Chattanooga Football Postgame Quotes
No. 14 Chattanooga at Central Michigan
Thursday – Aug. 28, 2014
Kelly/Shorts Stadium (30,255) – Mount Pleasant, Mich.
Head Coach Russ Huesman
Thoughts on the game
“We made some mistakes in this game. We had some stops on third downs and had some penalties, but I will give our defense credit. They played hard and Central Michigan is big and physical. They have a great receiver, and their running back is really good. We were playing against some really good guys on both sides of the football. I think they had every defensive starter returning from last year's team. Our guys played hard, and they are hurting because we felt like we could win that game. You have to give Central Michigan a lot of credit. They did a great job in defending us. They came in with a great plan to defend us, and offensively they did what they had to do. I thought our defense rose to the occasion a bunch and did a fantastic job.”
Thoughts on Central Michigan's adjustments
“I felt like Central Michigan made a lot of good changes in the second half. They bunched it up and ran it a lot more. They isolated us once on a post-corner and got that one, but realistically, I thought we did a really nice job of defending them in the passing game. We held Davis down and didn't let him have a catch, and you have to give our defense credit. If you're going to hold this team with a bunch of people back to 223 yards, you can't beat that. They ran 72 plays. If we had just not made some silly mistakes, it would have been even better. But I thought we played well offensively in the first half. Tommy Hudson had a couple of big plays, but we got into some third-and-long situations and got into some trouble. Jacob made some bad throws, and when you get one tipped at the line of scrimmage with Faysal Shafaat wide open – we're going to have to figure out ways to get those hands down. We're not going to continue to do that, and they tipped three or four balls in the first half that killed us with people open. We'll get better and play better, and our quarterback will play better.”
On Chattanooga's receivers
“I thought our receivers made a lot of phenomenal plays today. They were blocking really well along with catching passes. When you get runners on the edge and get blocks from your receivers, that's huge. I thought Keon Williams ran hard today. We did some really good things on offense in the first half but didn't really do anything in the second. Will Healy has done a great job with those guys. They've all bought in and I think he's done an excellent job. They are a great group of kids and they are working really hard.”
On the offensive plan, spreading the field from sideline to sideline
“We did some things that were successful early. It was just a matter of them taking away the perimeter stuff. They started getting up the field and we couldn't get all that stuff going. Now, you have to block them inside and we didn't do that in the second half. They were big and physical on defense in the second half. We couldn't move them off the ball. Again, you're playing an FBS school and you figure those things are going to happen.”
Thoughts on the Mocs' young offensive line
“It's a good group. I think they fought. It didn't look like there were any glaring issues up there and there weren't a whole lot of seams on the inside. There is a lot of pressure on the quarterback with this offense. He has to make the right reads, get the ball to the right people or to keep it. If he hands it off and they make a tackle, he should have probably kept it and that's what everybody sees. But it's probably a little harder than it looks.”
Looking ahead to Jacksonville State
“Jacksonville State is a really good team. We knew we had to begin the season with two really good teams. It will be a real test for us. We have to get healthy, have the ability to role people and tackle a little better. We may have gotten worn down a little bit and missed some tackles. We had a few opportunities to get some guys on the ground. Those kids for Central Michigan were really good, but the guys for Jacksonville State are going to be really good, too.”
