COLLEGE PARK, Md. -
Head Coach DJ Durkin
Opening statement:
“Obviously a very sloppy performance. I think we killed ourselves with penalties and turnovers, especially early in the game and we got behind. It was not our gameplan, and it's a hard thing to do with a freshman quarterback. We want to be able to run the ball first on offense, but when you get behind, it gets a little harder. I thought we had a good week in practice with preparation going into the game. I felt good about that, but it didn't carry over. We didn't play with the same sense of urgency and grit that we've played with for most of the season. We didn't have that about us. I know the story will all be about our freshman quarterback in Piggy [Tyrrell Pigrome] and all that, but the guys around him need to play better too. We didn't help him out. There's plenty of blame to go around, including coaching. We didn't get it done. Credit to Minnesota. They had a couple of close games and tough losses coming into this game, so they started their season 3-0 and their guys bounced back and played well.
“We have to learn how to bounce back and have some toughness about us to push through. It's a long season. We're at the midway point of the season. We're a 4-2 ball club. Obviously we would like that to be different and better, but you could also be much worse than that. It's just a matter of what we're going to do from here. Are we going to learn from this? Are we going to do that, get tougher, fight through it, learn from our mistakes and get better? Or not? Obviously if not, then you're going to see more of the same. I think our team and our guys have the ability to win a lot of these games, but it comes down to worrying about us first and how we get ready to play. Again, disappointed in that one and it was probably our sloppiest game so far in the season in terms of the penalties and turnovers.”
On quarterback Perry Hills not starting:
“Perry [Hills] has a shoulder injury. It was a game-time decision. He's done things this week throughout practice, but I don't feel that it's in his best interest or of the team's to put him out there right now. That's why we made that decision. It's a ticking time bomb, where it's going to get hit again. We'll continue to reevaluate that starting again tomorrow and all the way through next week. That was a decision by me. Perry is as tough as they come. He wants to go and wants to play, but ultimately our best opportunity was if Piggy [Tyrrell Pigrome] was in there.”
On Will Likely's injury:
“I don't have an update on Will [Likely] as far as the extent of the injury. It definitely impacts us. Will's our leader. He's a really good player, let alone the leader of the team. I don't know how much of an impact it had because football is a game of man-down man-up. We'll get him evaluated and get word on what's going on. There's not a tougher competitor than him, so we'll get it figured out.”
On if he thought about making a quarterback change during the game:
“No. We continued to feel like he (Tyrrell Pigrome) would give us our best chance to win. It wasn't all him, at all. There were a lot of issues going on. There were some penalties on several big plays and plays that got us set way behind. I didn't feel like it was an issue just on his part. He's a very strong-minded, strong-willed young man. He's not going to have any problem bouncing back. He's tough. There's other guys I'm worried about bouncing back, he's not one of them.”
On what went wrong with the run defense:
“They had 300 total yards in the game and they had a 70-yard run. I think for the most part we played pretty well on defense. Could we have played better? Absolutely. We missed an assignment on that play. It was third and long and we were trying to get a stop and we blew an assignment and they hit us long. We should at least get the guy on the ground with the safety and we didn't do that. We had a short field on the turnover, big play on the screen for the touchdown where we were supposed to have that guy covered and we didn't, we lost our eye control. That hit us on the touchdown there. We had a short field several times. They're a team that has been averaging over 200 yards rushing a game. They're effective; they're good running the ball. I thought for the most part we did good. If you told me we'd hold them to 300 yards, I would tell you we'd have a good chance to win the game. The difference is the penalties and the turnovers. That's the difference in the game.”
