Oct. 25, 2008
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Maryland Quotes
Opening Statement:
"Well, this was a heck of a football game. I give a lot of credit to NC State because I thought they played well. I am very proud of the way my team hung in there and showed character, especially on the last drive when we seemed to be shooting ourselves in the foot. We were overcoming penalties and we were able to drive 95 yards with the winning field goal.
"It's a big win for us. I thought it was one of the crucial wins for our season, it puts us 6-2 and 3-1 in the ACC with four games to go... two home and two away against four really good football teams. We are kind of where we want to be, we have our destiny in our hands and it's just what we do with it.
"We have a couple of guys hurt today, I don't know the extent of their injuries but we lost Dave Philistin in the first quarter and then we lost Da'Rel Scott at the end of the game. We also lost Moise Fokou in parts of the game, but he ended up coming back so I am hoping he will be okay.
"We have an open week but really because we play a Thursday night game it seems as if Saturday becomes Monday and Sunday becomes Tuesday and so on and so forth, so it's not quite a full open week. We have a challenge ahead of us going down to play Virginia Tech down in Blacksburg. It's a tough place to play but if we want to win this conference, we have to win those games."
On Da'Rel Scott:
"I see Da'Rel maturing on almost a daily basis. I see him turning into a leader on our team. I know he went over and said something to David Philistin and I thought David played well also. He's playing with some pain right now and has been no contact for about three weeks. He went out on Wednesday in regular gear and said that he was ready to go. I am very proud of him and his progress in all areas of his life, academically, personally, as a leader and also as a football player."
On response to call on the screen pass:
"On the second down, James (Franklin) said he was going to take a shot and wanted to run this pattern with Darrius (Heyward-Bey) and I said, `go for it,' and we thought we had it. So then I told James to just get something inside the 30, because I thought we would have a shot if we could do that. I told him if that didn't work then he needed to get fourth down ready because if it was incomplete then we would be out of field-goal range and would have to go for it.
"There was a guy right in front of Chris Turner's face, and one of the throws Chris has trouble making is that throw. He got it over the guy and my heart was in my mouth and when Darrius caught it, James said, `touchdown.' I thought we did a great job blocking on the perimeter and we probably should have scored on the play.
"When we got down to the 5, we had two timeouts. I burned one there and James, John Donovan and I were talking about running the play and I just said `lets just center it up, it's an extra point. I don't want to take the chance of fumbling the ball.' So they actually wanted to run a couple of more plays.
"I was surprised they didn't call a timeout and leave some time on the clock. I would normally take it down to six but it was only the second down, so I really should have saved my timeout just in case we had fumbled the snap. They had too many people on the field and it ended up being an extra point. Sometimes I'm not by the huddle, but I'm in contact at all times so I can go both sides."
On the final drive of the game:
"My first thoughts when we walked out on the field were that I knew we had enough time to get ourselves into position to win. We made some plays and got lucky a few times, but it was a great job by everyone."
On throwing the ball in the rain:
"It was pretty tough to throw actually, there were times when I would get the ball and it was completely soaked and other times under the center when I felt like I was barely holding on to the ball, it was quite a struggle."
On the running game stepping up:
"It was huge because obviously the conditions made it difficult to throw the ball as much as I need to, so the fact that we got the running game going was a big help. Both running backs really stepped up.
On the final drive:
"We were all fired up walking out for the last position, and when Da'Rel Scott got hurt he got us fired up even more. But we knew the whole time that we were going to go down there and score, that was just our mentality."
On being a go-to guy in this offense:
"I definitely feel like I am becoming a go-to guy in this offense. After spring ball I kind of knew I was going to be a big target. I have been a little hurt so far this year, but I have been feeling better lately and things are starting to click."
On the play of Russell Wilson:
"He was very frustrating and I really feel like he is going to be one of the best quarterbacks in the league. He has three years left and he was really fast. We had a hard time keeping him contained and that's what we had to do. We made a few good plays on him at the end of the game and that is all we needed."
On the big sack on NC State's last play:
"I just did not want that guy running 20 yards down field and I saw him about to start breaking away, so I just reached up there and dragged him down."
On the rain:
"The rain factored a lot into the game. It was nasty out there. I have never played in anything like that in my life. Being cold is one thing, but when it's cold and raining out that's another.
On his thoughts in the last seconds of the game:
"I just prayed, Lord is a wonderful God, I'm just going to go out there have my eyes back and kick it."
On the last-second kick:
"(Andrew) Schmitt and (Travis) Baltz had the hardest job to snap it and hold it with the ball being so wet, I thought it was amazing how well they did that, it made it a lot easier for me, what they do is not an easy job."
On being ready for the kick
"Yeah I definitely was. Everyone said we're going to need you, and I was prepared to go out there and do what I needed to do."
NC State Quotes
Head Coach Tom O'Brien
On overall team play:
"It's still not good enough. That's what we are struggling with right now. I think it's probably good that we have a week off, get this out of our system and then we have to get ready to play in the month of November."
On Maryland's game-winning drive:
"Give them credit. They took the ball 92 yards with three minutes to go and got us in a man situation, threw the flare screen and kicked the ball to win the game."
Senior Linebacker Robbie Leonard
On the team's performance:
"It's really disappointing, especially the defense with two or three minutes left. Time after time we stopped them and then we'd give up the big play. Third down and second down were huge today, we gave up too many big plays. It's not fitting right, it's pretty frustrating."
On NC State's tackling:
"There were some missed tackles, not to say that the weather had anything to do with it. They were breaking tackles and finishing plays. Kudos to them."
On recovering from this loss:
"It's pretty tough. We have to work even harder, that's all we can do. Just go back to work."
On almost winning the last three games:
"Almost is very nice, but we've got to learn how to finish in the fourth quarter. We played a little better defense in the second half, but defensively it wasn't good enough to get a win. Our offense finally stepped it up and our defense went backwards."
On the strong offensive play early in the game:
"It looked like it was going to be a shootout, we needed to settle down on defense. We just weren't playing defense. We didn't do what we were coached to do. That's on us as players, not on the coaches. We knew what we were doing. They weren't doing anything special that we weren't expecting them to do. After halftime, we finally settled down, hit our gaps, and played a little better football. A little too late, the damage was done.
Freshman Quarterback Russell Wilson
On NC State's last offensive play, which resulted in a sack:
"They brought the heat and I was trying to get away. I tried to throw it away, but they called it a sack."
On being dealt another close loss:
"It's frustrating, but on the other hand we were right there. I believe in our team completely, we have four more games left to qualify for a bowl game. We've proven ourselves over the last two or three weeks, we've just got to win."
On the impact of the rainy weather:
"I'm from around here, I'm from Virginia. It rains here all the time. Mentally it was 95 degrees and sunny and I was ready to go."
