Colorado-Air Force Quotes - University of Colorado Athletics

Wyoming

Sep 20 (Sat)

8:15 p.m.

Colorado Head Coach Karl Dorrell

Opening statement
“Tough day for us. Obviously, it was a disappointing performance. We didn't play well, we didn't play to our capabilities. I felt that at times the defense did some really positive things. They got us some turnovers. Offensively we didn't capitalize on a lot of those plays. We didn't keep ourselves in the game. In the second half, we had a chance again. We give up the ball deep into the red zone on the two-yard line. We also don't convert on a couple of fourth downs that we need to convert on. Obviously, they did and we didn't. They played better than we did today and were obviously deserving of the wins. We have a tremendous amount of work to do. We’ve got to find some rhythm offensively at some point, we’ve got to get going there. We went with a quarterback change and I think that there were some good things and not-so-good things. We’ve got to continue this work and develop this football team. It's unfortunate though that we had a performance like that but the coaches and myself, we all take responsibility for it when we keep coaching these guys.”

On Alex Fontenot’s Fumble
“It's not even worth commenting on because it doesn't change anything. It would have for sure but I'm saying right now to talk about it's like after they make that call and make that determination, you have to just roll with the punches and keep going. That was an unfortunate opportunity we didn't get a chance to capitalize on along with a couple of other fours and twos that we didn't capitalize on as well.”

On if JT Shrout’s Performance Was Weather Related
“I would say some of. I'm not sure if all of it. It's his first start. I think the weather played a factor for sure but, both our quarterbacks and we have a third Owen McCown and Drew Carter, so we're going to have to really continue to kind of find someone that can give us a spark. We're going to continue to work on that position as well.”

On the Challenges of Stopping the Run Game
“It was a tackle well enough, I will say from a complete game standpoint. Offensively, though, you got to say the same thing. We couldn't sustain any drives consistently enough and those are the two things we talked about throughout the whole week, about how we need drive consistency, about getting in the red zone and getting points. We did okay at times, but we didn't do enough. We just have a lot of work to clean up with. We're really at the bottom and we're trying to work our way back up right now.”

On the Minimal Recovery Time
“That's what's great about the season. You kind of get into a rhythm of playing on Saturdays. Our conference schedule is always tough. Minnesota obviously is a very good program too, we played them a year ago and they beat us badly in our place and now we're going to their place so we have a lot of work to do and it's just what it is. I think there are no complaints about the schedule. We're just going to continue to get better and try to climb and get better each and every week.”

On his Team Being Discouraged
“They are discouraged right now. They are. I just had a great talk with them though and they're willing to fight. They want to fight and they want to get better. It's almost like the same story I keep talking about right now. I'm tired of really talking about it. We need to put it out front and play. We need to coach better, we need to play better so there's no easy way to say it other than you’ve got to work harder to get better. That's really where we're at. I say that in terms of the same story about our inefficiencies. It's been two weeks in a row now. You're saying are the right people here to get that fixed? Yeah, absolutely. It just hasn't hit home yet. Sometimes with younger players, it takes a little bit of time, but I don't like to use that excuse. They play football in high school, they're playing in college. It's the same game, the talents are a little higher, bigger level, but we’ve got to play better. The bottom line is we were not playing well. We've had good practices, but that hasn't translated to what it should look like on Saturdays so we'll get better.”

On the Decision to Only Play Shrout
“My gut told me to keep him in there because he hasn't played and he needs work. He didn't pull obviously, he didn't play as well as he expected himself to play and he needs a lot of work. I think that was really the right thing to keep grinding on him just so we can get a good evaluation of what we think he is. We'll get a chance to visit and watch on the tape and talk about what we do moving forward, but that was something that I felt strongly about. Mike (Samford) asked me, do we want to make a change at some point in the second half. I said let's keep him in. Let's just keep grinding with him because he's got to play. He hasn't played in two years, and he needs to learn how to play.”

On the Competition Between the Quarterbacks
“He (Shrout) hasn't proven anything to think that he's the guy. We have to continue to develop that position. Maybe we need to look at some of these younger guys too. Younger than our younger guys. It is what it is, but it's a challenge right now that I think we need a spark.”

