USF-FAU Post Game Quotes
October 2, 2010
Raymond James Stadium
USF head coach Skip Holtz
Opening statement…
“It's nice to win, probably one of the most complete efforts
with offense, defense, and kicking we've played so far this season. So many
good things in this game, so many good, positive things to build on. There's a
lot of excitement in the locker room right now. I think this was our best week
at practice. If you look at Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday the thing I harped
on, I don't think we were as focused last week on Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
as we needed to be going into the game, and we really need to put a big
emphasis on that. I think the coaches did a great job really in the meeting
rooms, important things we needed to get done, and I thought the players really
responded. These guys want to be good. Starting with special teams blocking a
punt early, we felt like we could turn get an off an edge, put together a
little scheme for it, went after the first one, unfortunately got a little too
close to the kicker, which gave them a first down, we decided not to leave, we
were going to stay with it. I thought Q [Quenton Washington] did a great job of
coming in on the second one, and he got it and then [Armando]Sanchez scoops it
up and scores. So, we end up with fourteen points early in the game, which I
thought was good, gave everybody a little bit of breathing room, where you
didn't feel like every play was going to be the difference in the game. I
thought on the defensive side of the ball I thought there were a lot of great
things going on on defense. Obviously, you can't talk about tonight without
talking about the rush loss plays that our defense came up with. The number of
sacks we had. They have a very good football team, and they had a lot of drives
moving forward, and then we get behind the chains with a sack and a loss of
yardage play, and I thought that was really the difference. We finally hit our
turnover goal of three. We had two interceptions and a fumble recovery, which turned
and helped a little bit, the interception helped set up one of the scores early
as well, which gave us that fourteen points. Defensively, rush yardage plays,
turnovers, and offensively Mo Plancher ran his heart out, ran hard, I feel
awful he ended up with 98 yards, that's my fault, I pulled him out of the game,
I wanted to see him get a 100 yards. I thought B.J. Daniels played his best
game so far this season as far as playing within the offense, understanding
what was going on, communicating to us what he was seeing on the field, just
really a great player. I was really
impressed with the way he has gotten better each and every week, not physically
or not throwing the ball, but where he is mentally, and I thought he played an
excellent football game tonight. The offensive line, the running game obviously
was big. We had a lot of guys that stepped up tonight, a lot of excitement in
that locker room right now. Those guys worked that hard and they focused that
hard and they put together the opportunity to play that well, this is an
accomplishment. I give Florida Atlantic a lot of credit. They are a good
football team. I thought they did a
really nice job tonight, and I'm really proud of our players and the way each
of them played tonight.
On offensive/defensive
game and Syracuse next week…
It helps, it definitely helps [referring to having a crisp
game both offensively and defensively] I think it's going to be how we respond
to that obviously. We can't look at that and go 'Okay, we finally made it.'
Every week we've been able to say 'We played really well on offense, now we
have to do better on defense, special teams has to do better.' Tonight it was a
pretty complete performance, but we can't be satisfied, we can't settle where
we are now. This is where we all broke the schedule down and said we are going
to play our first four games, excited to play those four games, we are going to
learn a lot about our football team. We came into three of these four a
favorite and came in, did what we were supposed to do, and took care of
business. We're going to learn a lot about where we are nationally, we learned
a little bit about that against Florida, and then we are going to have the
opportunity to get into the conference race. I think these four games have been
productive for us. We have an opportunity to play the Mark Joyces and the
Marcus Shaws and the Terrance Mitchells, give them a chance to get comfortable
so they can turn and help us as we get into this conference race. This is what
excites me, this is what I'm really looking forward to, this is something that
we have set a goal on, it is something that we want to try to take and it will
be a great journey to get there.
On Jon LeJiste's
position as a safety and his sacks during the game…
It's hard for a Safety at least in sacks if you don't blitz
them. We have had a very aggressive package here the last couple of weeks, and
these guys every week they are getting better and better with it because we are
understanding not how to run through the B Gap, but who is in the C Gap, who is
in the A Gap, how to get through the B Gap when it becomes spread out and how
to fit. They are just doing a great job. There aren't many people that account
for a safety in the protection. Your linebackers, your defensive line, or the
guys in your offensive line, the linebackers, the blockers, they block. You
have to be careful because you can get burnt with it but those guys are doing a
great job with disguising it.
On Bonani's kicking
game in relation to re-enforcing confidence at the end of the game…
It looked pretty good going through the middle of the
uprights. It probably would have looked good from another 10 yards farther
back. We missed that first one, Schwartz just came to me said he felt his hip
was tightening up, he's been having a little bit of that, said his hip was
tightening up, so I said let's just kick Bonani, and so we kicked Bonani. I
said at halftime, I said we are going to kick you at half. He said 'I'm good,
let's give it a whirl' and I said 'What's the worst thing that could happen'
and he says “I could make it” and he did. He's a great kid, he's got some
confidence in himself, and he really did a nice job.
USF quarterback B.J. Daniels
On running the spread...
“The teams that FAU had played so far ran the spread and a lot of empty stuff, and they took advantage of them, so that's definitely what we were trying to do in our scheme.”
On the game scheme being more fun...
“Well it's always fun when you win. Last week was fun getting a win, this week was definitely the same.”
On having Dontavia Bogan back in action...
“It's good to have him back, because it's definitely important in our scheme and what we try to do on offense.
On tonight's offense to last game...
