Mizzou/Western Illinois Post-Game Quotes
9/17/2011 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 17, 2011
Recap |
Stats |
Notes |
Photo Gallery 
Mizzou Players | WIU Coach Mark Hendrickson | WIU Players
Missouri Head Coach Gary Pinkel
On the victory...
"We did not want that last touchdown. E.J. Gaines is our backup punt returner and up until that point he had not had a chance to get much more (experience) than to catch the ball, and so what I should have done is told him to signal fair catch for that last ball. Couldn't have imagined that could have been a touchdown. Anyway that's not the highlight of the day, I just don't like getting 69 (points)... 62 is okay, but we tried to eat the clock, play a lot of players, which is really good, getting some good experience. Getting a lot of people in, and we had a lot of our guys banged up, and getting them out early is good. There's a lot of positives with this, but we're obviously really excited about our game next week."
About playing Oklahoma next week...
"Well they're a great football team and we know that. We've played them and we'll see how that works out. We're going get our guys treated and hopefully get one or two guys back next week. I'm not sure, I'll know more about that on Monday. Very positive, we kept our focus today and that was encouraging."
On the players being prepared for Western Illinois...
"Good teams don't care who they play. They play hard, and I think that for the most part we did and we got some good back up players, about 13 or 14 players quite a bit of playing time."
On Henry Josey...
"You know what did he have? Thirteen carries? I'm not sure what it was, but he's kind of deadly. You've got to watch out for him because he's going to hit the seam fast. (He has) great speed, we got him out early and he only played until halftime so that was good. We make sure we are very cautious of how we handle our running backs. I don't think we're going to get anyone else back for next week's game, so we had some guys do some good things this week."
On playing on the road at Oklahoma...
"Yeah I think so, obviously a different year a different team but it's still all about playing well. You know it's a great stadium to play in as was Arizona State. I think our experience playing there will help us. But certainly you know they're a great football team."
On the great crowd...
We've been there a few times now. I thought it was a great crowd tonight. I think about we've brought FCS teams here before and we were lucky to get even 47,000. So we're really appreciative of our fan base. And all the college students in their gold and we're very appreciative of that."
On tying the record for points in a game...
"I would've really been happy with just 62. It was a kicking game that got me on that one. I didn't expect that. E.J. had to catch it and I had no idea he was going to the house on that one."
Coach Pinkel | WIU Coach Mark Hendrickson | WIU Players
MU Player Quotes
TB Henry Josey
On his 263 yard, three touchdown performance:
"I had a real good game, but I have to give it up to my o-line. They opened some amazing holes tonight and I just took advantage of everything they were doing for me. [Jayson] Palmgren was cutting off the nose guard real well, and every time he did it, I took advantage for 10 to 15 [yards] a pop."
On his status as the last healthy experienced running back...
"It is a lot on my shoulders but I knew I could take over the role to help my team out any way I could. Those guys are still helping me out just as if they were here playing."
DB Robert Steeples
On the defense's shutout performance...
"It's always nice when coach gives you a plan and you go out there and execute it. As a defense, we'll enjoy this victory and the shutout, but I think we have a lot of work to do and we'll learn from it tomorrow. We're not satisfied. We're happy with our performance, but we're not satisfied."
On the upcoming game against the Oklahoma Sooners...
"That's what you come to Missouri for -- to play in big games like this. I think everybody is going to learn from today's film, then get excited. I think it's going to be a good game where you'll see two solid Big 12 teams go at it. I think everyone's blood will be rushing for this one."
WR Wes Kemp
On his wide open first touchdown catch...
"Most balls are easy to catch, but those are the tough ones when you start thinking about it. I guess it was just a blown coverage or something. James [Franklin] did a good job having to scramble my way and get it there."
On James Franklin's play at quarterback...
"I think he has been doing a tremendous job, especially it being his first year, of taking the reins. He's been so composed, he never gets down about anything and his biggest thing is he leads us as an offense as a sophomore."
Terrell Resonno, DT
On the importance of shutting out Western Illinois...
