Colorado-Oregon State Quotes

Colorado Head Coach Mike MacIntyre

General
"It was a tough loss for our young men, they fought extremely hard. That's two in a row now. We've been in every football game and had an opportunity to win every football game, but we're 2-4, that's reality. We have a week off, we'll work hard and plan on beating USC when we go to Los Angeles. I think Mannion is a heck of player and did a good job. He's an impressive player, he made some plays moving in the pocket that he did well, especially in the first half. Coach Riley does a great job with their team. They're a heck of a team and very well-coached. Today was also just a gorgeous day in Colorado to play football."

On Whether the Game was a Moral Victory
"There are no moral victories. I do know that our team fights and believes that they can win. I think that we've come a long way, but we just have to punch through and get some wins. Those kids are hurting in our locker room, really hurting, but there is no quit in them and there is a lot of fight. As coaches, we just have to find a way to help them get over the hump at the end of games. They're doing everything that we ask and I'm really proud of them. They deserve some wins and have earned the right to get them."

On Getting a Win after the Bye Week
"I feel like we're ready to break through. I know their mentality, work ethic, effort and fight. It's more fun to watch, it looks and feels better, but it is just gut wrenching when you lose like we have."

On the Last Offensive Possession
"We didn't move it as well as we would like. We had a couple of opportunities and didn't make the plays. They did a good job on defense. We thought that we could move the ball and we just didn't do it. I'll have to take a look at the film to figure it out. I thought they battled, but we have to make some plays. We have to do a better job of coaching and executing in that situation."

On the Oregon State Offense in the Second Half
"They had two good drives where Mannion executed on some plays. They were third-and-short a couple of times where we messed up a few things. They're a good football team and he's an experienced quarterback that holds every Oregon State record I think. He made some plays and we didn't, but I thought we played well enough and stopped them to get the ball back. We fought hard and had a chance to go win the game. We probably would have gone for two if we had scored, but that would depend on how much time was left. I thought for sure that we would go down and score to win the game, but we didn't."

On the Play of Sefo Liufau
"I thought that he played well. I think he's getting better every day and think that he's a heck of a football player. I think he's fighting and is going to keep competing for us."

On the Oregon State Defense against Nelson Spruce
"They played some tighter coverage, but he had the opportunity to make some plays here-and-there. We'll have to look at the film, but we had some other guys open too and I thought Sefo did a good job of spreading it around."

On Takeaways Going in to the Bye Week
"We have to find a way to finish the games. We're fighting, but we just have to find a way to win. That's all we have to do is find a way to make a third-down stop and find a way to get the ball in the end zone. We just have to do a better job coaching our kids on it and finding other answers. We have to keep them believing like they are and instill that fight, passion and desire to be successful. We're getting there. Once we get that passion and fire to finish off somebody, we'll finish a bunch of them off.

On Losing Two in a Row as a Coach
"Our second year at San Jose State we lost to UCLA, which we should have won, and then lost to Nevada, both heartbreakers. We lost a heartbreaker to Utah State on the last play of the game and then lost a heartbreaker to Idaho on the last play of the game."

On How Losing Affects Coaches
"We'll just go back to the drawing board and keep fighting, pushing, going and being positive. We'll keep it going in the right direction, that's all that you can do. It will happen because we're really improving and it's a heck of a league. There are a lot of good teams in this league, but our kids are maturing. We're the youngest team in the Pac-12 and I would say we're the youngest defense in America, in the top-22 that is. You're watching them grow up before your eyes and we just have to keep doing it and pushing."

On Converting Short-Yardage Situations
"We got in on the goal line, but got stopped when we went on the fourth-and-one early in the game. We showed some improvement on the goal line, but have to get better with that fourth-and-one. It wasn't even a fourth-and-one, more like a half-yard, but they did a good job stopping us."

How Inconsistencies in Short-Yardage Situations Affects Play-Calling
"It depends on what they're doing. You want to be able to run those and get them. That's something that we have to keep doing. We can't shy away from that. In this league, you better go score some points and be aggressive. You can play those 'conservative, but right' decisions, but that mentality has changed a little bit in college football, especially in the Pac-12. If we get in that type of situation, we would like to go for it and get it. Sometimes it will help you and that time it hurt us."

On the Play of Michael Adkins
"Michael played really well. He felt good this week and last week. Hopefully he'll stay healthy. He runs well and has a lot of speed and athleticism. We need Michael to play well and I was glad to see him do that."

