#MIZvsMSU Post-Game Quotes
11/6/2015 12:59:00 AM | Football
Mizzou Players | Mississippi State Coach Dan Mullen | MSU Players
Mizzou Head Coach Gary Pinkel
Opening statement:
"First of all, I want to thank our fans for coming out. I mean, it was a dreadful evening, weather-wise. Students and everybody else, I'm certainly very, very appreciative of that. Secondly, congratulations to Mississippi State. I think they're a very good football team. When you play good football teams, you can't make mistakes. We made too many mistakes on the offensive side and the defensive side, and in the kicking game we had too many mistakes. We did some good things on both sides. We'll go back and focus on the things we did good and things we can continue to improve on. We've got a big game against BYU. We're going to have a great attitude. No moaning and groaning. We're going to battle and we're going to fight. That's what we've always done at the university, in our program, and that's what we'll continue to do."
On Dak Prescott's performance:
"He's one of the best quarterbacks in the country. You just mentioned that. He's a great player. I thought we kept him off guard a little bit more in the first half. He just started making some plays, some big plays. He can run the ball. He can do a lot of damage. We sacked, we hit him a lot too, but they rebounded. We just allowed them too many big plays, and you can't do that against a good team like that. Also, in the kicking game we made some errors. We had a third, third and long, I think it was a 70 yard completion or something on third and seven or eight or something. I think it was the third quarter, it was kind of jammed together a little bit. Again, you can't make mistakes like that against a good team and when you do, you're going to be struggling."
On Drew Lock's second interception of the game:
"That's called a poor decision, and he can't do that so we're going to work on getting it better."
On the impact of that interception:
"Well, they only kicked a field goal. We held them to a field goal. We come back out, we get a chance to score after that, then we're right back in it again. We didn't do that."
On the offensive confidence of the team:
"I think we did some things better. We had two scoring opportunities that we would normally kick field goals and went for it. We also had the ball and scored a touchdown, had a player lined up on or off the line of scrimmage. So there were three scoring zones where we were in there where we'd normally try to come out with points but we didn't do it. I thought we improved in some ways. Every week's learning. You saw a fourth year senior, a great, great player. We've got to play better at the quarterback position."
On the running game:
"Yeah, Russell [Hansbrough] looked better last week then he did all- the last week in practice, my comment was on Thursday that it's the best week he's had since he got hurt. He played like that a little bit. Tyler Hunt came out and did some good things. Ish [Witter] did some good things. Just not executing well enough. I thought at times we blocked well but at times also we had guys that were running around, it's not fun back there when you've got people on top of you all the time. That happens, that's something that you really want to improve, and we did that a lot to them but they came back and made some plays out of it. We didn't very much."
On Drew Lock's progress:
"First of all, I don't care what anybody thinks. I've never done that since I've been coaching. I don't do that, number one. But most people, everybody's favorite quarterback is the backup quarterback until he doesn't play well, then they want the next guy at quarterback, then they want the next guy at quarterback. I thought he had a real good drive down there towards the end, he threw the ball well and made some good plays. We didn't get in the end zone, but I'm not going to go through an evaluation of our quarterbacks."
On Marvin Zanders playing:
"We did some running things that we thought we were going to be using with Maty [Mauk], so we already had them in. We brought Marvin [Zanders] in, and I thought he did some good things. There was a missed call at the end. He hadn't played much. It was difficult. That's just a problem we're facing."
On the possible backwards pass that was called an incompletion:
"I saw that, but we didn't get enough information other than a couple of guys on the sideline. We didn't really get a feel for it in the box. Normally, I try to get enough information like I've done before, like I did two weeks ago. We got one back. That's what everybody said, I really didn't know for sure."
On what needs to happen for the offense to be more effective over the next three games:
"I think we've got to come back and practice really, really hard Sunday night, our first BYU practice, and bust our butt."
On Tyler Hunt's role:
"He did a great job, he really did. It's typical, we get asked about him when he has a 70-yard run but nobody says anything prior to that. I get that. He's done a great job. He's done a great job. Ish [Witter] is doing a good job, and so did Russell [Hansbrough]. You play them one at a time. We work them into the game plan different ways."
On Emmanuel Hall:
"He made some plays, it was nice to see that. Those two guys, by the time they're done they're going to make a lot of connections. That was really some progress there."
On the current losing streak:
"Nothing changes. You go back and you make yourself as good as you can. You coach better. You try to design better. You try to get your players to play better. It's the same formula. You have a great attitude. You work your butt off. That's what you do. We've been doing it since the day I've been coaching. That's what I was taught. That's what we do. There's not magic dust. That doesn't happen, so that's what we're going to do."
