Coaches Review The Battle....
Maryland Head Coach Mark Duffner
"I am extremely proud of my team today, especially the way they
battled in the second half and overcame some adverse situations.
Ken Mastrole breaks his collarbone, and Keon Russell came in and
did a heck of a job running the offense. The offensive line did
a great job of opening holes, especially when they had to in the
second half. Buddy Rodgers did a heck of a job of running the
football, he played like a champion."
"We started off poor and struggled with their cutback game, but
we settled down and got some big plays, especially in the second
half. We had Ogbogu blocking the punt, which gave us great field
position to score. And then A.J. Johnson had a great play on the
fumble hit, which gave us the field position to put the game
away. It was just a tremendous effort by this football team."
"At the beginning of the game, I think we just overpursued thier
cutback plays. I give them credit for executing and getting the
ball back behind our pursuit - we were too fast on our pursuit,
and that's something we'll have to work on."
[On Buddy Rodgers' winning TD run]: "I love him, what a
hard-playing guy he is. He just said that he was not going to be
denied getting down the field and into the end zone."
Duke Head Coach Fred Goldsmith
"This is the toughest of them all. We played a hard-nosed game
on defense and Maryland's defense stiffened, and did things
well. We tried to stretch the field and make things happen but
we didn't hit it."
"We didn't block the guy (on the blocked punt). He ran right
over us and didn't even mean to block it. He's the guy that's
supposed to make you kick the ball faster or pooch kick. That's
disgusting, we work on it everyday and we worked on it
yesterday. We had a chance to pin them down and we gave up
points."
"We had our chances to score. Corey (Thomas) ran two great
routes and ran by the DB twice. When it tightened up, we did not
get the big plays going."
"We called max protection (on the quarterback sack and fumble>
on that blitz. I'll have to look at the film and see what
exactly happened."
"They adjusted to it and started tightening things up. They got
their outside linebackers more involved. We tried to mix it up
and put it in the passing game. We did not get the ball to our
wide open receivers. You've got to spread them out and expect
something else."
"David (Green) earned the job of starting quarterback at the
beginning of the season. He was healthy this week and we gave
him a chance to see what he could do. We need to look at the
film and see if we blocked and tackled as we should have before
we make another decision."
"Maryland has a very good defense. Their defense won the game
for them. They blocked a kick and had an interception. They
whipped us in the second half."