On Not Being Able to Score
“It's a challenge. Those are always challenging every time you do that. It's always a disappointment on any level when you don't convert, but we'll just keep working at it. We're gonna keep trying. We're going to keep working, there's gonna be fourth downs and we're going to continue to go for it. At some point, we need to convert.”

On Trevor Woods Getting Ejected
“It hurt a lot as you saw. He's one of our oldest safeties as a sophomore. Then we played a couple of other guys after him but he had a really good game up to that point. It's unfortunate for him with the targeting call. He's gonna miss some time in the next game unfortunately for him but he was playing well.”

On Isaiah Lewis
“Isaiah is ok. I don't think there was anything major today other than bumps and bruises.”

Colorado Players

OL Casey Roddick

ON TEAM MINDSET- “We've dealt with so much adversity, a lot of the seniors on his team, a lot of adversity. But what just happened in that locker room, the talk that we just had, this cannot happen again. Point blank and simple, this cannot happen again. From myself, from this offensive line, from this defensive line and everybody else on that on that field. The taste in your mouth is left after that? That's unacceptable. And we know that. We see that we see how good we can be but it's just not being taken onto the field on Saturday. I mean, you guys have been at practice. You see, you see how dominant we can be. But for some reason, this is not coming over to Saturday. So, well, it's going to get fixed. We know that.”

ON WHAT NEEDS TO BE FIXED OFFENSIVELY –“Today? It was it was it was rough in general. I think that obviously with how wet it was outside, our passing efficiency wasn't up to par. Running standards weren't up to par either. There was some heavy boxes. They were moving a lot but that's no excuse for what happened. I think that offensively there's little things that you can fix. Obviously we're down at the goal line at the two and we have a fumble. It's tough. It's deflating. Get that and it's 20-17 we're still coming back in the game. Defense played their (expletive) off; I want to I want to give a shout out to the defense team (Terrance) Lang, (Jalen) Sami, Na’im (Rodman), Josh Chandler-Semedo, Rob (Barnes), all those guys on that front seven. And to keep that game as close as it was, as long as they could, that's kudos to them and you guys can see how great they are defensively when they need it. Offensively, you have a lot of stuff to fix. So we're excited for that for this next week.”

ON IF THE GOAL-LINE FUMBLE WAS DEFLATING-“At that point? No, no, I mean, we had a talk last night with this team when you handle adversity you aint new to it you true to it. And so a lot of the guys - we've dealt with so much adversity greater than football to where in something happens on the field you already been through it. Might as well to keep going. That's the thing about it. I mean, yes, deflating but so what? Now what?”

DL Jalen Sami

ON DEFENSE- “I was pretty proud of us. We didn't give up. We still were out there fighting for 60 minutes working trying to get the ball to our offense, which we did, causing three turnovers. So that's one thing we keep our heads up on. But at the end of the day, we didn't get the job done.”

ON PLAYING NEAR HOME, FALCON STADIUM-“It was kind of surreal because I had about 50 people come support me, it’s only 10-15 minutes away from house so it was fun. I used to be come here to watch some games before. They're a good team. They executed pretty good.”

ON HIS FORCED FUMBLE-“Initially, I thought it was a they scored the touchdown because I tackled on the side of the endzone. Afterwards. I think that was just you know, that's just changing moment for our defense to know that the game's not over. We still had a whole second half and we just got to keep doing what we're supposed to do. And so getting 11 heads to the ball that was key. And so I was just glad I made a play in the space, especially on the goal line.”

ON FRUSTRATIONS-“We’re all definitely frustrated, as that's just not who we are, or at least so that's not how we portray our identity. They’re a good team, they attacked us and defensively we had a pretty solid game. They still scored on us and they executed pretty well. So just go into watching film, see it tomorrow and then try to make differences make changes.”

ON MOVING FORWARD- “Week two. We still have conference games coming up. So we just got to keep our head on the right path and move on to the next game, understand and see our mistakes. We can look forward to Minnesota next week but we definitely got to look deeper inside ourselves individually and just see what we can do to change and become better.”

ON GUARDING AGAINST POINTING FINGERS-“It's definitely frustrating; to have three turnovers and then scoring only three points off of those three. But you know, we don't try to hold that against the offense. They weren't connecting early and so we defensively have to take that upon ourselves. And we started off on a bad first play and they score it and so we just got to be more prepared and more focused on locked in and what our details and our techniques.”