Head Coach Randy Edsall
Opening Statement:
“It's good to win. I appreciate the effort that our players put forth this past week in terms of preparing themselves to go out and get the win. I saw a lot of guys do a lot of good things today, but there are still plenty of things that we can get better at and we will. I think that moving forward, we have the right mindset.”
On the defensive differences this week:
“Guys just did their jobs. We still missed some tackles and missed a couple things but some of those things don't show up as much when you have guys running to the ball and doing the things they're supposed to do. I think we did a better job of communicating today and we knew we were going to have our hands full with the run game and I thought we did an excellent job with the passing game by only holding them to 60 yards.”
On Caleb Rowe:
“Everybody wants to praise him because of the stats. He did some very good things out there, but as a quarterback, you can't throw three picks. Those picks led to their points. Some of the things in the huddle were not as crisp as they needed to be. So as much as everything shows up on the stat sheet with the numbers, there's still a whole lot of things he needs to do to be better. We had opportunities to go up even more but we throw a pick, and those are things we can't have moving forward. But again, I thought he went out a made a lot of excellent throws.”
On Sean Davis:
“Sean is a guy that if he doesn't play his best, he wants to make sure he goes out and redeem himself and work hard. He didn't say a whole lot all week long. He went out there and worked and really started to focus and concentrate on his fundamentals and techniques. He put last week behind him and came out and played better today. He had two picks and I thought he was a little bit more aggressive today. Again, I thought he really did some good things. He got challenged and he responded and that shows the type of kid he is. He didn't get down on himself and he kept working. He's a competitor.”
On the freshmen's performances:
“The one thing is, these guys, they're not afraid. They want to compete. These guys have shown us the ability that they can go in and handle and play and do the things that we want them to do. We are not going to hold back. It's a long season. We are going to have to play a lot of guys. Those young guys I think handled themselves real well in the situation.”
On the play and confidence of the defense:
“I think what happened is they understood just how hard they have to play. How hard you have to play each and every week. How the attention to detail has to be there each and every week. And what they know is that this game is over with and now we have to go and get ready to prepare for another really difficult team next week and you can carry these things over.”
Quarterback Caleb Rowe
On today's game:
“It was a great team win, the guys played very well. It's not about the individual numbers if you get a win. I feel like our team played very well, our defense played well. It was a good team win.”
On his interceptions:
“I'm expected to throw touchdowns. I'm expected to not throw interceptions. I just have to play better and be smarter with the football. I have to make better decisions and not force things. These are all things that the coaches preach to me and something I have to improve on.”
On how the vertical passing game improves the offense:
“I think it helps the balance. It helps the running backs and it helps the offensive line. I'm just doing my job. I'm going to do what the coaches tell me to do and it worked out for us today.
Tight End Avery Edwards:
On Caleb Rowe:
“Whether we just came back on the field from a touchdown or interception, he was the same in the huddle. It was important to keep the confidence of the offense up. He was great with his decision-making; he was making his reads, getting into the line. He never panicked on a blitz. He really stepped up to the plate and had a great game.”
On the importance of a receiving tight end:
“It helps - it's huge for the offense. It's huge to have a playmaker that's a big guy that can block and catch. It puts a strain on the defense. I'm happy with how it's turning out this season.”
On his first touchdown:
“It's hard to describe. I didn't really realize the moment until I ran over to Coach Edsall. I was happy and excited to finally be back in the end zone.”
Wide Receiver Levern Jacobs:
On what he said to Taivon Jacobs after his touchdown:
“I just told him it was a great play. I knew he could do that, I know he's got wheels. I expect that out of him.”
On the connection between Caleb Rowe and the receivers:
“He did pretty good today. Besides the couple of interceptions that he threw I thought he did a great job back there. He was calm in the pocket. D.J. (Moore), my brother (Taivon), and myself all did a great job with catching the passes today. We executed on a lot of things today.”
On the importance of today's win after last week:
“We knew going into this week we couldn't let last week effect us. Each team is going to bring something different, a new look. We went in with the mindset this week that we couldn't be denied. Caleb (Rowe) and the whole offense did a great job of that. That's something we have to believe each and every week.”
Defensive Lineman Roman Braglio
On the pressure by the defensive line today:
“It's a team effort. Coach Edsall was saying the whole week 'Play every play like it's your last' and we did just that. We worked hard; it takes everybody to get a sack. We played very well.”
