On how the team played…
I’m proud of our football team, our program. We’ve worked very hard in our offseason to develop into more of a complete team than we were a year ago. I think that, at times, we showed ourselves to be very capable to play with a high tempo, but I’m concerned about our ability to deal with adversity in the second half. It was collectively: it was some of our young specialists. We had some problems with our long snapping and our short snapping.
On what went wrong…
We had some problems with our punt game and it kind of started to build up against us. I think the longer the game went on, the more they started to wear us down. They had some excellent ball carriers and some real quality personnel on the perimeter and their offensive line was very physical. They were some big humans out there. I think that took a toll on us in the third and fourth quarter. It kind of felt like the wheels started to fall off. We were trying to do some things with our offense to shorten the game. We wanted to run off more. We’re normally a faster tempo team, but we wanted to do something different. We had to maintain possession of the ball and reduce the number of reps that our defense would have to play against Arizona State’s offense. It felt a little awkward, but it was the attack strategy that we felt like gave us the best chance to compete for four quarters.
On positives in the game…
I’m proud of the way our guys hung in there in the first half, they played well at times. We demonstrated that patience and, at times, when we were given the opportunity to strike, we did, we made some plays down field. I feel better about our passing game and what our offense is capable of. Consistency to beat a team like Arizona State is the key. Being consistent for four quarters is what eluded us tonight and, ultimately, what costed us the game. Again, we are a work in progress. I am pleased with the things we did well because it is a quality team that we went against. I think that some of the things that we need improvement on compelled us to learn from this situation and to build toward next week. I really believe that there lies in lies the strength in our program: our ability to resolve and our relentlessness. We’re not going to give up. It was disappointing tonight, but I think we learned something about ourselves: some of our strengths and, definitely, some of our weaknesses to get after next week.
I’m proud of our football team, our program. We’ve worked very hard in our offseason to develop into more of a complete team than we were a year ago. I think that, at times, we showed ourselves to be very capable to play with a high tempo, but I’m concerned about our ability to deal with adversity in the second half. It was collectively: it was some of our young specialists. We had some problems with our long snapping and our short snapping.
On what went wrong…
We had some problems with our punt game and it kind of started to build up against us. I think the longer the game went on, the more they started to wear us down. They had some excellent ball carriers and some real quality personnel on the perimeter and their offensive line was very physical. They were some big humans out there. I think that took a toll on us in the third and fourth quarter. It kind of felt like the wheels started to fall off. We were trying to do some things with our offense to shorten the game. We wanted to run off more. We’re normally a faster tempo team, but we wanted to do something different. We had to maintain possession of the ball and reduce the number of reps that our defense would have to play against Arizona State’s offense. It felt a little awkward, but it was the attack strategy that we felt like gave us the best chance to compete for four quarters.
On positives in the game…
I’m proud of the way our guys hung in there in the first half, they played well at times. We demonstrated that patience and, at times, when we were given the opportunity to strike, we did, we made some plays down field. I feel better about our passing game and what our offense is capable of. Consistency to beat a team like Arizona State is the key. Being consistent for four quarters is what eluded us tonight and, ultimately, what costed us the game. Again, we are a work in progress. I am pleased with the things we did well because it is a quality team that we went against. I think that some of the things that we need improvement on compelled us to learn from this situation and to build toward next week. I really believe that there lies in lies the strength in our program: our ability to resolve and our relentlessness. We’re not going to give up. It was disappointing tonight, but I think we learned something about ourselves: some of our strengths and, definitely, some of our weaknesses to get after next week.
