee, thank God he didn't have to do it again with his ankle. It just hurts the whole team, the community, the fans."
On Derrick Washington's personality and coming out of his shell:
"He's come out of his shell. He's a lot more comfortable around the players. As a true freshman, a lot of people don't know he was a true freshman, he didn't get to red shirt, he played right away. He was just doing his job like any other freshman would, not saying a whole bunch. But now he's gotten a lot more comfortable with the players, he's joking around with the players, with the coaching staff even. You know where D. Wash is at all times."
On when he can “check out” in a dream scenario for this weekend vs. SEMO:
"In a dream scenario, hopefully halftime.. All things have to go right for that to happen. We have to execute our offense at a high level. Since we didn't play as well as we wanted to on offense last game we have a lot to get taken care of in practices this week. And hopefully we build a lead up by halftime and Chase Patton or Blaine, whoever is 2 or 3 can get some snaps."
On secondary struggles:
"Obviously there were some miscues on the secondary, but we can't handle that on the offensive side of the ball. They'll get it fixed. Coach Eberflus has already probably got it fixed and those guys will be fine."