On the Status of Addison Gillam
"He got hit under the chin and it was bleeding. He was dizzy on the field, so they took a look at him and they felt it was best to just take care of him, which I completely agree with. They came up to me and said, 'Coach, he's out', so I said okay and we went with Brady. Miguel and Dr. Poddar do a great job. So I'll see how he is, he seemed pretty good in the locker room, but I'm a coach so I'll trust whatever they tell me."

On the Momentum Change from Crawley's Nullified Interception
"I thought it was a huge momentum changer, it was a huge play for us."

Oregon State Head Coach Mike Riley

On Bouncing Back From Last Week's Loss
"I'm really proud of our team today. I thought that it was hard. Colorado was well prepared. Boy have they gotten so much better. They had a heartbreaker on the road last week and they came out here ready to win a game. We jumped out on them and I was hoping that would be comfortable, but it certainly didn't last long. I was really worried at halftime because they had taken the lead gotten momentum, I didn't sense a great bit of emotion in our locker room so I was like 'okay, what's gonna happen here.' I was really proud of how we fought. You always want better execution and all of that stuff but I think our kids battled, their kids battled and we're glad to win."

On Halftime Discussion
"Well it was a lot of specific stuff about football and what we wanted to do. Then it was about 'hey, we gotta get it going here because this is gonna be hard and we gotta be tougher than them.' We talked last night about being mentally tough. Going two weeks on the road after coming home at 5 am on a Sunday, I know you would think that's a lot of time to recover but it's hard. These kids kind of sucked it up and played hard today. Big big big win on the road. This conference is crazy hard so we are very thankful to get a win on the road."

On Safety Brandon Arnold's Ejection
"I don't know. I will have to check that deal right there. I didn't see it. I'm not arguing it and I don't know enough about it to know."

On Balance Between The Pass And Run
"It feels like we did [balanced attack]. I thought we threw the ball for some good plays, I thought we obviously ran the ball for some good plays. It was more like how I like to see the Beavers look. Looked like good balanced football and that will help us as we go forward."

On The Long Drive In The Fourth Quarter
"It's always about third down conversions and making the plays and keeping the ball and then capitalizing with the touchdown run. I think that turned out to be the difference, so that was a great drive."

On How The Win Feels
"It feels good. I think it feels a lot better to be 4 and 1 than 3 and 2. It feels good that we got a mini break here with a Thursday night game, week from Thursday night game. So this feels good and I like our team. I think that they fight and if we keep getting better. I think we did better on penalties, turnovers. I think we played cleaner football on the road. You know what the other thing that's a factor coming here that's really smart by them? Is that they keep that thing natural grass. That is different grass than L. A. and it's not what you normally play on. It doesn't sound like much but it's an advantage.

On The Play Of Quarterback Mannion
"I think he was poised. Boy did he make some scramble type plays where it was just like ugly execution. I was so upset and but it was good football playing and then the guys made some plays."

On Tight Ends
"We have to get our tight ends involved, there were so many disappointing things about that USC game that just hit me right between the face about what has to happen with this team if we're gonna be good and that's one of them. The players are very capable of blocking and pass receiving so we can utilize them as best as we can."

On Other Improvements That Needed To Be Made Following The USC Game
"It's very easy to talk about pass protection or throwing to the right guy or those kind of things that are very evident. The utilization of people differently is probably the key issue in coaching. Seeing what you have and what you need to do with people in order to be successful. That's probably the biggest deal for us."

On Keys To Shutting Down CU WR Nelson Spruce
"He's such a good player and I think our guys really competed hard. Obviously the quarterback adjusted because he had really good numbers and some real good plays and he utilized other people. We certainly have a lot of respect for their whole team including Spruce, their quarterback, their running back is a hard runner. They got a good team and they are particularly challenging offensively. They have quite a bit of stuff in general that challenges you."

On The Final Fourth Down Of The Game
"Well pre-play you are always continuing to think about what's down the road if they convert the down and that's really the main thing you are thinking about. The other part's easy. We're gonna take a knee and finish the game. So you know it's really about what happens after that and what happens if they score, that's more of my thinking."

On How The Elevation Affected The Team
"I don't know. I'll have to talk to the team. I felt good

On What The Team Needs To Address Going Into The Bye Week
"We obviously gave up some yards. I think we lost some position. It's all technically getting better now. You can't re-invent the wheel at this stage of the season. What you have to do is get better. We got to look more at what we need to do with certain people and keep those people healthy for a bit. We need our people to be healthy and stay healthy and continue to work and grow. It would have been nice to convert some of those field goals into touchdowns."

