Colorado-Kansas State Quotes
October 24, 2009 | Football
Colorado Head Coach Dan Hawkins
On performance this week
"We talked about this a lot every week. Games can come down to four or five plays you have to make. We had two turnovers, one on offense and one on special teams that hurt us a bunch. We really never got into any rhythm until the very last drive. K-State was good in special teams and it helps when we turn it over."
On performance after big win last week
"That's the nature of this conference, you have to get yourself up every week and getting going and not get caught up in the way you win or loss, which I don't think the guys did."
On not being able to establish the running game
"We know they are a good team. We would love to be able to run the ball more. If we would have been able to get a few more good throws and done a few more things that way and it would have opened up the running game a little bit and that would have been able to help us."
On performance after first drive
"We just weren't making a lot of plays. There was a combination of things that really ruined our continuity."
Kansas State Head Coach Bill Snyder
On overall thoughts on the game
"We had our moments. We were blessed by Colorado giving up a substantial amount of penalties and they are probably unhappy about dropping passes. They dropped a number of throws. I thought we covered pretty well. We dropped a ton of balls. We had four or five interception balls that were right in our hands that we failed to catch. We are not without our issues on defense, but we played well on defense. We just did not coach well and play well on offense."
On the defensive performance
"I felt our defense played extremely well. I thought our coaches did a great job. I think our offense put them in some ridiculous situations. We had three or four guys out there on the defensive side that did not practice all week with all the flu stuff going around. I thought they played lights out and I am awfully proud of them."
On containing Colorado quarterback Tyler Hansen
"We changed up our rush patterns quite a bit. We were probably in the position where if you get real good at the pass rush, which we have not been infamous for, but if you are flying all over the place, it is pretty easy to miss him. We just tried to keep him in front of us which probably gave him a little more opportunity to throw the football."
On Jeffrey Fitzgerald
"Jeff just plays well. That is what he is supposed to do and he has been playing with effort. Jeff is one of those guys who was limited in practice all week and we did not know until game time if he would be strong enough to play. I appreciate him a great deal."
On why he is disappointed despite the win
"The name of this game for us is trying to get better. We got better on defense and I am proud of that. We did not get better on offense. It is all about preparing well and playing well. It is no more complex than that. If you finish well, it means you played well and prepared well. If you do not, that means you did not prepare well or play well. Half of our game we did not prepare well or play well."
On Brandon Banks' abilities on special teams
"If he gets the ball in his hands, he has some capabilities because of his speed to get out of the gate, but they contained him fairly well. It is not like he is going to do it every time. I say this to him many times and I'm sure I will say it again; it is not all about Brandon. We have a bunch of guys back there on returns and if they do their job, then he has a chance to utilize his skill. If they do not do their job, he does not have his chance to do that."
On Emmanuel Lamur's performance and leadership
"Emmanuel gets better on a pretty consistent basis. I have been pleased with his improvement. I truly have. He is a leader to a certain degree, but he is not where we would like him to be. He is still feeling his own way around. He is just making sure that he has all of his stuff right, but he has tried to put himself out there a little bit."
On his mentality after two consecutive wins
"My thinking is we went into the Texas Tech game with an opportunity to improve ourselves and we did not do it. So it was significant for us to come back. I knew we could be better and that is all I can ask of these young guys. "
On what his team can do now to improve
"We need to go to practice, prepare well and be better players; and we need to be better coaches. That is what will help our football team. Do not misunderstand me, I am just angry. I am proud of them and I am proud that collectively, we have won a ball game. I am proud wherever we are in the conference and that we have won however many games we have. If that was the only deal, I would be a happy camper. But that is not what we are about and that is not what we are trying to be about. And I do not want them to feel good about playing poorly or coaching poorly."
Colorado Players
Sophomore Quarterback Tyler Hansen
On what happened after the first drive
"We just did not execute. There is always one guy missing a sign. We didn't play solid football. It's just frustrating and disappointing. We should have won that game."
On wide receiver's not getting open
"A couple of times the wide receiver's couldn't get open. They were doing good in coverage making it tough for us to find open guys. Their defense did a good job tonight."
On if Kansas State made an adjustment after the first drive
"I don't think so. They did stuff that we have seen before. It's pretty much on us to execute. But we just didn't get it done. "
Junior Wide Receiver Scotty McKnight
On the defensive pressure faced by Tyler Hansen
"I don't think we were really having trouble getting open. I think Tyler (Hansen) was getting some pressure and that was hard on him."