Coach Pinkel | Mississippi State Coach Dan Mullen | MSU Players
MU Player Quotes
QB Drew Lock
On growing as a quarterback:
"I think any experience is good experience, whether or not you're winning or losing games. Just being out there I'm learning something each day, both in practice and during games."
On the success of the running game:
"It felt good to move the ball on the ground. They were making some good cut-backs on our touchdown drive where they would see a hole and cut back on it. That's something we've been working on in practice and they did a great job of it."
On his confidence moving forward:
"[My confidence] is in the same place. I've worked my butt off to get here and I know I can do the things that I want to do out there. We've had a rough couple of games, but it's football. It's a little different than what I've been used to but I'm going to adjust well. I know there's a storm cloud above us right now but storms don't last forever."
RB Tyler Hunt
On the running game:
"As a whole we ran hard and physical all game. That's what we've definitely been working on and as a group; we want to show that we can come out and run hard. We have to keep working hard to make things happen. There's little stuff here and there that we still need to get better at. We have to keep working hard in practice to get physical and make plays."
On his tendency to make big plays:
"When I have my opportunity I'm going to take advantage of it every time. Whether it's one play or 100 plays I'm going to take advantage every time I'm on the field and make something happen for my team. I do this for everybody on the team, so I want to make sure everybody on the team knows they can get 100 percent out of me every time."
On his 72-yard run:
"I was reading the defense before the snap and I saw that they were going to crash in. My first thought, obviously, was to get two yards and get away from the goal line. But I could see how our line was blocking them and how there might be a crease, so I thought if I could make somebody miss then maybe I'd have a chance, so I just took it."
LB Kentrell Brothers
On the positives the team can carry over into next week:
"Some of the guys on special teams played pretty well and we forced a couple fumbles. The defense was always running to the ball, there were a lot of good things."
On the defense's struggles:
"We just gave up too many big plays. When I say it was the little mistakes, I really mean it was little mistakes that hurt us."
Coach Pinkel | Mizzou Players | MSU Players
Mississippi State Head Coach Dan Mullen
Opening Statement:
"That was a great win for us right there against an excellent Missouri Football team. You look at what Gary [Pinkel] has done with that program, in a lot of ways we try to fashion our program out of what he's accomplished here through the years. You're always competitive, I know that. Last year, we were able to bring our team at one point to No. 1 in the country. He's done that here at Missouri. Trying to be consistent winners, have great years. For us to come here, it's fantastic against a program we have a lot of respect for, a coach I have a tremendous amount of respect for, that's built the program the right way. To be a consistent winner, to do everything in that nature is great for us and great for our program to do that. It was fantastic. I was really pleased with how our guys came out, battled and played today. Defensively, our red zone defense in the fourth quarter with the two stops, were really huge. A huge part, just making sure it didn't get to the point where they were able to really threaten the onside kick or get it to where they had that momentum to go in the fourth quarter. I'm really pleased with how we came out in the second half offensively. We executed. We were able to stay pretty balanced, running and passing in the second half, even though we were run heavy in that fourth quarter. But I thought we executed pretty well, especially being banged up. We might be the only team in America that came off a bye week much more banged up than we went into a bye week. It must just be that type of year for us."
On the emotional game:
"I'm an emotional guy. Winning in the SEC is hard and winning on the road in the SEC is really hard. It's not easy to do in this league and to come into this environment, a tough place Thursday night with all this other stuff, a really late-night kickoff. To get a win, I'm juiced man. I work hard to try and get some wins. I love it."
Coach Pinkel | Mizzou Players | Mississippi State Coach Dan Mullen
MSU Players
QB Dak Prescott
On the relationship between Prescott and Ross during tonight's game:
"That goes back in the offseason, it was something we worked on a lot. Depending on the team, depending on the coverage or who is going to have a big night."
On the weather affecting his passing game:
"I don't think it really did. It did just right before half time really started coming down pretty hard and I missed the throw to Bear, but we were able to come right back the next play and connect. It didn't stay too long so we were able to handle it."
On his mindset going into Alabama:
"We have got to continue to get better as a team and play a better game next Saturday than we did today and I think we will be good."
DL Chris Jones
On his sack in the third quarter:
"I kept telling myself 'I gotta get him, I gotta get him' because I gave up two in the first half, so I knew I had to get him."
On his persistence at practice:
"I try to get better by the week. I'm my biggest critic, every week I try to get better and to find out what I didn't do the last week and what my mistakes were."
WR Fred Ross
On the offense's performance:
"[The offense] has gotten in that rhythm, were going fast, we just doing the things we need to do."
On how the receivers handled the weather conditions:
"We had a rainy day at practice, Coach told us we have to be the ones to step up and I think the receivers did a good job for that."