On Positives To Come Away With Following The Victory
"I think that it's kind of confirmation of what we can do and I think especially the way that game ended was probably pretty discouraging for everybody. I've seen enough games in my life to know that you can come back from just about anything if you really do a good job of it, but I thought that might have been very discouraging to some of our guys and shaking their confidence a little bit. The only way to find out if that's not real is to see how we competed and we had to compete today against Colorado and I thought our kids did real well doing that."

On The Beavers Rushing Attack
"It's very good to run. We all know it's kind of an Achilles heel for us for the very last part of last season for us. One thing for us as coaches it's kind of a confirmation of time spent trying to be a better running team. There's some reward there. We can see how important it is to the bounds of our team and to pass protect every play. I think that's a very important factor."

Colorado Players

G Daniel Munyer
ON THE GAME TODAY – "Just like last week we were out there competing every play. I don't think we let up once the whole game and that's great to see. Unfortunately, in the last few weeks we haven't produced any victories, but we are going to fix it and get this thing going."
ON WHAT HE IS TELLING HIS TEAMMATES AFTER THE LOSS – "Just to keep your heads up. It's all about us; we're all in this together. Also, to make sure you're not doing anything dumb. Just keep everyone focused on our goals."
ON OSU DOMINATING THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME – "It's just a bump in the game. We had a turnover that shouldn't have happened, but we answered after. When that happens, you just have to keep your head up and just keep playing."
ON CU's COMEBACK IN THE FIRST HALF – "We work all week in every situation possible. Coach Mac puts us in every situation possible and we drove down the field and scored right before halftime. I wasn't surprised at all. Our guys work hard all week to execute and we put ourselves in the right position to play."

WR Bryce Bobo
ON THE FEELING IN THE LOCKER ROOM – "Right now we see a couple heads hanging down. Coming from a loss from Cal, and now another hard loss, it just kind of puts us down. We all got together in the huddle and said how we can't let this affect us because we have another game coming up. There's no way that we can let this get us down right now."
ON OSU LIMITING SPRUCE's PRODUCTION TODAY – "I don't think it impacted us at all. You see Ty [Tyler McCulloch] stepped up and made two touchdowns. DD [Goodson] had a couple good grabs. We all contributed no matter what. If Spruce doesn't get the ball as much, then we have a bunch of other playmakers."
ON TAKING PRESSURE OFF OF SPRUCE MOVING FORWARD – "I like it because they can't just account for Spruce. If they do just account for him, we have other people that are surrounding him that have the playmaking ability to get the ball in the end zone. If defenses want to keep guarding Spruce, then Sefo can look at our other receivers and they can make plays too."
ON CU's NEVER SAY DIE ATTITUDE – "Yeah, we never give up and that's the motto that we live by. When we're down, we're going to come back. When we do, we come back as hard and as fast as we can. Sometimes we fall short, but in the end we know that we didn't give up."
ON WHERE THEIR FIGHTING MENTALITY COMES FROM – "It comes from Colorado. We used to be National Champions and in the last couple of seasons we have had a really bad record. We're tired of it. We're tired of not having good enough records. Our playmakers have the ability, but we just need to learn how to close out the games now."
ON TAKING POSITIVES AWAY FROM TODAY'S GAME – "I think that as a team, we did well. We made plays and did what we were supposed to do. There were some tough calls, but other than that, I think we did great as a team rallying up when it was time for us to make those plays. Some things didn't go our way, but we always keep our heads up."
ON CU FANS IMPACTING THEIR PRODUCTION – "I didn't see the fans leaving until the last minute, when they [OSU] got the ball back. Our fans did a really good job at being loud and rallying when we needed them the most. It was really loud from the field, so I think our fans are really good. They're disappointed, just like we were disappointed."

