Tuesday Press Conference Quotes

Colorado Head Coach Mike MacIntyre

Opening Statement
"First of all, there are a lot more important things today than this media conference. Make sure you go vote, I'm dead serious. That's where I'm going after this. That's an important part of the history of our country. Don't take it lightly."

"We're excited about going to play Arizona. They beat us the last three years. They play really well. I definitely feel like they should have beat Washington, they took them into overtime and ended up losing 35-28. Rich Rodriguez always has a way of getting his teams ready to go. They've been beat up with injuries, but it looks like – even though they had a rough game last week – they got both their quarterbacks back healthy. They're both really good players. That's the key in having your offense do really well. They moved the wide receiver Samajie Grant back to running back. He's played there a little while; he played there in high school. I looks like he starting to hit the holes like Rich would want him to in their offense. It's going to be a tough game for us. Our guys are excited about going there to play; it's always a tough place to play."

On Which College Football Coach He Would Elect As President
"David Cutcliffe. He's a well-rounded, solid man. He's very out-spoken. David Cutcliffe for sure, I'd vote for him for president. I wish he was running now to be honest."

On Special Teams Improving
"We keep moving forward. We've had some really good games, we've had some tough games. When you're going through all your kickers and all the things we've had happen – those kids are doing the best they can. They keep improving and we need to keep improving. I thought during the open week we worked on that hard and we saw some improvement in those areas."

On Phillip Lindsay's Assessment Of The Offense Not Being Focused The Past Two Weeks
"No, I don't agree with Phillip, but Phillip would say that after every practice if something went wrong. He's after everybody, he's the Tasmanian Devil. We had good practices. The other night we just shot ourselves in the foot and Stanford is really physical up front. We moved the ball, but we just didn't get it in the end zone. I've said it before, but there were two or three plays in that game that could have went either way in that game – if we don't get a penalty or didn't drop the ball going into the end zone. It's a whole different football game. That's how things happen. You have to win those football games. The Denver Broncos have a phenomenal team and they had a phenomenal year last year. I'm not comparing us to the Denver Broncos, but on their run people said, 'They're barely winning.' They just kept finding a way to win somehow some way. Our team has crossed that hump now. We could not have won the past two games the previous years I've been here, but they found out how to win, they found out how to keep playing, they don't blink, they don't ever give up. We'll start clicking on all cylinders again and I hope it's this weekend. I haven't seen a down practice or a practice where I really had to get after them. I hope Phillip does feel that way, because it's going to keep him motivated."

On Team Being The Hunted
"I talked to them about it last week. Basically everybody that we've played, when they show up to play us they think we're the same old Colorado. They come with the attitude, 'How can they beat us?' And they come with another set of intensity. As we keep going here, there will be more and more on the line and more things are magnified. You've got to keep growing as a team and not get individual in those situations. I definitely believe we'll do that. I think the other night was a good example of that for us to understand any type of retaliation or getting caught up in the moment or losing your cool can the hurt the team and the chance for doing something great. That's a learning experience. I think we all go through that when you move up in your job and you have kids; you've got more responsibility. You can't do the same things when you were 22. I think it's a growing process."

On The Penalties In The UCLA Game
"The personal fouls are judgement calls at times. If we don't get a personal foul every once in a while, we're probably not being real aggressive. I don't mean that mean or to do anything vicious, you just better play aggressive. The unsportsmanlike conducts after the play are what I'm ticked off about. You teach them how to target and every once in a while a quarterback's going to slide when you're going to hit him and you might hit him high. You're not trying to, but they call it and that's the way our game is now. That's the way it should be, we should protect them. After the play, hitting a guy, pushing a guy, jawing with a guy, that's totally selfish. All that does it hurts the team. You're going to have a personal foul every once in a while in football with guys running to the football and being aggressive. If you knock back the aggressiveness, then they're just going to run over you and get in the end zone all the time. There's a fine line there. After the whistle is blown, those are the types of plays that really irritates me. That's selfish. We addressed it clearly."

On Offense's Struggles The Past Two Games
"I think we moved the ball good. We had the unsportsmanlike conduct on the half-yard line on a second down. We dropped the ball on a handoff walking into the end zone. That's 14 points. At Stanford, we had a couple plays we could have gotten in and didn't. We missed three field goals. You get in on the one touchdown we got called back on us. If you make three of those four field goals, it's a whole different game. We'll start clicking and getting in there. They also made some plays on defense. You have those lulls on offense from time to time. That's why they always say offense lights up the scoreboard, but defense wins championships. You've got to have a good defense and we have a good defense. Our offense will start clicking and get in the end zone, and we're going to need to in these games coming up for sure. "

On Comparing Yourself To Other Pac-12 Teams
"Each game is a game within itself, that's truly the way it is. I don't know who's going to be healthy for our game next week and Washington State doesn't know who's going to be healthy. Comparing opponents to me this late in the season, there's so many things that go into it. I don't look at it that way. I look it like we got to win this game and then we'll try to find a way to win next week. I don't look at as a comparison for us the next week at all."

