Indiana University Athletics
Postgame Quotes - Indiana vs. Penn State
10/20/2018 8:15:00 PM | Football
Indiana Head Coach Tom Allen
TOM ALLEN: Just a gut-wrenching loss for our team today. I thought our kids played their hearts out, played extremely hard. Proud of the effort. Just have to play better in certain situations and times, in critical moments, and really encouraged by the way our offense responded and the way we ran the football and threw the football, and just got to protect it. There was a key fumble there; losing the ball on offense and then losing the ball on special teams was a really costly mistake, and I thought special teams really hurt us today. That was to me the glaring thing that I'm very disappointed in, and not good enough. To me that's the one glaring bad spot. I thought offense and defense played well enough for us to win.
Questions?
Q. What is Michael Penix's injury and what's his status right now?
TOM ALLEN: Yeah, you know, I don't know for sure. I know he got targeted and that was called, but looks like it was a lower leg injury, which was why he was out of the game and couldn't come back. The targeting part of it did not result in any kind of head injury, just a penalty.
We don't know yet. I asked and they said we'll know more when we do some more tests.
Q. When you went for it on 4th down down there, he looked surprised to get the snap --
TOM ALLEN: Yeah, here's the bottom line, it's real simple. We weren't supposed to snap the football, so we made a mistake. It was very clearly stated what we were supposed to do, and somebody made a mistake. That's why he was surprised that the ball was snapped, because it wasn't supposed to be. We were supposed to do that, get them to jump offsides, if they don't, then you kick a field goal. That was, you know, a mistake that we made on the field.
Q. What did you see on the two kickoff returns that really hurt you?
TOM ALLEN: Yeah, you know, well, the first one, you kick it to a guy that's got some talent, and I see -- you get leverage issues, we have nine true freshmen -- nine freshmen on our kickoff coverage unit. That's a fact. But they're good players. They're just young.
So then the second we kicked away from him, kicked to the other guy, and he was the one that hurt us worse. And so we kicked some sky kicks and then we had to hold the ball, which kind of affected -- we were supposed to squib the one he ran back as far as he did, but when he has to hold the football it's hard for the kicker to kick it with a guy holding like that according to him, and just kind of -- to me it's really, really frustrating to give up those -- to play so well on offense and defense and give up those kind of return yards. It just makes me want to puke.
But we've got to address it and evaluate it and get better. It's hard for me to say right now, I'll watch the film and get it all figured out, but that's a couple weeks in a row of not good enough coverage. If they could have kicked it out of bounds I would, but that's a penalty and gives them the ball at the 40, so not real fired up about doing that.
Q. The drive right before half, running out of time, putting Peyton back, what was the thinking there?
TOM ALLEN: Well, the rationale for putting Peyton back in there was just the fact that experience, clock management, being able to handle that situation, so just felt like it was better to put it in his hands. Michael was playing really well at the time, and so we've got two good quarterbacks and decided to play them both. I thought Michael played really well. I thought Peyton did a lot of good things, too.
But then at the end we were trying to get the ball out of bounds and then a couple guys on the sideline thought we'd call out "mayday," which was on alert, and that's kind of -- there was a little confusion on that, but there wasn't enough time to run a play after he didn't get out of bounds since we didn't have any time-outs left.
Q. The effort last week obviously wasn't what you wanted it to be, well-known, but today, a huge turnaround. You out-gained them 549 to 417.
TOM ALLEN: Well, here's the thing. I was really, really bothered by last week's performance, and I get it, and I went back and watched the film, and I wouldn't say our guys didn't play hard, okay. We did not have the energy that you have to have to play at this -- you have to play at a fevered pitch in my opinion. Where our program is right now we have to play at a fevered pitch to be able to get after an Iowa, an Ohio State, Penn State. We have to. And we played with that energy at Ohio State and we didn't have it against Iowa, and when you don't have it against a team like that, they're going to make you look bad real fast, and if we wouldn't have had it today, this team would have done the same thing to us. That's the bottom line. This team is a really good football team, and I know they're frustrated by their last couple close losses, so bottom line is that our guys responded.
I challenged them in a huge way this week, and they chose to respond, and I thought they played their hearts out. That's why there's a lot tears in that locker room because they played so hard and they did a lot of great things. But the bottom line is we didn't make enough plays to win the game, and that's why we have to go back and watch the film and learn from it. But from a perspective of heart and effort and toughness and grit and fight, I'm proud of this football team.
