Maryland Head Coach Randy Edsall
Opening Statement:
“I thought everyone contributed. Offense, defense, and special teams. It was a really good win for us today. We talked to our team last night and told them that with the first game one thing we need to do is make a good first impression and I thought we came out and made a good first impression. There are things that we have to continue to get better at and we will. I thought there was a lot of really good things that took place out there today by a lot of individuals. The student section was great. We had about 12,000 students here today. If we could get them to keep coming out and getting our guys up and our guys jacked up that was good.
“Brandon Ross; I told you that he had a good preseason and I thought he went out and played well today. He had his career high in terms of 150 yards rushing. Wes Brown ran the ball very hard today. Ty Johnson, another guy I talked about and mentioned and think he has a chance to be really good. I thought the offensive line really did a good job. We wanted to establish the run and we did that today.
“I don’t know if there are enough superlatives to use in regards to Will Likely. 233 punt return yards; a Big Ten record, school record, he might have had a national record if we didn’t have the penalty on the one. He’s a joy to be around, he’s a joy to coach. I thought he ran out of a little bit of gas there towards the end. To see those guys working hard, we did a good job in kickoff return. Our guys know we have a weapon back there and if they do their job he’s got a chance to score. The effort on getting the ball into the end zone, I just felt so good for him because of the effort that he gives and he played well defensively.
On Will Likely improving his return game:
“He works at it everyday. We do some things back there where we make him catch tennis balls with his hands so he concentrates a little bit more. He’s learned how to find the ball coming off the punters foot and find himself in the best position to field it. Being a punt returner, it’s like an art. You have to have a pretty good feel for what’s going on and seeing things. We had a right and left return going for the most part today and he started and went and set it up and bounced outside to get it. A couple times he went out to get it, realized it wasn’t there and boom, bounced to the middle. He studies it and he works at it. It isn’t easy to catch a punt, it’s hard. He’s a student at understanding how that ball is going to spin and what it is going to do. The biggest thing is he just works at it, he is very coachable.”
On the offensive and defensive line:
"One of the things that we wanted to do was to be able to run the football and a lot of that is cohesiveness. The thing that is going to help us is to be able to run the ball but then get a play action pass going off of that. I was pleased because it wasn’t like we had one guy doing it. We had three guys that were productive today running the ball. We know it will get tougher from week to week but we accomplished what we set out to accomplish today.”
On the play of Perry Hills:
“I thought he managed the game very well. What he has to do is go out there and throw the ball, not aim it. He has to go out there and hit the open guys and be more decisive with his decisions. There were some decisions that he wasn’t decisive with and that caused him to pull the string a little bit. You can’t go out there and worry about ‘am I perfect’, you just have to go out there and play.”
On red zone efficiency:
“I don’t think our execution was as good as we needed it to be. Then what has to happen is when we do have things available to us we have to make the correct reads whether it’s the running back and hitting the right hole or if it’s the quarterback throwing to the right guy and a receiver making a catch.”
On relationship between Brandon Ross and Wes Brown:
"They have a really good relationship. I think our whole team has a good relationship. Guys don’t look at it just because somebody is starting and somebody is the backup, they know they are going to contribute. Wes [Brown] knows he is going to play every game and he is going to be a major contributor. They cheer for each other, they pull for each other.”
On establishing the run:
“It’s a mentality. Create a mentality with our own team of mental toughness and physical toughness. To know that when we need to run the ball, we can run the ball.”
Junior Cornerback William Likely
On Richmond continuing to punt to him:
“After the first two or three, I figured I probably wouldn't get any more opportunities and he kept kicking it.”
On if he ever had a game like that before
"Back in high school, definitely. I had a few plays against UConn, but it was more kick returns rather than punts.”
On his blockers:
"They did a great job of not letting guys get downfield quickly and giving me a shot. So once I saw grass, I just went."
On preparing to field kicks:
"The most important thing that the coaches drill into our heads is to just be focused on that play. You have to be focused on every play. You can't take any play for granted. When you take a play for granted, bad things happen. So no matter who is back there, me or DeAndre Lane, we just try to focus on every play, catch the ball first and then make things happen."
On fighting his way into the end zone:
"I definitely wanted that one bad because they called the first one back. So they told me I had to get another one, and I promised them I was going to get another one. So we just made something happen."
On breaking a Big Ten record from 1939:
"1939? That’s a long time. It's a blessing to be able to break somebody's record that had been standing for that long and hadn't been broken. That's a blessing."
Junior Quarterback Perry Hills
On his thoughts of the game:
“I have to make sure not to aim the ball as much as I did and just throw the ball like I know how to do.”
On bouncing back after his first interception:
“Obviously it is big coming back after an interception but I wasn’t worried about it. I knew our offense was going to do the things they had to in order to move the ball down the field and put points on the board.”
On rushing yards:
“The offensive line did an outstanding job of being physical and allowing the running backs to find the holes.”