"When you get a goose egg, it's says a lot about what your defense has done. Basically everything is clicking. Everybody is doing their responsibility, everyone is taking accountability. I thought it was a great team effort to get that goose egg."
On the play of the defensive line...
"When everything is going well, we click. Last week, we had a little bit of a setback, so our focus this week was on our technique. Just take it a day at a time. This week, we are playing Oklahoma, so we'll have to build on our [solid play] and do better than we did this week."
Coach Pinkel | Mizzou Players | WIU Players
WIU Head Coach Mark Hendrickson
Opening Statement:
"We didn't perform the way we wanted to perform. Missouri is a very good football team and they played very well and it was very disappointing the way we played. We did not play well and they played very well and of course you saw the results."
On the loss:
On the mood of the locker room during half-time: On the play of Henry Josey:
On playing Missouri... Coach Pinkel | Mizzou Players | WIU Coach Mark Hendrickson WIU Players On playing a Division I team: On Henry Josey: On preparing for their next game: QB Josh Hudson On Caulton Ray being suspended On how to bounce back: On going up against a Big 12 defense: On going into next week against Northern Iowa: On playing in front of the fifth largest crowd they've ever played in front of:
"It's not what we anticipated, it's not what we wanted. We have performed well in these games in the past. This is a little stumble to us."
"Football is an emotional game. I asked our players to stay calm at halftime. I thought that was the best thing for us to do in that situation."
"Tonight number 20 looked excellent. At time we made him look unstoppable. He's very talented and (had) excellent blocking. He had some huge holes to run through. Our big concern is both sides of the line of scrimmage.
"We're not taking away tonight what we hoped to take away. On tape we're going to see a lot of places, obviously, that we need to improve in a hurry. We're going to play a very good conference team next week and we want to play much better than we did tonight."
LB Kevin Palermo
On whether the loss could be attributed to W. Illinois' mistakes or Missouri's game:
"We're going to have to clean some things up -- defensively, offensively, specialty. Missouri came out and they played their game, and they just beat us to the punch on everything. We're going to have to watch film, come back next week and be ready to play."
"It's good experience. We got a lot of young guys, so we got to come out, got to play a Big 12 team, got to see how things are really run. They are very crisp and we just got to see the fast pace."
"He's fast, I'll tell you what. He's a great running back, great vision, real fast. It's a good thing we saw a back like that. Now we can get ready for conference."
"Watch film and fix our mistakes. A lot of it was Missouri doing things right but we did make a lot of mistakes and we've got to fix what we did wrong and come out better next week."
On whether the loss could be attributed to Western Illinois' mistakes or Missouri's game
"We never got into a rhythm, from the beginning of the game to the end of the game. We didn't execute well at all. But you can't take anything away from Missouri. Defense-wise, they're real fast, real disciplined, they did their jobs, wrapped up and did everything they needed to do. We didn't. That's the bottom line."
"We're very confident in Bryce Flowers, our other running back. They'd split time in every other game. Bryce is a big-time player. But I think it kind of threw everything off, just not having Ray out there. It was more load on Bryce than he's used to. But I don't think it should have mattered to us. Like I said, we just didn't execute very well. We've got to bounce back next week. Missouri played a great game.
"We've just got to work hard. We've got to watch film. We just didn't execute well. We didn't play our game at all. We've got to come back and start from scratch, start executing what we do and do what we do on offense, and we should be great."
"We just realize how important it is to execute what we do. The speed and size is different. It stresses more the fact that you need to execute what we do, not turn the ball over, not make mistakes."
"I'm confident we're going to bounce back. We just need to get back to fundamentals, do what we do. We need to get into a rhythm. We need to find an identity on offense a little bit. Do what we need to do and do what we're good at, and I think we'll bounce back just fine."
"Getting the calls in and all that was fine. You don't really notice it when you're on the field too much. But when it's third down and the crowd starts getting loud, you've got to switch to the silent count which kind of threw us off a little bit. But nothing we shouldn't be able to handle."