Q. The feel of this game, the end result, it's basically a carbon copy of so many games in previous years. How do you assess morale and keep your fingerprint on where morale goes from here?
TOM ALLEN: Yeah, I assess it in this way: Our kids are fighters, man. I looked in that locker room, in those eyes, and I had everybody's eyes on me. Just left it just now, and I promise you this team is going to keep on fighting. Yeah, they're hurting, and yeah, they want to win these close games, and we will. It's a process, and this guy right here you're looking at, okay, I believe in this football team. I believe in the way we're building it and the way we're working and the focus that we have, and I believe in these kids, and yeah, it's tough, and I hurt for them, but we're going to stay the course. We're going to keep doing the things that we're doing over and over and over and over again until we break through. It's going to happen.
Q. Can you just talk about the way McSorley played? You held him in check passing wise but he did some damage running the ball.
TOM ALLEN: I know. You know, I'll tell you what, I tried to find him afterwards. I wanted to just shake his hand and -- glad I'm not going to see him again because he's just -- he's a tough, tough kid. I mean, just competitive, gritty, man, he's just tough. He can beat you with his legs, his arm, and you know, we did some good things against him, but he's hard to keep in check. He's so good. I've got so much respect for him.
But you know, we -- I thought we did the best job against him trying to contain the pass and the run. We've always done a good job stopping the run against him the last two seasons, but I felt like we had to do some things schematically to help our perimeter route because jersey No. 1, that kid, I did find him. He's fast as the wind now, and he's a match-up problem. He's the one that took it 95 yards to the house against Ohio State in that game. So we really had to do some things against him. So that creates a lot of issues. And 24, the Sanders kid, is a really special running back, too. All those things combined with that kind of a quarterback, really proud of our kids, man, they fought hard, but just got to find a way to get more points than they do at the end.
Q. If he was as fast as the wind today, he was pretty fast, too.
TOM ALLEN: Yeah, wind was crazy.
Q. But just talk a little bit about the play at the line of scrimmage, we all know in the Big Ten, if you're going to start winning games, the games that you need to win, you've got to win the line of scrimmage. Today I thought you did. Talk about that a bit.
TOM ALLEN: You know, that's a critical piece, and we put a lot of emphasis on it, and I was disappointed in certain games this season where we haven't, but against a top-tier group, I thought our guys up front -- you always go back and look at the yards rushing and all that per carry and evaluate. They obviously put pressure on us, and they do a great job rushing the passer and all that. But I thought our kids, once again, they were challenged and they responded, and when you can run the football and contain the running as best you can on one side, especially against a team like this, they're so hard to stop because of the style that they use and the way that quarterback creates so many issues, but you know, the offensive line I thought played well, especially running the football, and Stevie Scott continues to -- I just thought he just ran with a different sense of urgency. He's still young. He's still figuring it all out. But I knew how we practiced this week and how pregame was going, I knew our kids were going to play hard. I could tell. Really proud of him and how hard he ran.
We've just got to -- some things just don't change. You go back, you evaluate, and you stay the course, and you keep doing the little things right over and over again. It takes tremendous mental toughness to do that because it's easy to get discouraged, but this team will not get discouraged because they believe in what we're doing, and I can see it in their eye, and we're going to get back in here early in the morning after we evaluate everything tonight and get ready to take on the Minnesota Golden Gophers up in Minneapolis.
Indiana Player Quotes
Stevie Scott, RB
Was there more emphasis on establishing the run today?
"The coaches had faith in me running the ball. This would be a running game especially with the wind and things like that would affect the passing game. He just gave me my shot and I ran."
How do you evaluate the offensive line playing in front of you? It looked like they were finally having their way with the defense.
"I felt like they got into a nice groove. They believed in themselves and just played hard. I felt like that helped them a lot during the finish."
How did you feel about how this game went compared to last week?
"I felt like we were locked in. We were focused. We had to capitalize on a lot of things that we didn't last week. I felt like this week we bettered ourselves, but we still have more things to improve on."
Peyton Ramsey, Quarterback
How would you grade the offense? How do you feel you guys played today overall?
"I think it's just like what we've done in the past. We looked good at times. We didn't look good at times. We shot ourselves in the foot too many times"
What did Coach Allen tell the quarterbacks in terms of using both of you today?
"He just told us that Mike (Penix) was going to go in and play at some point. We would just go from there."
How hard was it to see him (Mike Penix) go down in the third quarter?
"It hurts. It's tough. To see him go down, that hurts. He will fight. He will battle. Whatever it is. He is a good kid."
