Colorado University Athletics
Montana State-Colorado Quotes
September 02, 2006 | Football
Colorado Head Coach Dan Hawkins
General
“We got outplayed, we got out coached and we've got to give a lot of credit to
“If you can't understand how to deal with losing, you'll never know how it is to win. It's only devastating if you let it be that way. We understand that most people here will jump on our loss, but we all find out about ourselves when we're losing, and in some respect it might be a blessing. We've got to work a little bit harder and come together a little bit more. It's only devastating if you let it be devastating.”
On Team Youth
“ Those guys are obviously learning, and in the situation and where we're at, and I've said it before, we find out where we're at, at this point. Everybody wants to win and we also know that sometimes you lose.”
“When you're a young team, you're sometimes looking for answers, and sometimes will rely on other instances to spark us and get us going. And when we don't have enough of those with our team, it can be kind of difficult. We just don't have those established guys.”
On Moving On
“We need to take this to heart and come out and solve those issues. For us it's a multiplier. These guys have not gone through a loss with us before and they need to come out and understand how to handle it. Come out tomorrow, work hard, and get better. That's how we do it.”
On Momentum
“It was hard to get momentum when we needed it. We had a few position issues. Whether it was a throw, or a run or the defense failing to come up with a big stop or a kickoff return. Its interesting when you go back and look at those critical moments in a game, you know maybe the one that doesn't get called back sparks the big run to the touchdown. There are little things that you have to capitalize on and our guys need to continue learning that and get better and move on.”
On Reviewing the Game
“We'll all go back and we'll look at the tape, and that's an all-encompassing process right there.”
On James Cox's Production
“When you come out and you're not exactly productive it's not exactly like you're moving backwards, we need to go back and look at guy's routes and protections and other issues. Clearly you'd love your quarterback to be more productive, at some point he's got a little bit of a learning curve too.”
“He'll have to come back and look at it. To some degree the nature of the quarterback is to throw.”
On Plans For Bernard Jackson
“We had some stuff schemed up for him too.”
On “Surprise” of Losing
“No, I'm not really (surprised). Like I say we need to turn this negative into a positive. And it's part of the learning process to believe that anything can happen when you play. You have to be prepared to deal with that.”
On Dealing With Injuries
“We'd like to play with them, but you are who you are and you play with the guys you've got.”
On Team Unity
“There all our guys and they're all wearing the same color. We're all the same team here.”
Montana State Head Coach Mike Kramer
On Montana State's First Win Against a Division I Team in 22 Years
“I was there, we beat Fresno State to secure an opening round playoff bye. Today we gave ourselves a chance in the game and we capitalized on it.”
On the Win
“Let's face it. Something like this is very rare and probably couldn't be replicated by us. I think we're really good, we made some plays in the fourth quarter that they didn't. I don't know if we played 100 more times, that 99 of them could have been different. I think Coach Hawkins and the Buffaloes are going to be awesome for years to come. Coach Hawkins knows exactly what he's doing and who he's doing it with. I don't think you can discount how sharp this football program has been. Their loss in [Houston] last year [in the Big 12 Championship game] was devastating and may take years for them to overcome because this school is one with great pride- it's just going to take a very long time. This game tonight wasn't about height, weight, or speed. It was about belief systems and we found a way to get it done.”
On Montana State
“This was a good win; I think we are extremely talented. The addition of our transfers, those guys bring in an attitude of supremacy that maybe the guys that you recruit out of high school don't have. I am very, very proud of our coaches, we had a good game plan and we stayed within it. We did make some huge mistakes as a coaching staff, as a head coach, by not kicking field goals with Jeff Hastings down at the goal line.”
On Field Position
“We established field position in the second half that the Buffaloes could never overcome and that's a result of excellent offensive plays that generated first downs. I think we only had one series of three and out and we also played great defense on first and second down and created third down opportunities; then our kicking game really got going.”
On Overcoming Colorado's Opening Drive
“When you start out the game with a great run and catch, we were like ?uh oh.' So our ability in the secondary to be involved around the ball while running some blitzes helped us overcome Colorado's passing ability.”
On the Rest of the Season
“We have a good sense of how good we can be, but we need to be humble about it because we play a team next week that seven years ago almost tipped over our entire stadium. Chadron State came into Montana State in 1999 and had the lead at halftime, so we have to play great next week against a football team that knows mental toughness.”
On What this Means Personally
“At no point did I not think that we couldn't win this football game because of our talent level and coaching expertise. I knew that if we didn't make a big mistake, that we could be there in the fourth quarter. Because of their devastating losses last year, they would start doubting each other, and that's exactly what happened"
Colorado Buffaloes Players
QB James Cox
GENERAL - “We went out there and had a lot of plays but our protection broke down; I threw a bad ball and a couple guys dropped bad balls. It was jus one thing after another every drive. But we will work on it and we will get the team's chemistry back. We will go out and prove ourselves next week. It was a tough day, a tough situation both offensively and defensively. We just need to keep our heads up, watch the film and take the positives and come back next week ready to go and make good plays.”