WR D.D. Goodson
ON THE TEAM'S EMOTIONS AFTER ANOTHER TOUGH LOSS – "Yeah, it was a tough loss, we fought well and did wphat we could. We just let the things that we can't control out of our hands."
ON THE POSITIVES THE TEAM CAN TAKE AWAY FROM A GAME LIKE THIS – "I've seen fight in our players. We never stopped, and we never wanted to give in and that's what coach [Mike MacIntyre] talked about after the game. We're going to push through the bye week and take that on to our next opponent."
ON WHAT THE TEAM CAN IMPROVE ON – "Just executing on third down – a lot of dropped balls, so we have to fix that."
ON CLOSE LOSSES BEING HARDER THAN BLOWOUT LOSSES – "Yeah, they're tough. Every loss is tough, but I mean you see improvement and you want to improve on it. But at the same time you have to fix the little things."
ON CLOSE LOSSES BECOMING DISCOURAGING – "You definitely want a victory and that's what we strive for, and that's what we're going to get."
ON TAKING PRESSURE OF FELLOW WR Nelson Spruce BY MAKING PLAYS HIMSELF – "I just try to make the most of every ball that comes my way and I just try to make the most of every play that comes my way."
ON OFFENSE STARTING SECOND HALF SLOW – "We came out a little flat, but we picked it up and started rolling."
ON WHAT HAPPENED ON THE FINAL DRIVE – "We came out with a dropped passed, but then we picked it up. We just couldn't get it rolling, that was the biggest thing just rolling."

QB Sefo Liufau
ON THE LOSS – "Obviously it's tough. Any time you lose a close game, especially two weeks in row, it's going to be tough. I'm proud of the guys though and the way we fought. We're going to be a resilient team. We're going to bounce back from this. Everyone keeps hearing us say this but we're going to keep fighting and keep going."
ON THE IMPACT OF THE CALLS– "No, I don't think so. There's plenty of other plays. There's probably 180 other plays that go on during a game and those are things that we can't control. We just play in between the whistles and that's what we can control. That's what we can focus on."
ON OSU'S DEFENSE- "Not at all. We saw what they had on film. We game planned for them. I threw a pick, which is ill advised on my part but we had everything that they were going to run. We had it beat. It was just a little thing here, a little thing there that stopped drives. We're taking on a great defense right now and everyone sees that. But it's just a play here and a play there that we have to clean up which is the game."
ON DIFFICULTIES THAT THE OFFENSE FACED- "Obviously it's tough. They didn't do anything differently. I guess sure, they ran a little more man coverage but what does that have to do with us? Nothing. I mean, we're going down and I throw a 10 yard dig to Tyler [McCulloch] and we have hands to the face. It's little things like that that can kill drives and put you in setbacks and we just have to focus on consistency and going back and being sound in everything that we do."
ON Nelson Spruce'S PERFORMANCE - "It didn't take him away. Obviously the first quarter, I overthrew him. They got beat; no one can cover [Nelson] Spruce on that team. It's just a matter of executing and taking what the defense gives us. Not everyone's going to have a big game every play, even the pros. That's just how life goes. It's just spreading the ball around. You can't rely on [Nelson] Spruce. Tyler [McCulloch] played a good game, D.D [Goodson], Shay [Fields]. Even if they want to take Nelson Spruce away, we have everyone else."
ON HOW THE RUNNING BACKS PERFORMED TODAY- "Any time you have a well-balanced run pass game, the defense has to respect each one. So, it definitely helps. The running backs did a really good job carrying the ball today, the Offensive Line did a really good job opening up the holes for them."
ON THE FINAL POSSESSION-"We had a drop but we have three downs after that. You keep going, going through the plays. Just little setbacks here and there. Not getting out of bounds or not catching the ball or not running the right routes. Whatever other external things that happen that are out of our control. IT just happens that way and it's tough not executing. I'll take responsibility for that put that on my shoulders. It's just a matter of executing."
ON HOW THE TEAM WILL GROW FROM THIS LOSS- "It's not a hopefully. We're expecting to break down the door. It doesn't matter who we play, where we play, or anything like that. We're just going to take this bye week as time to heal some guys up, go over film, and pat some things down. A play here or there honestly changes the game. I wouldn't change, be on any other team, besides this one. I consider these guys my family and we're going to keep fighting and get ready to go."

