Quotes from Georgia Tech players following the 24-10 loss to Clemson.
B-back KirVonte Benson on Clemson:
“They’re really physical, they’re fast and they’re one of the best defenses for a reason. They play hard off the ball, they run, they gang tackle, they do a lot of things that a coach expects the defense to do. Just matching their intensity was going to be a challenge for us. They came to play today. Shout outs to them, but we’ve just got to move on from it and we’ve got to play better.”
Defensive end KeShun Freeman on Clemson quarterback Kelly Bryant:
“He was just running. Good player. It was a little wet out there, but you can’t use anything as an excuse. He’s a really good player, though. All we needed to do was just wrap up a little better. That’s probably going to be one of the things that we really focus on going into next week, just making sure that everyone is wrapping up a little better because we missed a lot of tackles because of the way we were tackling. That’s probably one of the things that we’re really going to work on this week.
Freeman on Clemson’s fast start:
“We just had to get everybody focused and settled in. A lot of people were excited and kind of caught up in the hype. We just had to make sure that people settled down. First half, we missed a lot of tackles – a lot of tackles. I know going into the locker room, we told everybody, ‘Settle down, execute and do things right and do what you’ve got to do. If one person gets to the ball, another person comes and makes the tackle with them. So we kind of just cleared that up and we went out in the second half and actually did that.”
Freeman on the team’s response:
“Pretty much we have to come together as a team. We know we lost today. We can’t let them beat us next week. We can’t focus on the things that we missed out on this week, but what we can do, we can watch the film, look at our mistakes and grow from it. So I think that’s what is going to be a major key from it. Just going in, watching film, realizing what our mistakes were and then executing it better next time.”
Safety Corey Griffin on cornerback Ajani Kerr filling in for starter Step Durham:
“It’s pretty much understood – next guy up anytime anybody goes down. You’ve got to step up. We need you at that time, at that moment, so it’s your time to perform.”
Quarterback TaQuon Marshall
“We didn’t get started as fast as we would like to. We also didn’t play as well as we would like. I didn’t play as good as I would like. It starts with me. I really let the team down. I’ve just got to come back next week ready to work and get better because the guys rally around me. I’ve just got to make sure I’m up and we’re going to watch the film next week and flush it and get ready for Virginia.”
On the difficultly moving the ball on the perimeter:
“It’s hard. We try to make some things happen on the perimeter, try to get the ball pitched. It’s hard, it’s frustrating for me because sometimes I try to make some plays just get the guys sparked up front, but they took it away. We just tried to get some things going, but they had our number tonight.”