ON WHAT WE NEED TO WORK ON ? “We just didn't finish, it's definitely something we've got to fix. Today was a good test, it was definitely a rough game.
ON
LB Thaddaeus
ON PREPARATION ? “I think we were prepared, we came out, we watched film on them. They are a good team and we knew that they like to go down the field and that is exactly what they did. When they needed to make plays they made them and we didn't do anything to defend them.”
ON LOOKING AHEAD ? “I think this is a new start for us, not necessarily a bad start. It will be just as successful to overcome this obstacle today and we will keep going on and looking ahead. This is in the past and you have to look forward to the future. You have to go on and flush it. All of our goals are still in sight, the Big 12 Championship is still reachable and we just have to go after it.”
ON TRYING TO COME BACK ? “I was just thinking about being a leader and trying to lead guys. All I was thinking about was trying to get the ball back and we just couldn't do it. We didn't do that, we tried, but couldn't get any turnovers. We started off good in the beginning, but you have to finish the ball game in order to win it. If you're not out there to finish, you're never going to win it. We continue to work on getting the ball out and forcing turnovers. Early in the game we thought we had one, but the referees overturned it.”
ON INITIAL MOMENTUM ? “I thought we had momentum going into the game and onto the field. It was just a matter of us making a play.”
ON DEFENSIVE STOPS ? “The defense came out and
ON HIS PLAY ? “I've done bad, because the team lost. However the team does, that is how I judge my play.”
TB Mel Holliday
GENERAL ? “Yeah, it is disappointing to the whole team, not just to me. There were a couple plays out there that I feel like I could have made, and I am disappointed about that, but I think that goes for the whole team.”
ON THE PLAY OF
ON TEAM MORALE ? “We're not going to go away, just keep working. We have nowhere to go but up. We just have to keep preparing and working toward the future.”
ON OFFENSIVE PERFORMANCE ? “It was there, we just didn't execute, when we watch the film, we're going to see that we were one man, one move, or one block away from popping a big play and I know it was that way a lot. Not to take anything away from them (
“The coaches put us out on the field because they feel we can go out and make plays. We just need to keep preparing until it is time to go out and play again.”
ON TEAM MORALE ? “This [the loss] will hurt until Sunday, when we get back, get on the field and watch film. This team is going to come out more focused and ready to play next week. In the end, this may end up being a good thing for us and we will be ready for
ON TEAM MORALE ? “Yeah it's a tough one to take. Give them credit, they played hard, we just didn't execute today. We didn't deserve to win today. We will look at this loss as a team and on film. It will be gone by tomorrow.”
ON OFFENSIVE PERFORMANCE ? “We came out and had a good drive and then we didn't really have anything after that. We didn't even have a first down in the third quarter.”
ILB Jordon Dizon
ON PLAY OF
ON THE LOSS ? “You have to remember it is a new system for our whole team. It is the first time using our new offense and our new defense. We actually put it into play today. I know on offense, if you have one mistake the play is over. On defense we just weren't executing as well as we would have liked. On both sides of the ball there were just a lot of little things that killed us.”
ON TEAM MORALE ? “This is a bad feeling but I know this team and I know the character that we have. Sometimes your biggest fall is your biggest learning experience. I know this team and we will bounce back.”
Montana State Bobcat Players
QB Cory Carpenter
ON MONTANA STATE'S MOMENTUM -- “As soon as our team got going, we knew we could play with these guys, we knew we could compete with them. They didn't really throw anything surprising at us, anything that the coaches hadn't already shown us, but our O-Line did their job and competed well against their D-Line. It just seems like our team wanted it more.”
ON HIS FIRST START -- “This is a new feeling for me, but this is the biggest win for our program in a long time. It just all came down to the hard work we put in and the extra time that it needs to beat a team like this. But we're not done yet, next week we have to come out, work hard and fix whatever mistakes we made. And the biggest thing we need is to just be consistent and have everyone do their individual jobs.”
LB Clive Lowe
ON MONTANA STATE'S FEELING AFTER THE GAME- “We just really believed in ourselves, basically both teams were playing well even though it was the first game of the season. Our team made the tackles and catches we needed to and we did just enough to win.”
“Everyone played real well today and did their job. If everyone doesn't do their job we wouldn't have stood a chance today. This is probably the biggest win in program history, but that all comes from working hard in camp and putting in the extra hours in the summer.”
FS Ryan Force
ON THE FIRST PLAY OF THE GAME- “We knew not one play would win the game for them. We just made adjustments and calmed down on a big stage. We started to get three and outs because we heard about Crosby and wanted to stop their offense before the 50-yard line.”
“This was a big win but we were expecting it. We have great players and a good program. I would like to thank Coach Kramer for giving me a chance to play. I didn't give the team (Montana State) a lot of insight, but in the end, we didn't need it, it was just great game planning on our coaches part.”
WR Mike Jefferson
ON OVERTURNED PLAY (RULED INCOMPLETE) -- “I didn't have the ball, but I'm not going to take that for granted. The refs looked at the play and overturned it. It would have been a huge game changer (For Colorado) because they would of went up by a touchdown.
