Texas A&M Vs. Utah State Post Game Quotes - TEXAS A&M OFFICIAL ATHLETIC SITE

Texas A&M Vs. Utah State Post Game Quotes

Sept. 19, 2009

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"I'm pleased that we won a football game. I told the team that 90 percent of the game, with the exception of the penalties, we played hard and for the most part smart. But right here at the end of the ball game we did our best to self destruct. We had a chance to put the game away and we didn't do it. We had a chance in the red zone after a run by Jerrod, then we had a penalty that pulled the ball back. Then we get back into field goal range, and we don't protect our kicker well enough and get a ball blocked. Then we allow them a 12-play, 76-yard drive to go down and score. We allow them to kick an onside kick on us. That part of game is important because it can make or break you. Overall, I take my hat off to Utah State. They were exactly what we said they'd be. They played hard the whole game. I thought they did a great job."

On the play of the defense... "I think have to give (Utah State) some credit. They had two weeks to prepare a scheme. They ran the option and things took a while to sort out. Once we did that, we did pretty well. We gave up some bad plays in the third and fourth quarter that we shouldn't have. Overall, once we sorted things out we were in pretty good shape. We knew they'd do something in the bye week, and it was running the option."

On wide receiver Uzoma Nwachukwu... "That's a pretty good average, four touches and four touchdowns. That's not too shabby a day at work. It's tough to beat that. He's an exceptional young man. He's very talented and is finding his way. He's just scratched the surface as a receiver. He made some big plays. In the absence of Jeff Fuller he's going to have to step up and make more big plays for us. I'm happy for him, he's worked extremely hard. Tonight wasn't an accident."

On the penalties... "I thought we had (fixed them). I said during the week we wouldn't really know until the game. On the false start penalties, they were yelling out a cadence to get us to jump, and it worked. At the half, we made an adjustment and we were better on that, but we still had penalties. We had some mundane penalties we shouldn't have had. Last week we had 14 and this week we had 16. In my career, we've always been a little-penalized team for the most part. We haven't proved that yet at A&M. We have to get that fixed. We can't have that much and expect to win the ballgame in most cases. That's been addressed and will be addressed again. It was addressed before the game, it was addressed during the game and it was addressed after the game."

On Jeff Fuller's injury... "As typical coaches, we don't have the details just yet. I believe he has a crack in his fibula. He has a crack in his leg. I don't know the extent and how long that will hold him up."

On Christine Michael's injury... "It was a calf strain. I think he'll be fine."

On Lee Grimes' injury... "He bruised his ribs. He banged his ribs. I don't know how extensively."

DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR Joe Kines

"You've got to give a lot of credit to Utah State. They really came out with an imaginative offensive change. They changed formations drastically in the first quarter of the game and our guys had to react to that. You can't expect guys to learn everything in one week of practice. You learn more in the game. In the first quarter they had us reeled back a little bit, but we got settled down. In the fourth quarter at about the five-minute mark we got a bit lax. When you do that it is easy to feel the sting...we almost felt the sting of it tonight. Our intensity in the last three plays is what brought us back to life. It will be easier to fix these mistakes now that we have won. These are hard working guys, and young guys. We are having to force feed a lot of information. We are having for force feed it big time, but we are going to learn from our mistakes and get better."

A&M OFFENSIVE LINEMAN Michael Shumard

"Every game, all we try to do is play to win. Coach is just trying to put us in the best position to get those wins. Most of us are willing to play everywhere. All we want to do is win. (on penalties) The refs were whistling on our go count. It took us a while to get them to realize we weren't actually false starting."

A&M DEFENSIVE BACK Jordan Pugh

"We're glad to get the win and we have to give Utah State credit. They never quit the entire game. I hate for us to give up as many yards as we did today, but we're just going to take these games as they come and try to get the wins like we did tonight."

A&M JACK Von Miller

"All of our guys did a great job of putting pressure tonight. (Matt) Featherston looked great and Spencer Neely came out and showed what he can do even though he's just a freshman. Everybody looked like a starter tonight. We could have been better but we're going to take the win and work on next week."

A&M DB Trent Hunter

"I had a bad game tonight. I was missing tackles because I was trying to do too much and play too fast. I wasn't playing like my normal self. I was trying to do too many game breakers. (but) We aren't going to be disappointed on a win. We played well, but made a few mental errors. There are certain errors that we want to do better on but we aren't going to get disappointed with that."

A&M QB Jerrod Johnson

On overall performance: "I think that there are definitely three or four plays that I would like to have back. There's always room for improvement. A lot of it (success in the game) had to do with the guys making plays for me. People can't see it from the stands, but they made this move call right when we were about to snap the ball that you can't see from the side. We had to adjust our game to that. I definitely think we need to work on the penalties. Utah State did a lot of good things to force us into some of the penalties. If we can work on (them), we can always get more yards and get better. We are going to watch the tapes and just keep trying to keep better."

A&M WR UZOMA "EZ" NWACHUKWU

"The first thing I want to do is thank God. Things like that don't really happen. Every time I came out on the sidelines, I had to thank God. We also have a quarterback like Jerrod Johnson. He has good reads and he puts the ball up and I try to make the play."

On his leaping plays: "Leaping is one of my favorite things to do. You go up try to make a play and try to come down with the ball. I think that I use my vertical a lot. Jerrod puts the ball up where the defender can't get it, so that I can go and get it. I appreciate him for doing that.

On Jeff Fuller... "Fuller is a great player...an amazing player. When a guy like him goes down...we all just stepped up collectively as a team. Not just me, not just the receivers, not just the quarterback. The defense has to step up as well and as a team we have to carry that slack. So, in practice, that is going to be a main focus. We do have to pick up our game."

On getting ready for UAB... "Penalties really killed us. We are really going to work on penalties and practice to try to eliminate them. I like how our guys are working a lot. Our coaches do great job pushing us in practice. Jerrod is a hero. He is our leader. He is always pushing us downfield and telling us to hurry our tempo. I think we just need to keep it up."

USU RUNNING BACK ROBERT TURBIN

"Overall, it was a pretty good game. We battled back but just came up a little short. We've got a lot of work to do but we'll do better after we watch some film. This leaves us dissatisfied. We know we have to make plays. Part of the reason we came up short is so many little big plays."

USU LINEBACKER BOBBY WAGNER

"We fought hard and gave it all we've got. We just didn't come out with the win. We could've played better defense and especially special teams. It would have been tied or even possibly a win. We have confidence and we know we can compete with anybody. To see we lost by just eight points is tough. (on blocked field goal) We tried to come off the edge hard because we knew it had a soft spot. We executed and it worked for us."

USU QUARTERBACK DIONDRE BOREL

"We fought hard and it was a good game. There were missed opportunities on offense and defense. Two weak throws that could have been touchdowns -- that could have been a game changer. Overall, we played four tough quarters."

USU HEAD COACH GARY ANDERSEN

"This was a hard-fought football game. We played a quality opponent. It was a game of momentum swings, up-and-down, back and forth. We kept on fighting the whole game. We had an opportunity on the last drive but couldn't make a play. I'm proud of the way my kids played. Our goal was to get the game in the fourth quarter and give ourselves the opportunity to win the game. To get down and keep fighting was a great accomplishment for us because that's your identity as a team."

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