On why Colorado struggled with penalties today
"I have no idea. I really couldn't tell you. It comes down to discipline and focus. I think there comes a time out there where guys get unfocused and maybe get too caught up in the game. Part of playing at this level is that you've got to stay focused and know your assignment - do only what you can do and don't try to do other people's jobs. That starts with the snap count and it carries on to other parts of the game. You've got to practice the way you want to play. If you're jumping offsides, if you're holding, if that's happening to you, then that's something you need to work on extra at practice. You can't make mistakes like that. We've just got to clean it up."
On losing their fire on the road offensively
"I felt like after that first road, 'Okay, we're going to roll today on offense," and we just got stagnant and things weren't working out for us. That's on us as an offense. We've got to help our defense out. They played pretty well for the most part. We've got to do everything right in every phase of the game. The Big 12 is a tough conference and this is a good football team, so hats off to them, but we've got to come out and execute. We've got to be smarter. That's something we've got to thrive on. We've got to be a smart team who doesn't make technique mistakes. We can't make many mistakes. That's got to be our deal."
Junior Defensive End Marquez Herrod
On the K-State running game
"You know, I think that's what they focus on. They focus on running the ball and managing the clock. They got a good, fast, hard running guy back there. You know they stick with it. We stopped them a few times, but they always kept coming back to the run."
On how they adjusted to K-State's option running
"They got us a couple times. I mean, we practiced the option, we were ready for the option. It's just kind of guys fitting up in the right places."
Senior Linebacker Marcus Burton
On being able to slow down Daniel Thomas
"I think it was difficult when he has the speed and size that he has. He's able to stretch out the field and make certain cuts, and at the same time he's able to run people over. It's difficult defending a guy like that, but I think we just have to do a better job of doing our job."
Kansas State Players
Freshman Defensive End Joseph Kassanavoid
On containing Colorado Quarterback Tyler Hansen
"My job this week was to spy the quarterback and make sure he did not get out of the pocket. As you could tell from watching the game, Hansen has some speed to him and some scrambling ability, so my job was to contain him and just make sure he didn't get away from us."
On the leadership of senior defensive end Jeffery Fitzgerald
"The leadership of Fitzgerald has been huge. He does a very good job of keeping all the guys together. He hadn't been feeling well this week, and he came out and played really well today. His leadership has really been keeping us going."
Sophomore Safety Emmanuel Lamur
On what happened during his second interception of the day
"I was just reading the quarterback's eyes and I broke on the ball. It happened very fast, and I just had to secure the ball because they were trying to rip it away from me again, just like on my first interception."
On trying to get better every week
"I have been practicing hard every day, like Coach Snyder says, we have to get better every day. I try to get better all the time and stay focused on my keys and having good fundamentals and technique."
Sophomore Defensive Back Tysyn Hartman
On the defense's effort
"The defense went out and did our job today, and we executed really well, just like last week. We held them and got crucial stops when we needed to."
On containing Colorado quarterback Tyler Hansen
"That was a big emphasis all week. We knew what he could do from watching him the previous week, and we knew he could get on the edge and run really well."
Senior Wide Receiver Brandon Banks
On being number one in the north
"It feels good. We have to keep it up. We have a lot more games to play that will determine whether we stay at the top so we have to keep it up. It feels good. KSU has a winning tradition, we are known for winning Big 12 Championships. Hopefully we can stay on top and continue to win."
On slow offensive half
"Penalties and just execution, guys would not get hat on hat. We had penalties that set us back from the 30 yard line. It is hard to get into a rhythm; our defense works really hard to cause turnovers and forcing the other team to punt. We should reward them by putting up points on offense. It is very frustrating knowing that we are letting the other side of the ball down."
On reaching 3000 yards
"It is pretty good. It is an honor to be able to get to that point when you are a wide receiver. I like to make plays and I always hope to make touchdowns."
Senior Quarterback Grant Gregory
On the win
"A win is a win. It feels good to be 3-1 right now. We owe this win to the defense because we came out in the second half and did not do much offensively. At halftime we were feeling pretty good, we felt like we could duplicate what we did in the first half, but we didn't do much on offense. Colorado played well defensively, but we did not do what we needed to do offensively."
On Coach's reaction
"He was pretty angry because we did not progress offensively. I thought we improved last week against Texas A&M, but we didn't do that today. That is what he was disappointed with."
On improvements needed
"We have got to play a lot better on offense. Our defense played great and gave us good field position throughout the game. We did not capitalize on those opportunities. We have a huge test next weekend against OU (Oklahoma) and we have to get our mistakes cleaned up."