On the significance of today's win:
“It was good. It feels great to comeback from a loss like that [against Bowling Green]. We all sat down as a defense and said 'We need to win, we need to be who we are'. Today we did that.”
USF Head Coach Willie Taggart
Opening Statement:
“This was a disappointing loss for our football team. I thought our guys would play better than we did. We left a lot of opportunities out there. We left a lot of plays out there. We didn't make the winning plays when we had the opportunities to make them. Then we had some costly penalties that killed some drives and really cost our football team. But I think all in all, we just didn't play winning football and make those winning plays that we needed to make.”
On the team's missed chances:
“I mean it was critical. I think we all know what momentum can do in the game of football and those plays would have done wonders for us. They would have given our quarterback confidence and boosted the confidence of our entire football team. That's what I mean when I talk about making those winning plays. Our guys still don't know how to win yet. We need to find ways for our guys to make those winning plays so we can win these games.”
On how close his team is to breaking through:
“I'll tell you now, we're going to have a good football team, when it's all said and done our football team will be pretty good. We have this bye week to really correct some things. As a staff, we have to evaluate our roster, the talent that's out there and we have to make sure we put the right guys on the field. We need to have those guys that can make those winning plays that we talk about. The guys aren't far; the plays were out there, we just didn't execute. Offensively we didn't execute, defensively we didn't execute. There were too many guys going down the field free. On both sides of the ball, from an execution standpoint, we didn't do a good job at all.”
On switching quarterbacks in the 4th quarter:
“We told Steven (Bench) he was going to play then. We stuck to our word, we've been telling them all year that they were both going to play, but we told Steven that he was going to play at the end of the game and we stuck to it.”
On Rodney Adams' dropped pass:
“I mean you watch it, it looked like he just wasn't running comfortable. I don't know exactly what caused it, but he didn't look comfortable as he was running up underneath the ball. It was a nicely thrown ball, dropped right in there. It should have been an easy throw and catch. We have to make those plays as a football team.
On the team's strategy for punting to Will Likely:
“We didn't want to kick it to him, but we said if we did kick it, we have to get down the field and cover. We tried to get our kicker to give us some hang time to allow us to get there to cover him. We tried to place the ball in certain areas of the field to help us as well. I think our guys did a good job of covering him, especially on punts.”
Senior Offensive Lineman Thor Jozwiak
On missed opportunities:
“As a unit, we didn't perform the way that we would have liked. You know, that's what the offense is. We're one unit. If one guy messes up, it's on all of us. So we have to take that upon ourselves to get better. As an offensive line unit, we could have blocked for Quinton [Flowers] longer, and he could have had some more accurate passes that we would have caught. So we have tons of room for improvement, and it's nice to have a bye week coming to prepare for Memphis. We can get a lot of good work done, get a lot of things corrected that need to be corrected and go in to Memphis with a great attitude looking for a win in our first game in conference play.”
On his message to fans:
“I have no doubt in what our team can do and what we can accomplish. We have to come out in the first half like we came out in the second half. We have to come out swinging. I have total faith in what we're doing as an offensive unit and who we are as an up-tempo offense. We're going to move the ball. We're going to score points. We have to figure out what needs to be corrected and we're going to get it corrected. I'll promise you that. We're going to come out and do what we do and we're going to win some ballgames. I can promise you that.”
Sophomore Cornerback Devin Abraham
On starting the game with momentum:
“Coach preaches every week to come out, have some takeaways on defense and set our offense up for a score. That's what we did on the first drive.”
On his sore hamstring:
“I was fine. I just had a week off, and we've got great trainers who helped me get back pretty fast. So it wasn't too bad this week”
Senior Defensive Back Jamie Byrd
On his blown coverage in the fourth quarter
“I'm so aggressive. The play was a screen, which dragged me in, but it was just a mental mistake.”
On what it would have taken to win the game:
“I feel like, from the beginning, we should have come out with more juice. The turnover was a great start, but we just needed more juice out of the team. We came out a little lackadaisical. We have to work on that, because last week, we came out hyped in the first half and didn't finish in the second half. This time, we didn't come out hyped at all. So that's something we need to preach and work on.”
On the mood of the team:
“We're not going to let this get us down. We're going to keep fighting to make this team the best that we can make it and get these wins.”