Coach talked about there being tears in the locker room, but no real discouragement. Do you feel like this team has fight?
"I think it's frustrating, but at the same time, you see glimpses of a really good football team. We've just got to find ways to use each other to be ready. That's how you win games in the Big Ten Conference."
Allen Stallings IV, Defensive Lineman
It was an improved Penn St. offensive line but you guys were still able to get a good push up and get pass rushing, what was working for you guys?
"We just got after it, to be honest. Just continued to play hard. We didn't do anything special or anything different, just pass rushing."
Talk about as a pass rusher with a guy like McSorley, so hard and he's so athletic. How tough is it to maintain that discipline, try to get after him but not like maybe over pursue, let him get out of the pocket and get down the field?
"It gets kind of hard at times, you know you can't get too far off the field. You have to be kind of picky with what you do because you never know which way you're going to run or which way you're going to break out of the pocket."
Did he (McSorley) do anything to surprise you today?
"He scrambled, that's what you do."
You guys kind of saw a scramble with Bryce Perkins earlier with Virginia. Did that help with a game plan or maybe give you guys an idea of what you're walking into?
"It helped a little bit. We got a few QB's that we scrambled. We worked on that a little bit in practice."
Marcelino Ball, Defensive Back
Coach Allen says this isn't a discouraged locker room. How do you guys rally after a loss like this?
"It makes us stronger. The fight that we put in throughout the game. You know we're all sad, we're all down about it but at the same time it makes us stronger. It makes us want it. It shows us that every play matters as you all know as well."
Do you contrast it from last week against Iowa, in terms of not having the energy last week that you had today?
"Iowa passed, it's on to the next week. Right now, Penn State has passed, we're on to the next week. You know w'ere 0-0 right now going into Minnesota, at Minnesota. Our goal is to be one of the elite in Minneapolis. You know we learn things from the prior week, but we don't try to linger on to it. Let it go. Next game, next play, next date."
Penn State Head Coach James Franklin
Opening Statement
"I appreciate everyone coming out to follow Penn State Football and supporting us. Obviously, you got to give Indiana credit. Every time it seemed like we had the game in control and were able to put them away, they would battle back in. I have a lot of respect for Coach Allen and what he has done here. I have a lot of respect for the program, they seem to battle everybody like that. I don't know if I have played in a game that windy in my career and I think it showed up. It showed up in special teams, showed up in the passing game and in a lot of other different things. We were able to win the field position battle which was important, especially in a day like today. We were able to win the turnover battle, win the penalty battle which is a big improvement for us over the last couple of weeks, but we lost the explosive play battle. Overall, I thought those were real positives that stood out in the game. JT, Johnathon Thomas, has been a guy who has been an unbelievable teammate here for five years, so to see him get an opportunity to step in there and make a huge play for us was awesome. He's breaking the team down in the locker room right now. I thought our next-man-up mentality was really good because in my five years since I've been here we haven't had that many guys knocked out of the game. Whether it was ankles or hamstrings or whatever it may be, to see a bunch of young guys get in the game and make some plays was good. It's a win, it's something to build on and we're excited about that. We'll take this win, go back in and watch the film, make corrections and get better."
A few days ago, you said that your team had made progress up until the Michigan State game. Do you feel that your team made progress tonight?
"It's obviously hard to sit here and say that right now when we battle. I will tell you this, the last two times we've been here, they've been battles. It's hard to describe that any differently when the last two times we've come here, we were losing at the half and were able to storm back in the second half and swing momentum and the game. Just watching the game, I felt like each week we have gotten better. Last week I didn't feel like we did that, but this week it's hard to say based on how the game played out but I'd like to watch the game film before I give you that answer. But again, I think you look at how they have played a lot of people at home and you look at what's happen the last two times we've gotten here in seasons we've had really good years. I will probably hold my answer until I've watched the tape."
Four and a half minutes to go, you got a 12-point lead, You get the ball back from stopping them, they looked pretty discouraged, you threw the ball twice. Why?
"At the end of the day, it's about getting first downs. A few weeks before, four-minute offense we ran the ball multiple times and didn't get a first down. Take a little bit of time off the clock so we wanted to be aggressive right there. We've gone back and forth with it and what we need to do, and it comes down to getting first downs. Obviously, this situation didn't work either. The time before, we ran the ball and weren't able to eat time off the clock and get a first down. This time we didn't do a good job of it either.
