I'm off an a much-anticipated Labor Day weekend vacation, so I'm posting these quotes and then leaving the site to the people. It's the future Marcus Aurelius always wanted for Card Chronicle.
Louisville Head Coach Charlie Strong
(Opening Statement)
"We’re happy to get the win. We’re 1-0 but you look at it, it’s just a tale of two halves. The first half you look at the offense and we were executing well. Defensively we played well, then the second half, you get a half when there’s just no rhythm and you have to have rhythm. You have to have execution."
"We kept turning the football over. You look at the turnovers by our running backs. Vic Anderson has a turnover, and then Jeremy Wright, then the ball falls out of Stein’s hands. But this is a game that we can learn a lot from. It’s good that we get the victory, and now we have a lot of work to do. We’re nowhere near where we should be. You look at the first game, I thought we would have executed better."
"I thought we would have made more plays. But you look at our receivers and DeVante Parker is very talented. One of these days, we’re going to look up and say, ‘wow what a great player.’ He doesn’t do nothing but work. And I told Stein, ‘well if you throw the ball up, he’ll go up and get it for you.’ Michaelee made some catches for us. So if you look that position, we’re very talented. I was pretty pleased at the way our corners held up."
"You know, you’re looking at an offense that had 10 starters back. A quarterback that averaged throwing the ball over more than 300 yards, did not give up any big plays in the secondary, blitzed a lot, was not afraid of great pressure. Overall I was pleased with the way our defense played and that we can get better on defense, but we have to improve on offense, in order for us to continue to make steps in this program."
(On this being a defensive team)
"Well if you look at our offense, we started five new guys on offensive line. Mario (Benavides) didn’t play tonight. (John) Miller, who’s a true freshman, you look at Jake Smith, who’s a redshirt freshman, then you look at (Hector) Hernandez who is a tackle senior in your program who hasn’t played much, and then (Ryan) Kessling who hasn’t played much. So you look at our offensive line. Actually, we’re just trying to develop and gel together in the offensive line. The quarterback, you lose your two starting quarterbacks. (Will) Stein comes in as quarterback, but it’s fortunate tonight we were able to play all three of them. Teddy (Bridgewater) comes in with a series and ends up throwing the ball down the middle and ends up throwing the pick, but he’s going to play more. Then Dominique (Brown), he’s our wild card guy, but he’s a guy who can get behind the pass. He can do a lot for us, whether it be at quarterback, receiver, or running the football. And then the wide receivers, but we just have to play better. We know that we’re better than that on offense. Defensively, even without (Greg) Scruggs, we are a limited number tonight. BJ Butler not playing at all, Brandon Dunn not playing at all. Roy Philon didn’t play tonight. There are four guys right there not playing. I was very pleased to see Marcus Smith, Malcolm Mitchell, and Randy Salmon. We had some guys that played a lot tonight on defense, but I was just very pleased with the way our corners played."
(On the fake punts)
"With the fake punt, we noticed it was just the way they lined up. We knew that we could get that the first time, and it actually worked. With the second time, it was a floater, and anytime there’s a floater we should have caught it off and tried to run it again. We should have made the play to Philpott. But the first one, it was in the bag. It’s good that we were able to fake that punt and gave them something to practice."
Alex Kupper, Jr., C
(On the team’s play tonight)
"We had our fair share of mistakes, but as far as coming out there and playing fast I thought we executed pretty well. For being a young group there will be mental errors, but for the most part I thought we executed pretty well"
(On if there was a sense of frustration)
"Yes, when our drives get stop and you’re looking around wondering what’s going on, you don’t want to point the finger at people and wonder what happened and when you have turnovers it slows things down. It was frustrating, but you as a team have to be a veteran group and gel together and let mistakes roll off your shoulder"
(On the scoring drought)
"Our rhythm changed, we had an up-tempo offense going and one little mistake led to another and then a fumble which slowed our tempo down. In turn, it led to frustration and people missing blocks"
(Did Murray State change their defense to cause the scouring drought?)
"They were moving the front line pretty much every play, they weren’t going to let us just pound the ball on them all day. So they had to make a change and that’s what they did, which made us change our game plan up a little bit. Other than that they didn’t do anything special."
(On getting the offensive line better prepared for the next game)
"We need to come in tomorrow and view the tape and see what we did wrong and fix the mistakes. Every single game we are going to get better, we have shown that in camp and we are going to show that in the season."
Will Stein, Jr., QB
(How would you evaluate your performance?)
"It was decent, I should have played a lot better, and we left a lot of points out there. The offense runs through the quarterback so I have to play better for this team and especially in the weeks ahead."
(What happened in the second half?)
"We couldn’t really find a rhythm. They were blitzing a lot and stopping our run game. We had no rhythm and put ourselves in bad situations. We have to get on a better schedule and that means getting four yards a play"
(How did the coaches respond to the team’s performance?)
"Coach Strong is happy, a win is a win, and I totally agree. It’s good to be 1-0 and to feel that victory feeling. As a player I always feel like I could have done something better. We have to look at the film and see what we need to fix and correct that for next week."
(Are you disappointed in the offense?)
"I’m not disappointed in anybody. I take a lot of pride in my play and I’m very happy that we won. I couldn’t be more proud, but as a player I feel like I left a lot of plays out there and we should have scored more points."
(On the play of the offensive line)
"I think they did pretty well. We threw for over 200 something yards and ran for over 100 something. As a whole we did well, but as an offense we need to be better, but a win is a win."
Victor Anderson, Jr., RB
(On the offensive performance)
"We played well in the first quarter. We just got out of rhythm a little bit and then went downhill from there. We can’t let that get to us in games to come. We got to come out and continue to push like we started the game."
(On his first touchdown since 2009)
"It felt pretty good. The guys up front did a great job blocking and sealing the edge. I just bounced it outside and used my speed to get to the end zone, but the guys up front did it all."
(On how he is feeling physically)
"Yes sir it feels good to be back."
(On the rhythm of the offense after the second quarter)
"Like I said we got out of rhythm there a little bit and when you get out of rhythm we’ve got to continue to play and not let that get to us. We have to come out and play with speed and intelligence. We have to come out and play like we practiced and that is fast and clicking on all cylinders."
(On the young guys)
"We have a great, young, talented freshman class and these guys are going to be unbelievable stars in games to come. We just have to come out and continue practice well and play well."
(On all points being scored by Louisville kids)
"We were talking about that a little on the sideline but that doesn’t really mean anything. We just got to come together as a team. We are one family and we just have to continue to push."
(On what knocked them off rhythm)
"That’s a good question we just came out had a couple good plays and then all of a sudden we just got off rhythm. We can’t do that if we want to continue to win ball games. But we are 1-1and half the teams in the country will be 0-1 after this weekend so we are just going to enjoy this victory and get to practice on Saturday."