Chattanooga Football - Postgame Quotes
No. 20 Chattanooga vs. Elon
Finley Stadium - Chattanooga, Tenn.
Oct. 30, 2010
Chattanooga Head Coach Russ Huesman
Opening Statement
"Obviously we didn't play our best game of the year on either side of the ball; I actually thought our special teams played well. You cannot turn over the ball seven times and expect to beat a good team. As a coaching staff we better have a way to avoid those problems. I am putting the blame on the whole football team and not one area in particular. Give Elon credit for not laying down when we tied the game at 35."
On the mood in the lockeroom
"I am sure they are hurting, but we have to play better than that. We tie the game and get the ball back and then throw two picks in a row. The one good thing about our team is that we know that we have playmakers and I hope they plan to play better and something positive will happen."
On the running game of Elon
"We ran those plays in practice and they just blocked us pretty good. We started getting more aggressive on blitzes and it helped us in the second half."
On the quick scoring turnaround
"We got back quick and I was feeling good, and then the first play we throw that pick. That was weird how fast we got in and how fast we got out."
BJ Coleman, Quarterback, Junior
On the interceptions
"People are going to be in the area and they are going to make plays. Ultimately it comes down to protecting the football and I blame myself. It is something that will be worked on and bettered next week."
On coming back to tie the game 35-35
"We always believe. These guys have done nothing but do what we've asked them to do, and I think there is no doubt that in the locker room we knew we had a shot. Anytime we are on the field we have a shot. I truly believe it, but sometimes the coin falls the other way. We are going to come out, we are going to bounce back and we are going to play hard."
On the team's offensive play
"It's just unfortunate. I think that sometimes you're going to get the ball deflected and sometimes it's going to tip off of players. It's not exactly what you want and it's not how you want to draw it up, but you've got to bounce back. I am so proud of the way the guys played. They came out in the second half like they were shot out of a cannon and they shot themselves all the way back into it, but sometimes the ball bounces the other way and you just have to come out better prepared next week."
Joel Bradford, Junior, Wide Receiver
On coming back to tie the game at 35-35
"It doesn't surprise me at all that we were able to come back. We were in the locker room at half time and coaches and players were saying, 'We're going to go back out there, stop them and score another touchdown. We're going to be down by a touchdown, but we're going to go from there and make it a game.' We scored three touchdowns, but we have to learn to put a complete game together. Of course, offensively, seven turnovers aren't going to cut it. It shows that we never gave up. Yes, we ran out of time and we handed Elon the ball, but Elon played great. Elon had a great game plan, but we can't continue to beat ourselves like we did today. We've got to go back to work, put a complete game together and hope that we don't beat ourselves."
On turnovers
"I think it's just basic fundamentals. We might be thinking too fancy, or trying to do things too fancy, but I'm not for sure what it is. As players, we're not too confident, but I feel that we have a lot of pressure on us right now. I know people expect a lot of us, but I feel like sometimes we try to do too much. We need to just come in and play our game. When we do that and we relax, I know for sure we'll connect. That's where we are now. We just have to go back to the basic fundamentals, find our basic mentality and we have a chip on our shoulder coming into next week. We're going to fight hard the rest of the season."
Elon Head Coach Pete Lembo
Knowing what to expect coming into the game against Chattanooga
"The one thing we did time was that there were going to be a lot of high's and low's in this game. Just with how explosive Chattanooga was on offense and the enthusiasm they had. Kind of the mojo that Chattanooga has going right now. We just talked to the kids about riding out the high's and low's and finishing strong. That was the one thing that did play out. The other thing was that we knew going in that we had to run the football today. We had to rest our defense. We had to keep the time of possessions close."
On success in the game
"We tried to be really multiple. We tried to give Chattanooga a lot to think about. We just felt like if we could survive the run and not give up a bunch of deep throws we would have a chance. I will say this, Chattanooga got behind us a couple of times and that's inexcusable. If we're in soft coverage, if we're in three-deep that shouldn't happen. That was disappointing, but I think our kids did battle and we've had six games like this this year. This has been like this every week this year. The difference in this week is that we found a way to make a few more plays."
On his team as a whole this season
"I am happy for our kids because they have been really resilient through this whole thing. A lot of teams, at this point, would have just put it on cruise control, came in here and got their doors blown off by a good team today."
