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Missouri Head Coach Gary Pinkel
Opening Statement:
"First of all, South Carolina is a great football team who came down to the end and battled – it's a crazy day out there and I just am very proud of our team and how we battled, fought. When things got tough, we just stayed positive. The defense kept us in it, but stayed totally positive about the offense the whole time, which I thought was really crucial for us to have the mindset to get back. Big win for us. It was the opposite a year ago, when South Carolina had a great comeback win. They did great things to win in the fourth quarter, and we were fortunate to get that win ourselves today.”

On what a win like this proves:
"I mean the confidence level of the team surges. And the trust level amongst one another surges. You know, I am glad we've got a bye this week. It was an emotional game. We've got to get back. There's a lot of things we did to improve in, but these are games that change a football team just from a confidence standpoint and a closeness standpoint… When your team does something like this, you're a head football coach, you're really proud of your coaches and your players for battling."

On how he felt about throwing the ball:
"I wasn't feeling very good (about the ability to throw the ball). Someone asked me afterwards, "What did you do?" and I said, "I don't know, I would have done a lot earlier if I knew how to fix it." You get in a rut a little bit. So what happens is you've got three-and-out, three-and-out, three-and-out, you get one first down, three-and-out and your confidence level just falls and their focus isn't as good. You're not locked in. Fortunatley, down 13 points, Maty [Mauk] hit Bud [Sasser] down in the post area in the numbers – Bud makes a great catch and all of a sudden, it completely flips and your focus now – you're locked in. And so, you're going to execute better, you're going to hit harder and all those other things.”

On being the only undefeated SEC East team left:
"We just have got to focus on getting better and the confidence level that you gain for something like this is significant. We've got to be a lot better football team. We've got to use this to make us better, not use this to make us feel good.”

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MU Player Quotes
Sophomore LB Michael Scherer
On hanging in on defense while the offense was struggling:
“We know that our offense can score points and when we see them struggling like that, we know that we just have to keep making stops. It's going to give your offense a chance to keep scoring and give you a chance to win the game.”

On getting final stop on South Carolina's final drive:
“It was an emotional time. Going back to last year and knowing what happened last year and even last week, we know we just needed one last stop. We went out there and got that stop. We stuck together as a team and made the stop we needed to make.”

Senior OL Mitch Morse
On staying focused when they were down in the fourth quarter:
“It's not hopeless until the last second of the fourth quarter. The defense kept telling us that they had faith in us and that they would get the ball to us. The seniors were able to pick the offense, and I'm really proud of the way our offensive line stepped up and played.”

On the play Missouri was able to score the game-winning touchdown:
“We trusted our coaches and our game plan. We needed to executed it, no matter what. It came down to just a wedge inside, and we came out with the push. We had faith in what the coaches were calling.”

Sophomore QB Maty Mauk
On the offense turning it around late in the game:
“We sat down as group and told ourselves that we had to finish. That's what we do at Mizzou. Everybody bought in to that drive (to get the go ahead touchdown). The offensive line gave me great protection, and they really pushed through. They did everything that we needed to do.”

On the quick touchdown drive after South Carolina took a 20-7 lead:
“We flipped a switch and Bud (Sasser) made a great catch, and then Wesley (Leftwich) did a great job of recognizing the coverage and breaking one off there to get down to the one [yard line]. Then, the offensive line did a great job of getting a good push and getting Russell (Hansbrough) in there."

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USC Coach Steve Spurrier
Opening Statement:
“Missouri hung in there. They were struggling on offense like we were most of the night but put a couple of drives together at the end. We weren't able to do much offensively. I messed up on the two-point conversion, should have gone for it. I wasn't even thinking about it until I looked up and saw it was 20-7. I had something in my mind that 16-7 might be real good the way our defense was playing. All of a sudden Pharoh [Cooper] caught that [the touchdown pass] and nobody even on the bench thought about it [going for two points]. I looked up and said you know what we should have gone for two, too late now. That was a mistake on my part. It was a tough night for us. Protection wasn't very good. Dylan [Thompson] has had better games; he got hit a lot tonight. They [Missouri] were only rushing four or five guys most of the time, nothing more than that. We just didn't pass block all that well. Give Missouri credit, they hung in there. They didn't play all that well either on offense but they did at the end of the game to beat us. Pharoh Cooper again had an unbelievable catch for the touchdown and he had another excellent game. I wish we could have gotten more balls at him some way or another. Missouri has a good defensive pass rush and they play their zone coverage pretty dog gone good. A few times we got a ball down there, well Pharoh had two big catches, but we just didn't hit anything. It didn't work out for us. Sometimes you get beat.”

On what Missouri did to take away the middle of the field so well:
“We'll have to watch the tape but they play sort of a two deep, or three deep zone. They get up there on the run, they stop the run pretty well although Brandon Wilds did have some pretty good runs. Mike Davis did have the one long run. We tried to run the ball, we tried to throw the ball but we didn't do all that well. We had that little play action down on the goal line and Busta [Rory Anderson] couldn't hold on to it. Things change there and then we get sacked a couple of times. We had a lot of sacks. But, Elliot [Fry] made all of his field goals so we thought we were going to get out of it.”

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USC Players
Senior QB Dylan Thompson
On how he's feeling physically after taking several shots throughout the game:
“It just hurts to lose really. I'll get over the soreness; I'm sore after every game. It just hurts to lose knowing you left a lot of points out there. That's why they play a game every week, so we can come back next week and get ready for Kentucky.”

On what the Missouri defense was doing to take away the deep routes
“They probably played as sound of a defense as anybody we've faced. If they're playing cover-two, they're going to be really deep and hit the underneath routes. And that's why it was big for us to stay ahead of the chains tonight, but we didn't do a good job of that. And that's got to be on me. I've got to take what's given to me more often. And that way we can be in a manageable down and distance. I just think they are very sound defensively so they deserve a lot of credit for that.”

Senior DT J.T Surratt
On the defense's confidence after the last two Missouri drives:
“We played hard. We just have to keep getting better. The main thing is to just go back to work on Monday.”

On what he has to do as a leader to get the defense back on track on Monday:
“I've just got to get them ready and tell them how their mindset needs to be on Monday. The season isn't over; it's still a long season. This is a loss, but we have to finish the rest of the season. We have to go back to the drawing board and get ready for Kentucky, do what our coaches tell us to do everyday this week.”

On if the defense is stunned after Missouri's last two drives:
“We feel bad after the loss, but, like I said, we can't let it defeat us. We have to keep getting better and go back to the drawing board on Monday. The season still has to continue. Because of this loss we still have to continue to get better.”

Junior RB Mike Davis
On what Missouri did to cause offensive struggles:
“They did a lot of things up front. They did a lot of slanting and looping around. I think it confused our offensive line a little bit.”

On team's current mindset:
“I mean we lost so a lot of guys' heads are down. I'm just trying to make sure those guys' heads are up and they're focused. I know we lost but we've got to keep our heads up, we cant get down on ourselves. I don't even like seeing my teammates heads down and I've seen three of teammates crying in there so I don't like seeing stuff like that.”

Sophomore DE Gerald Dixon
On difference between final drives and the rest of the game:
“We should have focused for the game. I feel like we took it as if we won the game already. We shouldn't have. We've got to focus on the end of the game and finish.”

On importance of finishing games:
“I put the game on us as a defense because we should have never let them score in the first place.”

On defense's improvement throughout season:
“We have improved but we still have more work to do.”