Opening Statement:
“Well anytime you can get a conference win I’m pleased. I thought that for the most part our defense played really well again and on offense we made enough plays. It wasn’t pretty but we made some plays and I guess if you can rush the ball for 400 yards you usually win most of the games.
“The fumbles were disappointing; we worked really hard on that last week. They were both on called plays, there were no reads, no nothing, it was just one was reaching the ball out and the other was just being careless with it.
“We missed some huge opportunities in the passing game. We had a double move that should have been a touchdown that we overthrew. We had both our starting offensive tackles out and I think we’ll start to get them back next week, both Andrew Marshall and Jahaziel Lee and that’ll help. It was good to get a win.”
On A.J. Gray:
“I told somebody walking in, I thought A.J. probably played as well as he has played. Some of their run-pass stuff he was right on cue with it. He stepped underneath the slants and got a couple picks and it was good to see him make plays because he has got a lot of ability. Plus he made a couple nice plays in open field on tackles. I’m proud of A.J., I thought he played well.”
On third down defense:
“When that happens, I think we had a 17 play drive and an 18 play drive and when you look at the thing, they ran 58 plays, time of possession was a killer again. Unless you do something crazy, if you hold the ball for 38 minutes most of the time you’re going to win.”
On the change in the defense since the second half of the Tennessee game:
“I think we are playing better. We’re tackling better. Other than the one double move there at the end we haven’t give up a lot of big plays. We’re being able to stop the run with some blitzes and stunts and some of that, makes it hard if teams don’t run the ball. The competitions level is going to move way up next game.”
On the offensive passing game:
“Ricky did some good things. Early on, in the first series, we dropped a ball on third down over on our sidelines and then the next series we dropped a homerun ball off the hands so we missed some opportunities. Then we overthrew the two double moves so our passing game was a little suspect there to start the game, we could have gotten way out in front I think.”
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