On Arizona Having A Running Threat At Quarterback
"Rich Rod's offenses have always had a running quarterback all the way back at West Virginia when they had Pat White. He was something else. He's always wanted good, running quarterbacks. When he has one, he's able to do a lot of things in his offense and get that going. He always wants to get his running back going on the inside zone and the stretch play. [Brandon] Dawkins is really able to run the ball really well, he's big and fast. Anu [Solomon] can really throw it and runs it okay, but not as good as Dawkins. We should be prepared for that. Last year, they did get us with [Jerrard] Randall. That changed the game on us. He made some good runs and they did a good job with that. I hope we're ready for that, we're preparing for it every way we can."

On Understanding Where Arizona Is This November
"I do think our guys have been in that situation before. They understand everybody's going to show up to play. It doesn't matter what everybody else says or what everyone's saying in the classroom. They've been in that exact same situation. Hopefully they feed off that memory."

On Kickers Dealing With The Mental Part Of The Game
"[Team Sports Psychologist] Chris Bader does a good job. We have a sports psychologist on staff. We talk to him all the time. It's just like your golf swing. You've just got to go out there and do it on the practice range. With everybody there, you've got to come through. Chris [Graham] did better last week and I think he's done better this week. I thought Davis [Price] kicked good. I feel like those guys can definitely do it, they've just got to consistently do it when the pressures on. I think the more they do it and the more they're in that, they get mentally tougher. Davis will be healthy for Saturday."

On A Time When Something Changed With The Team
"I had said it's a process, and when we're good enough to do it, we'll do it. There are milestones along the way that all those build up to it – from practice to workouts to meetings to individual meetings to different games. They can handle the moment now if it's good, bad or indifferent. They keep pushing through it. In the past when they weren't sure about that, they panic a little bit and lose focus. I think now we crank our intensity up as a whole group. I felt like it was building all along through spring. I thought summer camp I saw it, because they came every day ready to go; and I would challenge them in different ways and they would always meet the challenge as a whole group. That's where I saw a lot of it happening."

On Offense Responding To Adversity
"They're practicing hard, they understand where we are. We had some chances for some big plays that we didn't make that were there. They made some plays on us too. We've got to keep fighting and eventually, like I said before, the dam will break again. It's a little bit of a rhythm situation, we got out of rhythm with some penalties. That always hurts an offense. If you can get in rhythm, it keeps yourself going. We haven't been able to stay in rhythm as much as we were earlier. That's part our fault and part the dudes on the other side too."

On Play Of The Offensive Line
"I definitely think they really improved. They played well enough for us to win all the football games. Some games they haven't played as well as in others. We knew [Takkarist] McKinley would be a beast out there. He made some plays that we thought he would. We hoped he wouldn't just wreck the game and he didn't just wreck the game, but he did make a couple plays that helped them. We definitely would have liked to have handled him a little better a couple times, but we did handle enough to be able to move the ball and do some things there. I look forward to see how they respond and play this week and keep gelling. I think they've played well enough for all nine games for us to win all nine. There were moments that were not as good as others, but there were moments we dominated too. I think there were more moments where we controlled and dominated than there were negative moments over the nine games."

On Health Of Sam Kronshage
"Sam should be back. He has that AC joint, so he's really sore. We'll see. He did a little bit more today and he'll be able to do a little more tomorrow."

On Sefo Liufau Not Being Content With The Offense's Performance
"I think it turns into a big motivation for him. He takes full responsibility if the offense doesn't execute or score like it should. He feels like he didn't play as good as he could have in certain situations; sometimes it wasn't his fault on certain things. He sees where we want to go and he wants to make sure we get there. He's mature enough to understand that a win's awesome, but also he can learn from this to reach our ultimate goal. To me, that's a true, mature champion. He's grown into that process. My youngest son was teasing me after I got home after UCLA, 'Dad, a year ago you would have been cheering and jumping up and down. Everything's changed hasn't it?' He was ribbing me a little bit. I smiled and said I need to enjoy it. At the same time, we're looking for something more than just a Pac-12 South win. Before we were just trying to find a Pac-12 South win; now that's all changed. That's a good thing; it shows you where we've grown to. I think that's the same way Sefo feels."