“We were more balanced, the defense wasn't able to concentrate on one thing and that definitely gives defenses a hard time. I think we executed the offense pretty well on running and throwing, which gives us confidence running into the Big East.”
On having a good game before heading into the Big East...
“This is definitely what we wanted, to be clicking on offense, defense and special teams, and I think we did that tonight.”
On Holtz' comment regarding this being the best game for B.J. in terms of understanding and running the offense...
“I definitely agree. Things just came to me easy. Being in the film room with coach Holtz, coach Fitch, every day in and out, the more you are in the film room the more and more the game slows down. I think I definitely did an 'okay' job, there's still things I can control and get better at.”
USF safety Jon Lejiste
On him leading the team in sacks, and whether that gives him bragging rights going into practice...
“I'll try to say a few things every now and then, but they are doing well and in no-time they will be getting their sacks.”
On if he will start giving the defensive line pointers on how to pressure the quarterback...
“They will be giving me pointers.”
On his feelings about the whole team going into BIG EAST play...
“Going into BIG EAST play it would be great to have a big game like this, defense getting turnovers. It's a good thing having a game like this before going into Big East play.”
Florida Atlantic Head Coach Howard Schnellenberger
On the overall standpoint of the game…
"Obviously we played a football team that was very physically prepared. They were very well-coached. I was pleased at times with our team, even though from an overall standpoint, we didn't do near enough to have a chance to win, but from a defensive standpoint, if you can go down and get good bedrock and the defense played better than we've been playing against a very good football team. The worse thing about the game is that we came out with a couple very potentially bad injuries, and we won't know about those until sometime early next week. Obviously, Van Camp and the other one, Colley."
On the injuries…
"They could be very serious or it could be nothing serious. I'm not going into big detail in this game, it was obvious that we weren't, if we didn't get anything going in the fourth quarter, we just weren't going to win. And much of that stuff is not a part of the game. We will go back and look at it very closely and see what we can salvage out of the game. The good stuff and what we got to take care of, the bad stuff."
On Van Camp injury…
"We didn't take him out because we wanted to, but we couldn't. He dropped a snap from shotgun, reached down to pick it up and one of their big guys hit him harder on the back, trying to pick up the fumble."
On FAU offensive line…
"Well it wasn't very good. I don't want to berate them right now, because this team brought a lot of heat that other teams haven't been bringing and they brought it on an ongoing basis. They got a good secondary that takes away the short passing game, so we see these things in the National Football League on occasion where the defense gets into a rhythm with you and it's hard to get out, assuming you have one bad play then you are in bad situations for the next receivable plays in that drive."
On the feeling at halftime…
"Yeah, we felt really good at halftime. We went in there and talked about that we hadn't played well offensively, the defense played well and we were sitting at a place where we had a legitimate chance to think we could maybe win the game in the fourth quarter, but that has happened to us in the past and it didn't crystallize that way."
Florida Atlantic
Player Quotes
LB Malik Eugene
On not having a
good showing in his return home…
“No. It was a good team, we played hard, and it's
disappointing.”
On if there was
anything he didn't expect that was seen from USF's offense…
“It was everything I expected, it was just we didn't
execute once again. Back to the drawing board…”
On the frustration
of not executing…
“With me being a senior, putting up that performance,
it's a home crowd for me. It's just frustrating all around.”
On the flea flicker…
“I mean, we've seen it in practice, but we said at
halftime, 'here comes the trick stuff,' so we have look for all of that.”
RB Willie Floyd
On if the team
thought they could come back in the game…
“Before the half, they gave us a lot of confidence. Going into halftime, we
moved the ball down the field. We did it very quick, so we thought we could
come out in the second half and keep going with that.”
On the toughness of
the USF defense…
“Their defensive line was really good. They were quick,
they were doing a lot of twists, and they got the best of us today.”
On if the game was
more physical than expected…
“No, not more physical. It's tough when you have to worry
about a lot of blitzing and a lot of twisting going on. It takes us out of our
game a little bit. People kept getting hurt throughout the game so there were a
lot of guys coming in and they have to play right now and it's pretty tough for
them to come in with that kind of heat.”
On how much of a
factor it was to go down 7-0 after the interception…
“It hurts. It brings your morale
down when something like that happens, and a lot of times you want to just, you
know, take it by yourself. Since I'm a kickoff returner I want to answer back,
but sometimes when you tell them to do that, it kind of hurts a little bit.”
LB Dino Cox
On the physicality of the game:
“It was the most physical game we've played all season.
They came out and ran the ball like they said they would. Their offensive line
is a pretty good and physical line, so it was a really physical football game.”
On what made it so
tough to stop the run…
“I honestly don't know. I know they ran a lot of outside plays. You
know, we have to look at the film and see exactly what happened, but for the
most part it seemed like everyone was fitting right.”
On if B.J. Daniels
was who he expected him to be…
“Yeah, he's exactly what we expected. They ran the
bootleg like we knew they would, he completed some good passes, you know, he
took off when he had to. We were prepared. We tried to contain him from running
so much, so he passed a lot more than he did in the past.”
On if he was
surprised about how much USF threw the ball…
“Yeah, yeah I was. They actually threw a lot on running
situation downs, so we had to transition to our pass rush. We were expecting
run and they would surprise us with a pass. That was a big surprise. They
usually run on third and short but they were passing the ball a lot on third
and short.”