TOM ALLEN: Just a gut-wrenching loss for our team today. I thought our kids played their hearts out, played extremely hard. Proud of the effort. Just have to play better in certain situations and times, in critical moments, and really encouraged by the way our offense responded and the way we ran the football and threw the football, and just got to protect it. There was a key fumble there; losing the ball on offense and then losing the ball on special teams was a really costly mistake, and I thought special teams really hurt us today. That was to me the glaring thing that I'm very disappointed in, and not good enough. To me that's the one glaring bad spot. I thought offense and defense played well enough for us to win.
Questions?
Q. What is Michael Penix's injury and what's his status right now?
TOM ALLEN: Yeah, you know, I don't know for sure. I know he got targeted and that was called, but looks like it was a lower leg injury, which was why he was out of the game and couldn't come back. The targeting part of it did not result in any kind of head injury, just a penalty.
We don't know yet. I asked and they said we'll know more when we do some more tests.
Q. When you went for it on 4th down down there, he looked surprised to get the snap --
TOM ALLEN: Yeah, here's the bottom line, it's real simple. We weren't supposed to snap the football, so we made a mistake. It was very clearly stated what we were supposed to do, and somebody made a mistake. That's why he was surprised that the ball was snapped, because it wasn't supposed to be. We were supposed to do that, get them to jump offsides, if they don't, then you kick a field goal. That was, you know, a mistake that we made on the field.
Q. What did you see on the two kickoff returns that really hurt you?
TOM ALLEN: Yeah, you know, well, the first one, you kick it to a guy that's got some talent, and I see -- you get leverage issues, we have nine true freshmen -- nine freshmen on our kickoff coverage unit. That's a fact. But they're good players. They're just young.
So then the second we kicked away from him, kicked to the other guy, and he was the one that hurt us worse. And so we kicked some sky kicks and then we had to hold the ball, which kind of affected -- we were supposed to squib the one he ran back as far as he did, but when he has to hold the football it's hard for the kicker to kick it with a guy holding like that according to him, and just kind of -- to me it's really, really frustrating to give up those -- to play so well on offense and defense and give up those kind of return yards. It just makes me want to puke.
But we've got to address it and evaluate it and get better. It's hard for me to say right now, I'll watch the film and get it all figured out, but that's a couple weeks in a row of not good enough coverage. If they could have kicked it out of bounds I would, but that's a penalty and gives them the ball at the 40, so not real fired up about doing that.
Q. The drive right before half, running out of time, putting Peyton back, what was the thinking there?
TOM ALLEN: Well, the rationale for putting Peyton back in there was just the fact that experience, clock management, being able to handle that situation, so just felt like it was better to put it in his hands. Michael was playing really well at the time, and so we've got two good quarterbacks and decided to play them both. I thought Michael played really well. I thought Peyton did a lot of good things, too.
But then at the end we were trying to get the ball out of bounds and then a couple guys on the sideline thought we'd call out "mayday," which was on alert, and that's kind of -- there was a little confusion on that, but there wasn't enough time to run a play after he didn't get out of bounds since we didn't have any time-outs left.
Q. The effort last week obviously wasn't what you wanted it to be, well-known, but today, a huge turnaround. You out-gained them 549 to 417.
TOM ALLEN: Well, here's the thing. I was really, really bothered by last week's performance, and I get it, and I went back and watched the film, and I wouldn't say our guys didn't play hard, okay. We did not have the energy that you have to have to play at this -- you have to play at a fevered pitch in my opinion. Where our program is right now we have to play at a fevered pitch to be able to get after an Iowa, an Ohio State, Penn State. We have to. And we played with that energy at Ohio State and we didn't have it against Iowa, and when you don't have it against a team like that, they're going to make you look bad real fast, and if we wouldn't have had it today, this team would have done the same thing to us. That's the bottom line. This team is a really good football team, and I know they're frustrated by their last couple close losses, so bottom line is that our guys responded.
I challenged them in a huge way this week, and they chose to respond, and I thought they played their hearts out. That's why there's a lot tears in that locker room because they played so hard and they did a lot of great things. But the bottom line is we didn't make enough plays to win the game, and that's why we have to go back and watch the film and learn from it. But from a perspective of heart and effort and toughness and grit and fight, I'm proud of this football team.
Q. The feel of this game, the end result, it's basically a carbon copy of so many games in previous years. How do you assess morale and keep your fingerprint on where morale goes from here?