On the running backs:
“It always helps having playmakers around you, especially Brandon Ross and Wes Brown. It does take a weight off your shoulders having those guys back there.”
On his first start since 2012:
“I was happy to be back out there. I am not the kind of guy who likes standing on the sideline. That is not where I want to be. I was just happy to come out today and get a win.”
Sophomore Linebacker Jermaine Carter, Jr.
On his first start:
“I don’t think about getting nervous. I have been playing football since I was six years old. I just look at it like I have been doing this my whole life ‘why go out there and nervous?’ If you go out there nervous you may play scared and timid and that is not how I want to play. It is my mentality, I just don’t get nervous.”
Senior Running Back Brandon Ross
On his relationship with Wes Brown:
“It is definitely a competitive relationship. I have to say that because we are always trying to get each other better. Both of us want to be great. That is why it’s good when we can both run for a good amount
of yards like we did today. If one of us has a big run the other one wants to get a big run as well.”
On his performance:
“In the beginning of the game there were a few runs that I missed because I wasn’t reading the play right. I think patience is a big part of it and knowing your reads and knowing how the line is going to set up for every play.”
Richmond Head Coach Danny Rocco
On Will Likely’s success returning punts:
"You know you think about it, the very first punt of the game, we kicked the ball off to the perfect spot on the field. It rolled inside the 15-yard-line just laying there. It’s an absolute perfect kick. It was a single high return scheme and he found the soft spot, he (Will Likely) wiggles out and makes a run. I love DJ (Helkowski), but for the last three punts, I told him to punt it out of bounds, but it didn’t get to out of bounds. I guess we just have to practice punting out of bounds a little bit more. ”
On quarterback Kyle Lauletta’s performance:
“I mean he had his moments. He showed some promise. He was a little inconsistent with his confidence and his checks at the line of scrimmage. He was a little inconsistent with his reads; he was out of sync with Reggie (Diggs) on a couple of throws. It’s probably expected that would be the case at this stage this early. We were hoping for maybe a little more consistency there with our offensive production.”
On running back Seth Fisher’s lack of playing time today:
"Seth (Fisher) did not practice until Thursday. He had a chipped tooth two years ago. He had surgery and re-did it here at the end of camp. He practiced Thursday; I had no intention to play him in the first half and I didn’t. I think he played the second or third series in the third quarter.”
On the performance of the offensive line:
“There were some plays where Kyle (Lauletta) should have gotten rid of the ball. We had some timing throws where he held the ball too long. I think today was a huge growing experience for that offensive line. Seven guys got a good number of snaps out there. I’m optimistic that the group can really solidify and get better here heading into next week.”
Redshirt Sophomore Quarterback Kyle Lauletta
On swing passes to running back Jacobi Green:
“That was definitely part of the game plan, run a bootleg and get Jacobi Green into the flat right away. Easy throws and confidence builders were definitely part of the game plan. We had good third and short calls that we hit a couple of times and Jacobi was able to make some great plays.”
On his own performance:
"I think in the first quarter and in the first half, I had a little bit of the first game jitters, I wasn’t quite comfortable. Towards the second half I got more comfortable. I think that was what coach was trying to do, throw some easy passes and get some confidence in me. I’m a little disappointed; I had some bad throws, especially in the first half. Guys that were open, I should have connected with. On throws where we were hitting them is when I felt great and the offense was in tune, but that’s something that we can definitely build on.”
On team’s offense:
"I think we definitely had successful drives, at times we ran the ball really well, and we had great protection. When we looked good we were throwing and catching the ball well and running the ball well; we really looked in sync. A couple times there was some missed reads and a couple of times I think I panicked because I didn’t trust my protection. I take responsibility for some of those sacks and some of those missed throws, but taking the positives out of it, I think we looked good at times. I think in the end somebody told me I was 18-for-30 and I think that half of those incompletions could have been completed. I think the positives that we had are very good and we’re going to watch the film and learn from it. I think it’s great momentum going in to Hampton.”
On having to run from the pocket:
"Going against a Big Ten team that has great pass rushers, I don’t think me running around was anything out of the ordinary. There were a couple of times where the pocket kind of closed on me, but other than that I think there were a couple of times where I should have stayed in the pocket a little bit longer and trusted my protection. A couple of the throws I had, I was throwing the ball, getting hit and getting completions. That’s all part of being a quarterback, so I think the protection was fine and I don’t think that there was too much duress on me.”
Redshirt Junior Linebacker Omar Howard
On chasing around William Likely:
“He’s just really shifty, and I can’t lie, he was pretty fast too, so it was hard to get the contain on him. They had a pretty good scheme where they were just holding it down and we were kind of expecting them to get some pressure up the middle. So it was really just a combination of not getting off, his shiftiness, and his quickness that allowed him to break loose.”
On Maryland’s run game and size upfront:
"We weren’t really worried about it, our game plan was to stop the run early; we tried that obviously. They are big guys and they’re probably going to be the biggest guys we see all year, 300 plus all around, but we weren’t really worried about their run game.”