WR Tyler McCulloch
ON THE LOSS – "It's, for me being a senior, I leave every game with such a sick feeling in my stomach. I can't even sleep at night after games because we're so close very week. We're so close but we're making changes but we just can't find a way to finish. We have to dig deep and find a way."
ON THE DIFFICULT FOURTH QUARTER- "We had all of the adjustments made at half time and I don't know if we came out a little flat or what changed but they did a good job. Their offense milked the clock and staying on the field and keeping us off the field. It was just too little too late."
ON THE SLOW FIRST QUARTER- "I wouldn't say it was anything that they were doing. We just finally started executing. Like we said, each play comes down to if one guy doesn't do his job on that play, it's going to change the outcome of the play. Everyone was just executing each play and we were just moving the ball down the field at will."
ON CU'S FINAL POSSESSION- "It just came down to execution. That's probably the best field position we had all day, we had timeouts. Things were looking good but we just didn't execute when we needed to."
ON HOW THIS LOSS EFFECTS THE TEAM- "I would say in the past [it was difficult to overcome losses] but there's something different about this team since last spring and the summer. This team is just resilient. I trust the guys on this team. They're smart and we're going to come back with even more of a hunger to get better and come back with a win against USC after our bye week."
ON HOW THE TEAM GREW TODAY- "I don't think of any game as a setback. Obviously we didn't win the game but I mean, our offense is hitting it. We're making plays all over the field so a lot of confidence. Our defense played well today. They made a bunch of stops when they needed to. It's obviously going to be frustrating to not play next week and sit with a loss for a while but we're going to just keep punching through the clouds."

TB Michael Adkins II
ON THE LOSS – "It's tough. It's really tough for us as a team. We're right there and we're just not putting it together enough to come out on top. It's really tough for the team."
ON HIS PLAYING TIME THIS GAME- "The coaches kind of get us ready during the week, it's who's on who's off. That's how that goes but I felt I played a pretty good game. I wanted to go out and do some things but it's tough not getting the victory."
ON HOW HE IMPROVED BEFORE TODAY'S GAME- "My mom gave me a little bit of encouragement last week and it's kind of carried on throughout this week. IT's from my pastor back home. He preached on shaking it off and stepping it up so those are the words that I've been going with. I kind of evaluated where I was at and I figured out where I needed to improve. I felt that that helped me during this game and it's going to help drive me the rest of the season."

DB Chidobe Awuzie
ON OSU QUARTERBACK SEAN MANNION – "Yeah, he's pretty good quarterback. I saw on our D-Line, when we get the opportunity to make plays, we have to make plays. Same thing with the secondary. The ball came up a couple times and we let them catch it. It's not about them, it's about us. So, we just have to make those plays when it comes to us."
ON WATCHING THE FINAL POSSESSION- "The only thing going through my head is that I believe in that offense. I believe that we're going to go down there and score. Obviously it didn't go our way but all we could do is believe in our offense. The step that we took this year is believing in each other, When we're down, we just believe that the offense is going to step up. When we come up, the offense believes in us so we just have to keep that belief going."
ON DEFENSIVE PENALTY CALLS- "There's an emphasis this year. They came and talked to us about calling more defensive holding, defensive pass interference and stuff like that. Going into the season, Coach [Mike] MacIntyre, Coach [Charles] Clark, Coach [Nate] Taye, those guys got us really ready to play technique sound football. Some of those calls, who knows, but all we can focus on is ourselves. They're going to call it how they call it and we have to play good technique."
ON IMPROVING ON THIRD DOWNS- "Those are the biggest plays in the game, those third down and sixes, third down and fives. We practice that, that's one of our goals to be the best in the Pac-12 in third downs in the red zone. We just came up short a couple of plays but that just goes back to practice. We have to be sharper, more crisp and play faster."

ILB Brady Daigh
ON THE PENALTY CALLS – "I don't think that's really anything that we can control, it's out of our control. We don't pick the refs or anything. We can control what we can during a game so that's what we have to focus on. Anything that happens there is out of our field."
ON THE BYE WEEK- "It'll give us some time to prepare for the next one. I think a lot of guys are hungry to get back on the field after a game like that. We have our bye week, we'll utilise it and do what we have to do with it. I definitely think we're ready to get back on the field. At the end of the day, as a team, we want to stop saying 'oh we were so close, we should have won that one' which has happened multiple times now. We want to get to a point where we're celebrating in the locker room afterwards."
ON THE CLOSE LOSSES THIS SEASON- "It's definitely a tough one to swallow. Throughout the past, we've had some games where we weren't there at the end. Obviously those games hurt where you're there at the end and really feel like you could win the game had a few plays gone the other way. It's a tough thing to swallow, especially our senior year. I'm sure Juda [Parker] feels the same way. It's tough having games like that that you look back on and say 'had we had a few more plays, we would have won that.'"
ON WHAT IMPROVEMENT NEEDS TO COME FROM TODAY'S GAME"I wouldn't say it's one thing. It's just consistency that we need to work on as a team. Playing four quarters in all three phases throughout the game at a consistent level where you're winning a good percent of your battles against the guy next to you. I think that's something to work on."
ON COACH MACINTYRE'S RESPONSE TO A FEW PENALTY CALLS- "Personally, I like seeing that. I like seeing a coach that will fight for his players, fight for his team. That just shows that he has his heart on his sleeve. As football players, this is a tough game, this is a tough man's sports. When we play this game, we wear our hearts on our sleeves because we give everything every single down. When we see our coach who can't be out there and play with us, when he's coaching them, he's going after the guys. We consider seeing him getting emotional. Personally as a player, I like seeing that because he really cares for the team."