TOM ALLEN: Yeah, I assess it in this way: Our kids are fighters, man. I looked in that locker room, in those eyes, and I had everybody's eyes on me. Just left it just now, and I promise you this team is going to keep on fighting. Yeah, they're hurting, and yeah, they want to win these close games, and we will. It's a process, and this guy right here you're looking at, okay, I believe in this football team. I believe in the way we're building it and the way we're working and the focus that we have, and I believe in these kids, and yeah, it's tough, and I hurt for them, but we're going to stay the course. We're going to keep doing the things that we're doing over and over and over and over again until we break through. It's going to happen.
Q. Can you just talk about the way McSorley played? You held him in check passing wise but he did some damage running the ball.
TOM ALLEN: I know. You know, I'll tell you what, I tried to find him afterwards. I wanted to just shake his hand and -- glad I'm not going to see him again because he's just -- he's a tough, tough kid. I mean, just competitive, gritty, man, he's just tough. He can beat you with his legs, his arm, and you know, we did some good things against him, but he's hard to keep in check. He's so good. I've got so much respect for him.
But you know, we -- I thought we did the best job against him trying to contain the pass and the run. We've always done a good job stopping the run against him the last two seasons, but I felt like we had to do some things schematically to help our perimeter route because jersey No. 1, that kid, I did find him. He's fast as the wind now, and he's a match-up problem. He's the one that took it 95 yards to the house against Ohio State in that game. So we really had to do some things against him. So that creates a lot of issues. And 24, the Sanders kid, is a really special running back, too. All those things combined with that kind of a quarterback, really proud of our kids, man, they fought hard, but just got to find a way to get more points than they do at the end.
Q. If he was as fast as the wind today, he was pretty fast, too.
TOM ALLEN: Yeah, wind was crazy.
Q. But just talk a little bit about the play at the line of scrimmage, we all know in the Big Ten, if you're going to start winning games, the games that you need to win, you've got to win the line of scrimmage. Today I thought you did. Talk about that a bit.
TOM ALLEN: You know, that's a critical piece, and we put a lot of emphasis on it, and I was disappointed in certain games this season where we haven't, but against a top-tier group, I thought our guys up front -- you always go back and look at the yards rushing and all that per carry and evaluate. They obviously put pressure on us, and they do a great job rushing the passer and all that. But I thought our kids, once again, they were challenged and they responded, and when you can run the football and contain the running as best you can on one side, especially against a team like this, they're so hard to stop because of the style that they use and the way that quarterback creates so many issues, but you know, the offensive line I thought played well, especially running the football, and Stevie Scott continues to -- I just thought he just ran with a different sense of urgency. He's still young. He's still figuring it all out. But I knew how we practiced this week and how pregame was going, I knew our kids were going to play hard. I could tell. Really proud of him and how hard he ran.
We've just got to -- some things just don't change. You go back, you evaluate, and you stay the course, and you keep doing the little things right over and over again. It takes tremendous mental toughness to do that because it's easy to get discouraged, but this team will not get discouraged because they believe in what we're doing, and I can see it in their eye, and we're going to get back in here early in the morning after we evaluate everything tonight and get ready to take on the Minnesota Golden Gophers up in Minneapolis.
Indiana Player Quotes
Stevie Scott, RB
Was there more emphasis on establishing the run today?
"The coaches had faith in me running the ball. This would be a running game especially with the wind and things like that would affect the passing game. He just gave me my shot and I ran."
How do you evaluate the offensive line playing in front of you? It looked like they were finally having their way with the defense.
"I felt like they got into a nice groove. They believed in themselves and just played hard. I felt like that helped them a lot during the finish."
How did you feel about how this game went compared to last week?
"I felt like we were locked in. We were focused. We had to capitalize on a lot of things that we didn't last week. I felt like this week we bettered ourselves, but we still have more things to improve on."
Peyton Ramsey, Quarterback
How would you grade the offense? How do you feel you guys played today overall?
"I think it's just like what we've done in the past. We looked good at times. We didn't look good at times. We shot ourselves in the foot too many times"
What did Coach Allen tell the quarterbacks in terms of using both of you today?
"He just told us that Mike (Penix) was going to go in and play at some point. We would just go from there."
How hard was it to see him (Mike Penix) go down in the third quarter?
"It hurts. It's tough. To see him go down, that hurts. He will fight. He will battle. Whatever it is. He is a good kid."
Coach talked about there being tears in the locker room, but no real discouragement. Do you feel like this team has fight?
"I think it's frustrating, but at the same time, you see glimpses of a really good football team. We've just got to find ways to use each other to be ready. That's how you win games in the Big Ten Conference."
Allen Stallings IV, Defensive Lineman
It was an improved Penn St. offensive line but you guys were still able to get a good push up and get pass rushing, what was working for you guys?