On what Minnesota did to be effective defensively:
“It goes both ways. They were hugging the line of scrimmage and holding the box, daring us to throw with Piggy. He can execute throwing down the field. We have to do a better job of protecting him. We have to give him enough time. Then you have a guy that doesn't have a wealth of playing experience in college football and the pocket's breaking down. Now, he gets antzy back there. It's a trickle-down effect. We're a tempo offense. When you get a first down on a tempo team, you can kind of get rolling. But we go get a long run, but there's a holding penalty. So there's no tempo. Now everyone walks back and it's 2nd and 20. You lose that aspect of what you have going on. We could really just never get on track. We were just kind of out of sync, the whole thing was. It's in all ways. We need to swing the field better when we're on special teams. It's like every other return there's a break down on whose guy made the play or who lost who. We need to continue to coach our guys, reevaluate who's out there doing what, and get the right guys out there to get the job done.”
Maryland Senior Defensive Back, Alvin Hill
On breakdowns that may have occurred after having a good practice week:
“We had a good practice this week. Some of the breakdowns could have been that at the beginning of the game, we could have come out with a little more energy. I don't think there was too many physical breakdowns or mental breakdowns, just probably some plays that we could fix and change, and just go over the film and fix that. We can just come out with some better energy.”
On what coming out with a lack of energy is attributed to:
“I don't think it was a specific cause. You have to give credit to Minnesota; they just came off of 2 losses and they came and put up a good fight. They came and hit us in the mouth and we have to be able to respond to that, we have to be able to make some of those plays and cause turnovers, things like that.”
On frustration that may be caused by numerous penalties and turnovers:
“There was some penalties that kind of upset us and upset coach. We want to be a disciplined football team, so we don't really want to have those mistakes to hurt ourselves, but there was really no frustration. We try to keep our poise and our focus, and just keep consistent with the defense and the team overall.”
On Will Likely's absence hurt from a leadership and playmaking standpoint:
“Yeah, we definitely need Will. He's a great player for us. He makes returns for us, he's a turnover guy; so we could use that. We were able to focus because we practice for things like this. We were able to come back and focus and make some of those plays or fill that role.
Maryland Junior Linebacker Jermaine Carter, Jr.
On encouraging everyone moving forward in competitive Big Ten schedule:
“We just have to continue to work hard in practice and push each other to get better in practice and just give each other great looks. If scout team is out there, they have to give us great looks, and defensively we have to run to the ball in practice so in translate into the game and offensively, they have to do what they do.
On how tough it is on the defense to have to constantly be back on the field when the offense can't sustain drives:
“It doesn't matter what the offense does defensively. Whether they're sustaining drives or not, we have to go out there and we have to execute the defense that is called. So whatever happens, we have to go out there and make a stop and just not allow them to score a touchdown; if they kick a field goal, we have to go block it.”
On the performance of Minnesota's running backs today:
“They ran really hard, both of the running backs ran really hard. We have to be sound in our run gaps and be where we're supposed to be when we need to be there.”
On being prepared for a heavy running game from Minnesota:
“Definitely, we knew they were going to run the ball coming in. We knew they were going to run their power and a couple zone plays, and that's exactly what they did. We had to be prepared.”
On putting an emphasis on putting pressure on Minnesota's quarterback as he got more comfortable as the game went on:
“It definitely was an emphasis to put pressure on him, because we knew he hadn't played much, but shouts out to him he did a great job and the Minnesota's line did a great job in protecting him.”
Minnesota Head Coach Tracy Claeys
On having a conservative game plan:
“It didn't start that way. Once we got the 17-point lead in the second half and lost another offensive lineman, we weren't going to take any chances so we played it pretty safe after that. Rodney [Smith] broke a long run for us to get another score and we felt like the defense was playing well enough to win us the game.”
On quarterback Conor Rhoda:
“He managed the game well. Works hard at it. Threw one bad ball into coverage and got away with it. Besides that, I thought he managed the game well and played well enough and gave us the opportunity to win.”
On preparing for Tyrrell Pigrome:
“It wasn't a surprise. We knew [Perry Hills] had gotten hurt. They're very similar with the quarterback running game. Defensive staff did a good job planning for both quarterbacks. We tried to play as many of our small guys on the perimeter that we could against Tyrrell because he's like a water bug. He's hard to tackle so we wanted quicker guys to keep him contained and make him go back towards the middle and take as many hits as he could.”