DL Juda Parker
ON THE LOSS – "Whenever you have a close game like this, it's always heartbreaking and disappointing to the whole team. We prepare for a win, that's our mindset coming into every single game. When the game doesn't go the way we want it to, it's tough. All of the guys, this really hurts. We really feel that we should have won, we deserve to win. But, that's not how the game played out and that's how we feel right now."
ON THE FOURTH QUARTER- "It wasn't so much that they did anything different [in the fourth quarter]. It was just, defense, in that situation, we rose to the occasion. We made the plays and we made the stops like we had to. Our coaches put us in the right place and we made the tackles at the right time. We held the offensive line from getting up to our linebackers. We made certain stops so I feel that we did our jobs and rose to the occasion in that situation."
ON THE PENALTY CALLS- "I really feel that that's out of our control. I feel that the players play, the coaches coach, and the refs have to referee. We leave it as such. We can't think about those external things. So we have to do what we can do which is play in between the whistle. That's all we can control."
ON THE BYE WEEK- "The guys are definitely hungry. There's a sense of, we don't want the bye week, we want to play next week so we can get that win. We really feel that we're so close and we don't agree with people saying 'it's a moral victory.' We really want to win and get this thing rolling."
ON THE CLOSE LOSSES THIS SEASON- "Whenever you look back and come out with some reflections, it's always tough. You can say if 'we made a couple plays, we made the catch, we made the tackle' records could have been different, the outcome could have been so much different. We're just focused on this season and getting the next one. We're going to prepare for the win against USC and that's our mindset."
ON WHAT IMPROVEMENT NEEDS TO COME FROM TODAY'S GAME- "I wouldn't' be quick to judge. We're going to have to go over the film and coaches are going to have to look at it and we're going to have to look at it as players. We'll assess what we have to work on but I feel it's just too fast to point the finger right now."
ON COACH MACINTYRE'S RESPONSE TO A FEW PENALTY CALLS- "Coach MacIntyre is definitely an emotional fiery kind of coach so, when you see that stuff, it shows how invested he is and how much he cares about us as a program. We know how little calls like that can really change the tide of the game so, I agree with Juda [Parker] on that. It's kind of nice to see your coach out there fighting for you on those ones rather than just sitting back and letting the game take its course."