On The College Football Playoff Ranking
"Dave Plati will call me tonight and tell me what we're ranked. I won't watch it. I'll be here watching Arizona and watching our practice film and talking to some of our kids and coaches and recruiting and worried about academics. You wear about 25 different hats. I won't worry about all that until the end. The more we're on television and the more we're ranked, I do notice it helps recruiting. That's a good thing when you call a kid tonight and you've gotten ranked. We understand we take care of everything on the field."

On Possibility Of College GameDay Coming To Boulder
"That's Dave Plati, Jason [Clay] and all those guys. Of course that would be fun for our university and our team. That would be great. If we keep winning, things like that happen. That's what I keep telling our guys all the time, just keep focusing on the game at hand. If you get that game, and the next one, everything just keeps falling into place and you'll reach all your goals."

On Louisville Head Coach Bobby Petrino Saying The Rankings Only Take Into Account Blowout Wins
"No, I'm not aware of it. I think if you just win and take care of it, you'll move where you're supposed to go."

Running Back Phillip Lindsay

On Keeping The Team Loose Going Forward
"We just need to keep doing the same things that we've been doing. That's what got us here in the first place. Everybody just need to continue holding everyone accountable and themselves accountable. Everything else will fall into place. At the end of the day we're in it for each other and that's all that matters. If we keep this bond and brotherhood that we have together it's going to be hard to beat us. And it's going to be hard for us to get unfocused because we're going to keep each other focused."

On Not Looking Past Arizona
"It's not difficult because we just need to focus on one game at a time. We stay one game at a time, play Colorado football, and we know its Arizona week. You get a lot of hype about the games coming up that might make you look past Arizona. But Arizona is a good physical team and we're playing them at their home. So we need to just keep focused with the task at hand and that's playing Arizona this week. So it's not difficult because we're not going to make things difficult, this week it's all about Arizona."

On Addressing Personal Foul/Unsportsmanlike Conduct Penalties From The UCLA Game
"We handled everything; that performance wasn't like us. At the end of the day that's not what
Coach Mac is about, and that's not what he's built at this program. That's just not what this program is about period. We just addressed, we looked each other in the face and said that we're not going to do that. Because that will get us beat later on down the road, making stupid penalties like we did. We just need to hold each other accountable. And watch each other because that's what it's all about."

On Playing A Desperate Team Like Arizona On The Road
"It's going to be tough. Arizona's going to give us everything that they've got. They're a very physical and talented team. They're looking to knock us off and win their game. Just like we did in the past few years. We always went into a game ready to win. And that's not going to change for them. So we need to just go in there and play football. It's another game and the offense needs to put up the points that we did in the past, we need to start gelling and getting back to playing Colorado football."

On Where The Offense Needs To Improve
"Sometimes you get in a lull and you can't control it. We just need to go out there and execute, that's just it period. Our defense is playing phenomenal right now and we just need to take pressure off of them by moving the ball. It's about getting that first, first down and it's about keeping drives alive. If we can do that then we'll score."

On Contributing In The Passing Game Against UCLA
"It was pretty much what the defense was giving us. The defense wasn't letting our receivers go deep on them. They doubled up our receivers a lot during the game. So we just took what they gave us. And a lot of times they left me open and Sefo [Liufau] was able to find me. Of course we want to move the ball downfield to our receivers, that's our goal all the time but sometimes with the double coverage it can be tough. And once you get the ball in your hands you've got to make that play, because all of your brothers are expecting you to make that play. So for me I just need to continue to make big plays, and make even bigger plays then I did in that game."

On Teams Adjusting To The Passing Game's Early Success
"It's going to be difficult for defense's to just key on all of our wide receivers. It's just different game plans that we're facing. This week they may key on the running back and leave our receivers one-on-one which is what we hope happens. Or it just may go the opposite and they say let's just go and double up on the receivers, and let's see what else they can utilize."

On Where Accountability Comes From
"Our coaches are doing a great job. How we performed against UCLA, that's not coach Mac's character right there. It comes down to the captains of our team – that's myself, Sefo, George [Frazier] and Jeromy [Irwin]. We're the people that our own players elected. We've got to be able to handle that and it falls on us. So we've got to go back, which we have and it's not going to happen again. People don't have to worry about us playing like that again, and we've just got to go out and play Colorado football."

On The Offense Realizing They Need To Pick It Up Down The Stretch
"You definitely don't want to always leave your defense out to dry all the time because that doesn't feel good. We know each other on a personal level, and for them to go out there and put their bodies on the line for us to get the ball back. We have to help them out and score points. And we've just got to get back to our groove, and we will this week. We're already a more focused team, and we're hungry. That's where I feel like in the past, we weren't as hungry. What you do in practice shows up on the field, and what we did in practice for the past couple of weeks, wasn't what we were used to. And this week we went to square one and we're getting that groove back."