"We just got after it, to be honest. Just continued to play hard. We didn't do anything special or anything different, just pass rushing."
Talk about as a pass rusher with a guy like McSorley, so hard and he's so athletic. How tough is it to maintain that discipline, try to get after him but not like maybe over pursue, let him get out of the pocket and get down the field?
"It gets kind of hard at times, you know you can't get too far off the field. You have to be kind of picky with what you do because you never know which way you're going to run or which way you're going to break out of the pocket."
Did he (McSorley) do anything to surprise you today?
"He scrambled, that's what you do."
You guys kind of saw a scramble with Bryce Perkins earlier with Virginia. Did that help with a game plan or maybe give you guys an idea of what you're walking into?
"It helped a little bit. We got a few QB's that we scrambled. We worked on that a little bit in practice."
Marcelino Ball, Defensive Back
Coach Allen says this isn't a discouraged locker room. How do you guys rally after a loss like this?
"It makes us stronger. The fight that we put in throughout the game. You know we're all sad, we're all down about it but at the same time it makes us stronger. It makes us want it. It shows us that every play matters as you all know as well."
Do you contrast it from last week against Iowa, in terms of not having the energy last week that you had today?
"Iowa passed, it's on to the next week. Right now, Penn State has passed, we're on to the next week. You know w'ere 0-0 right now going into Minnesota, at Minnesota. Our goal is to be one of the elite in Minneapolis. You know we learn things from the prior week, but we don't try to linger on to it. Let it go. Next game, next play, next date."
Penn State Head Coach James Franklin
Opening Statement
"I appreciate everyone coming out to follow Penn State Football and supporting us. Obviously, you got to give Indiana credit. Every time it seemed like we had the game in control and were able to put them away, they would battle back in. I have a lot of respect for Coach Allen and what he has done here. I have a lot of respect for the program, they seem to battle everybody like that. I don't know if I have played in a game that windy in my career and I think it showed up. It showed up in special teams, showed up in the passing game and in a lot of other different things. We were able to win the field position battle which was important, especially in a day like today. We were able to win the turnover battle, win the penalty battle which is a big improvement for us over the last couple of weeks, but we lost the explosive play battle. Overall, I thought those were real positives that stood out in the game. JT, Johnathon Thomas, has been a guy who has been an unbelievable teammate here for five years, so to see him get an opportunity to step in there and make a huge play for us was awesome. He's breaking the team down in the locker room right now. I thought our next-man-up mentality was really good because in my five years since I've been here we haven't had that many guys knocked out of the game. Whether it was ankles or hamstrings or whatever it may be, to see a bunch of young guys get in the game and make some plays was good. It's a win, it's something to build on and we're excited about that. We'll take this win, go back in and watch the film, make corrections and get better."
A few days ago, you said that your team had made progress up until the Michigan State game. Do you feel that your team made progress tonight?
"It's obviously hard to sit here and say that right now when we battle. I will tell you this, the last two times we've been here, they've been battles. It's hard to describe that any differently when the last two times we've come here, we were losing at the half and were able to storm back in the second half and swing momentum and the game. Just watching the game, I felt like each week we have gotten better. Last week I didn't feel like we did that, but this week it's hard to say based on how the game played out but I'd like to watch the game film before I give you that answer. But again, I think you look at how they have played a lot of people at home and you look at what's happen the last two times we've gotten here in seasons we've had really good years. I will probably hold my answer until I've watched the tape."
Four and a half minutes to go, you got a 12-point lead, You get the ball back from stopping them, they looked pretty discouraged, you threw the ball twice. Why?
"At the end of the day, it's about getting first downs. A few weeks before, four-minute offense we ran the ball multiple times and didn't get a first down. Take a little bit of time off the clock so we wanted to be aggressive right there. We've gone back and forth with it and what we need to do, and it comes down to getting first downs. Obviously, this situation didn't work either. The time before, we ran the ball and weren't able to eat time off the clock and get a first down. This time we didn't do a good job of it either.
Players Mentioned
DB
/ Football
QB
/ Football
RB
/ Football
DL
/ FootballFB: Isaiah Jones Media Availability (10/14/25)
Tuesday, October 14
FB: D'Angelo Ponds Media Availability (10/14/25)
Tuesday, October 14
FB: Roman Hemby Media Availability (10/14/25)
Tuesday, October 14
FB: Week 8 (Michigan State) - Curt Cignetti Press Conference
Monday, October 13