Oregon State Players

QB Sean Mannion
ON TURNING AROUND SECOND HALF – "Offensively we felt pretty good. I think we knew we could move the ball but it was the kind of thing where we got a couple field goals and wished they were touchdowns. I don't think it was all bad. Obviously we don't want to be trailing at half but I think offensively we were happy we were moving the ball. We had just a couple red zone trips where we got field goals instead of touchdowns."
ON COMING BACK FROM USC LOSS – "To be perfectly honest I just wanted to come out, relax, have fun, and play great football like I have since I was five years old. It really feels good when you come out here, you're enjoying it, having a fun time, not overthinking things, not stressing yourself out, and just playing ball."
ON RUNNING GAME EFFECTIVNESS – "They were outstanding and that is kind of how it's been all year. I can't say it enough but our offensive line is outstanding obviously for protection but also for the running game. When you couple those two things together it ends up being a great running game."
ON THE LAST SCORING DRIVE – "It was third and short, and that was a problem we ran into last week. I threw 1 for 10 or 11 on third downs, but we were saying all week a lot of it was because we weren't executing on first and second downs. We weren't getting ourselves into third and short, third and medium even, and it was better. I think we did a good job of executing every down. I don't know the numbers but I think we did a good job on third downs today because of that."
ON STRONG SECOND HALF – "I think it was just execution and adjustments. I think even in the beginning of the game we did a good job of moving the ball. We got a couple of third downs where we just couldn't convert, but we were sustaining drives then. I think it was that as the game went on we got a little sharper and we found some things in the defense we could work off of. It just comes down to executing late in games."
ON VICTOR BOLDEN'S RETURN – "It was huge, Victor is a great player. Obviously it was disappointing he couldn't play last week, but it was great having him back. Not only is he a great player, but also he's just a great guy to have on your team. Everyone feels good about having him out there."
ON ROAD CONFERENCE WIN – "It was very important. It was good that we could come that we could come right after a tough loss and handle the road game, the environment, and a tough opponent and really play well."
ON ANY CU DEFENSIVE SURPRISES – "Not really, but that being said we knew they were going to be tough. Obviously last year we put up some big numbers and what not, but we could tell on tape that they were a good defense. They're much improved, good athletes, and well coached. It was the kind of thing where we were expecting a battle and it was right down to the last possession."
ON TIGH TEND INVOLVMENT – "We are working off the defense. Every defense is going to be a little different and our game plan each week is going to be a little different. I try not to hone in on any one person or position. I just go for the reads the way they're meant to be and distribute the ball well."
ON AVOIDING SACKS – "I do take a lot of pride in that. Obviously, I'm not a really fast guy, but I think one of the misconceptions about playing quarterback, especially playing in the pocket, is that you have to be a great runner to be mobile. I don't think that's necessarily true. I think short, quick movements in the pocket where you're always ready to throw are huge for a guy who plays in the pocket like myself. It's something I work a lot on and it came up in the game a few times today."

DE Dylan Wynn
ON CU SECOND QUARTER BALL MOVEMENT – "They're a good team and they really picked up the tempo and started going to the edge. The problem with that is they have a strong pass attack so our corner's have to keep their eyes on they're guys, but they also have to show up on the edge. They're really good at what they do and they're a great team. We expected a fight. We knew this was going to be difficult. This is Pac-12 play, any body can beat any body."
ON TRANSITIONING TO TACKLE– "I've played tackle since I got here. I've played inside, outside, wherever I can help the team the best. With the injuries we had against USC it was just the best that I could do. I actually played tackle against USC, too. It's not a hard transition for me."

TE Caleb Smith
ON TIGHT END SEASON PROJECTIONS – "I'm pretty excited about where things are going to go. Our tight ends are making plays and we're running the ball well. Things are going to open up for us."
ON PASSING ATTACK IDENTITY FORMING – "We have young guys that haven't played before. When they get reps, get in the game and start feeling confident is when the young guys like Jordan Villamin and Hunter Jarmon start to make plays."
ON SIDELINE CONVERSATION WITH HAMLETT – "It's on us. No matter what happens we have to put the game on our shoulders and go out there and make plays."

RB Terron Ward
ON RED ZONE SUCCESS – "We knew after last week that we
could run the ball. I think we had good yards for carries last week and this week we came with the mindset that we had to run the ball to open up things. We want to be that point of offense that we can lean on. Week in and week out we come in and know that we can gain a hundred yards at least one person, sometimes two people. I think Storm [Woods] was about twenty yards away from going over one hundred. I like where the future is going with the running game and practice is going to make perfect."
ON PRACTICE THIS WEEK – "I feel like we can run the ball against anybody, Pac-12, it doesn't matter. We just have confidence in ourselves. Our line did a great job and you can't leave those guys out. They are making holes for us. It is easy to read and we're just running balls as hard as we can. It's not just me, I have to give credit to those five or six guys up front."

CB Larry Scott
ON COVERING Nelson Spruce – "It was just preparation throughout the week and the year. Steve [Nelson] and I have been working hard since January so when we have big games we are prepared. During the week we are watching film and breaking him down. We just came prepared. He's a good receiver and we came ready to go."
ON REASON FOR PLAYING OFF THE BALL – "At the end of the day to say that you're a lock down corner is something that is real. Some players are going to get catches, but if you leave then with no big catches then you did your job. Offense wants to have big chances, but if they have to work their way down the field they'll eventually make a mistake. If they make that mistake you did your job."
ON CU SPREADING THE BALL OUT – "It was great. I Felt like in the second half we caught our wind out here. We finally got to be balanced and become acclimated to the air. That last stand was just great. We have great defense and I feel like once we got settled down we played well."

Colorado University Athletics

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