Defensive Back Isaiah Oliver

On How He Began Returning Punts
"I didn't do any of it last year but this year during fall camp I caught a couple punts just trying it out for the first time. Then Jay MacIntyre got the start and was doing well throughout the year but then got that concussion against Arizona State. So, they put me back there at practice again and I was able to catch them much more comfortably and Coach Daprato said he believed in me to go back there and catch. Then, Coach MacIntyre green-lighted it and we rolled from there."

On How The Team Is Handling Success
"Regarding that, I feel like we are handling it well. We have a lot of seniors on this team who have been through a lot of adversity and everything that this program has been through the past few years with the downs and the losses. They're excited to be able to start winning and reaching the goals that we set for ourselves. At the same time, we also wake up every day and know we've been trying to be Pac-12 Champions ever since before the season started in fall camp and that was before anyone believed we could do it. People didn't think that after nine games in the season we'd be on top of the Pac-12 South. We know that every day that we come out to practice so that's how we're able to not get caught up in the noise and in expectations from other people. We set those for ourselves and already had the highest expectations that anyone could set."

On The Importance Of Playing A Complete Game
"It's going to be very important. To win these games that we have left we're going to need all phases of this game including special teams. That's something Coach Mac has talked about this week; we still have to play a complete Colorado football game in terms of great offense, great defense and great special teams inside of one game. We've had great offense some games, we've had great defense some games and as you saw last week, we had great special teams. But we've yet to have that all in one. That's what we're looking to do this weekend against the University of Arizona so we can really see where we're at."

On Participating In The Decathalon
"It's definitely something that's fun. It's something I've been doing since I started track. It's something that my dad did so that's how I got into it. It's definitely a lot of fun. In terms of helping me with football, it makes me a better athlete all around in terms of speed, jumping ability, all of that. It all translates into football."

On Returning Home To Arizona
"For me personally it's going to be a lot of fun for my family to come out to the game and to basically play in front of a home crowd for me. In terms of us preparing for Arizona, we prepare for every team the same way every single week. It doesn't matter if we're playing the number one team in the nation or the team that's not ranked or anything like that. We prepare the same way every week in practice. We don't take any team lightly."

On Not Receiving An Offer From Home State Arizona Schools
"It's not something that I necessarily think about but it's always in the back of my mind when we play ASU or Arizona. Just knowing that I came from Arizona and looked for those schools to offer me and they didn't. There's always a little bit of extra motivation to show them that this is where I'm at now. There's definitely a lot of those people back home from my high school that ask me about CU and how I like it. I tell them that every decision they make is up to them and that everyone is going to have a different take on a different school. Once they find one that they like, it's up to them."

On How The Veteran Secondary Mentors Him
"I try to learn from them every single day that we go out and practice, not only how they play the game of football and what the coaches look for from them on the field but also how they handle themselves, how they handle being leaders of the team and seniors, having everyone look up to them, having people ask them questions about, 'what scheme is this?', 'how do we attack this play and that play?'. I just have to learn how to handle that so when I get asked those questions next year, I'm able to respond to our younger guys and prepare them for the season."

On Games Ending On Special Teams' Shoulders
"It's something that we take pride in. We look for that. At the end of the games we want the game to be on our shoulders and the game is on our line and everything like that. But we always feel like we'll measure up to any team in the Pac-12 and be able to win that game."

On Preparation for Arizona
"That's something that Coach Leavitt talked to the defense specifically about. He basically said that once you come in to U of A on Saturday, the week previous doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't matter that we beat UCLA with great defense. It doesn't matter that they got beat by Washington State. All that matters is those four quarters in front of us. We're preparing that way. We know that they're going to come out with everything they've got to knock us off of our high horse and everything like that. We're looking for a great game and I know that we'll be ready for it."

On The Hardest Part Of Learning To Return Punts
"The hardest thing to learn is the rotation of the ball. Sometimes when the tip is going down you know it's going to stop a lot shorter. When it's up, it's carrying. So being able to see that as well as seeing where the gunners are at and the people coming down, judging whether or not you need a fair catch and doing that all of that at the same time is probably the number one thing that I still need to learn."

Colorado Head Coach Mike MacIntyre

Running Back Phillip Lindsay

Defensive Back Isaiah Oliver

Players Mentioned

Sam Kronshage

Phillip Lindsay

Sefo Liufau

Jay MacIntyre

Isaiah Oliver

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