On staying with the running game:
“After we got the lead, we were going to take our chances and try to just run out the clock. If we had our regular offensive line out there, we wouldn't have done that but with who we were playing with upfront, we weren't going to take any chances.”
On how the team responded:
“We have tough kids. They like to play football and they like to be around each other. They prepared awfully hard. It's tough to win on the road, especially when you go with a backup quarterback. Our kids believed in him and they did what they needed to do on offense for us to win. Upfront we blocked better and created a few more seams to let our backs do what they need to do. Last week we didn't have some of those seams and we didn't finish blocks. I think we played better up front. Defensively, we continue to play aggressive and get after people and so it's good to get the first Big Ten win on the road. Hopefully it's a good start and we can keep it going.”
On the special team play:
“The younger kids on special teams play so well that it allows us not to use hits on Jack Lynn and some of our older kids on special teams. That was a problem a year ago; all our kids were playing special teams and taking all those extra snaps so for those kids to come and play special teams, it saves hits on the bodies of some of our upperclassmen.”
On Minnesota's defense:
“I think having Antonio Shenault back played a key role last week. We had Duke McGhee come back and he has his part on this team so all of those things we worked on in fall camp and spring ball, we're just starting to get all our guys back and the secondary healthy to do some of those things that we're trying to do. I think they're getting more comfortable and that's why they're playing more aggressive and getting faster.”
On his message to Conor Rhoda:
“I didn't say much. I let Coach Johnson prepare him and he knew when I named him captain what I thought he could do. I think that showed that we had confidence in him to let him lead the offense and get done what we need to do to win. We do two-minute drills against each other and I thought he did a decent job in 2 minute this week, which isn't easy. He showed during the week that he could get it done. Obviously he's number two for a reason but as far as working hard and preparing, he'll make sure he does that whenever he's called on.”
On Quarterback Mitch Leidner:
“I really don't know. We left him at home to let him rest. Once I meet with the doctors tomorrow, I'll have a better idea of what's going on.”
On Minnesota's running back tandem:
“Rodney [Smith] runs just as well. A lot of times, he'll out run you a little bit more than Shannon [Brooks] will. Shannon prefers to run through you. Those kids get along so great. They're so happy for each other. We need to keep them both healthy because we'll need them both.”
On offensive lineman Garrison Wright:
“I'm not sure what the injury was, I didn't ask.”
On the challenge of other teams stopping the run:
“You need to keep another safety down in the box. Rodney [Smith] and Shannon [Brown] really have good vision and all of a sudden they came out the back door and the back side safety ran over the top and there wasn't anybody there. You have to make sure that you keep both leverages. We tried to do that with Maryland's quarter back because when you're going against an athlete, they can take it a long way.”
Redshirt Junior Quarterback Conor Rhoda
On his first career start:
“It was a great experience, the whole week in general was awesome. The team and staff did a great job of not acting like anything was different which gave me a ton of confidence. I prepare each week to play if something does happen to Mitch [Leidner]. Just seeing them act like it's 'next man up and we are not slowing down at all and we are going to go after this the same way if Mitch was in' gave me a ton of confidence. I felt good once I got out there and took a couple hits. Everything settled in from there and we got things cooking on offense.”
On his fumble:
“It was because of the handoff. It just slipped out of my hands.”
Sophomore Running Back Shannon Brooks
On Rodney Smith's big game:
“He has been patient about it all season. Even last season we were motivating him saying 'come on you have to break one' so it was good and fun as a teammate to see. He is like my brother off the field. So it was good to see him break that long run. He has been working so hard. We are really supportive as a running back group.”
On if he and Rodney Smith learn from each other:
“Definitely, in practice if one of us does something wrong or something good we will let each other know. During practice he will try to tell me about a few moves and I will tell him about a few moves.”
