Sept. 11, 2004

Maryland Head Coach Ralph Friedgen
On the second win of the season:
"It was a good win and now we have to go up and play a very good football team in Morgantown next week. That will be a real test to see where we are as a team. We improved over the last week. We played better. With the exception of one fumble in the second half I thought we executed very well. I tried to play a lot of people tonight because we might need them down the road. We had a lot of kids playing for the first time."

On the play of starting QB Joel Statham:
"Joel Statham had a good game. Joel played tonight like what we see in practice. I thought he had a lot more confidence tonight and I think he benefited from last week's game. He came up to me afterwards and said, `Coach, I'm sorry about the fumble.' I told him, `The thing you've got to learn, Joel, is that you can do a lot of good things but you just need to take the turnovers out of your game.' And hopefully he'll do that. He'll learn how to tuck that ball away."

On the play of the Maryland receivers:
"I felt our receivers played very, very well. I knew they'd have to have a big game if we were to be successful and they did. They rose to the occasion and made some plays and some great catches to help Joel. We were getting the ball to the open man and spreading it around."

On the play of Maryland RB Sam Maldonado:
"Maldonado had another good game. Sammy was very, very good. He played hard today and plays hard everyday. He ran hard and I don't think he had any mental errors. He's a punishing back and he's going to run over you. We call him Sammy the Bull."

Maryland sophomore quarterback Joel Statham
On the game:
"Their defense allowed us to throw the ball and I just came out and improved on last week's performance."

On the running game:
"It is definitely huge for me because I get the feeling that those guys behind me will take some pressure off of me. Once those guys are running well, it opens up the passing game like it did tonight."

On the option attack:
"It felt good. Last week, it was a little bit of jitters. "[The fumbles are] something that I normally don't do. I haven't messed up on it in practice. It was the first game things and tonight we ran it and didn't have to pitch it much. I just need to cut out the one fumble I had and everything else will be alright."

Maryland senior tailback Sammy Maldonado
On his bruising running style:
"I never stop. If [my offensive lineman] are in my way, there's no way I can move so I just have to bang them up. I tell them after every play I'm sorry, but they understand. ... I'm not one to make a lot of moves, so I just got to go in there and get five yards."

On the Terps' balanced attack:
"It feels really good that we have a good quarterback back there. We understand that we have to get a running game going to get our passing game going, so it felt real good to see Joel passing the ball and to see our passing game get better and better each week."

Maryland senior offensive guard C.J. Brooks
On the game:
"We had a good week of preparation for Temple. We knew that we had to come in and play better than we did last week. We had a pretty good showing last week, but we still had to make improvements and that is what we did tonight."

Temple Head Coach Bobby Wallace
On the second-half play of his team:
"The way our players fought in the second half showed a lot of character and a lot of fight. The second half of this game was the best we've played all year long. Hopefully we're growing as a team. We showed a lot of heart, a lot of guts and a lot of togetherness on the sideline. I'm proud of them."

On falling behind 28-0:
"We couldn't execute in the first half offensively, and I was very disappointed. Defensively, every time we got them in a long yardage situation, they completed passes. Especially on extra long yardage, we force the quarterback to throw the ball down the field and [Statham] made great throws."

On the play of Maryland starting QB Joel Statham:
"We felt like early in the game he was a little inaccurate. We tried to force him to throw the football, but we gave him easy throws. Then he got into a rhythm and threw some really excellent passes, especially in the long yardage situations. He settled down and made some really nice plays in the middle of the game. He's growing as a quarterback."

On the play of Temple starting QB Walter Washington:
"He's not throwing well right now. Why he's doing that, I have no idea. He doesn't do it in practice. I thought his protection was a lot better this week [than last week]. He's got to be more accurate. But he fought in the second half and he carried them into the end zone. I'm glad he's on our side. He's going to get better and better as the year goes on."

On the difficult start to the Temple season:
"We've got to schedule tough teams. We have played two outstanding teams. We're not at their level yet. We don't have the personnel that they have yet. We've got to fight to have a winning season and we have a chance to do that the way we played in the second half."

Junior quarterback Walter Washington
On the first half:
"We just had a hard time getting out. The field was kind of awkward and my balls were beginning to sail ... We have a hard time getting started the first half. I really don't know what it is. I wouldn't say I was getting overhyped. I was pretty calm, pretty poised in the pocket. I believe I had a lot of time to throw the ball. I don't know if I had my shoulder high or not, it's just the ball sailed on me."

On the second half:
"I felt like we had the momentum in the second half. We came out believing we could move the ball, knowing our mistakes, correcting our mistakes and being able to execute. ... We believe that [Joel Statham's third quarter fumble] was a big momentum change for us and we were able to capitalize on it. We didn't make that many mistakes in the first half, but in the second half we made some critical mistakes that cost us the game."

Temple junior tailback Tim Brown
On the team's performance:
"It's a matter of just executing, coming out early and putting points on the board. We were trying to play catch up. I thought we did a good job in the second half. Everybody played like a team."