Chattanooga Football Postgame Quotes
No. 13 Chattanooga at No. 9 Jacksonville State
Saturday – Sept. 6, 2014
Finley Stadium Stadium (14,285) – Chattanooga, Tenn.
Chattanooga Head Coach Russ Huesman
Thoughts on the game
“Tough game. I give Jacksonville State credit. They played hard. They got after us, especially defensively. They played, they were well coached and they did a fantastic job. I don't want to say they deserved to win the game, but they won the game fair and square. It was a tough lose. We have to regroup and get ready for Austin Peay. Our kids fought. I told them that it was a fight.”
Thoughts on the Chattanooga defense
“I give our defense credit. They did a great job. They fought. We missed some tackles in the first half that hurt. One pass interference call hurt. They fought. We are young but we just have to tackle better, and I think we will be alright. We knew these guys were hard to tackle. DeMarcus James is a good player. He had 112 yards and almost 30 carries. We bottled him up pretty good. I think we missed a quarterback a couple of times and that was a killer, especially there on the goal line. It was not good enough on either side of the ball in my opinion. Dee Virgin was really good. We always put Dee in the toughest situations and Dee always responds.”
On Jacksonville State's defense
“I give their defense credit. I don't know if we played the best, but they played like warriors out there. They fought. You can't have 18 offensive plays in the first half and 50 defensive in the first. We didn't have a first down in the first half.”
Thoughts on special teams
“We actually had something planned that we felt was going to work in the special teams. A couple of different fakes and things like that. They actually lined up completely different than what they did in the first week, and what we had seen and researched at different places. I thought Nick Pollard punted the ball well. We got two inside way down in there. In the fourth quarter, we got it down there and we forced him to punt, and that's when Tommy Hudson returned it. We kind of did what we wanted to do on that one, but they did a great job.”
Nakevion Leslie, sophomore, line backer
Thoughts on the first half
“The first half was kind of rough. Our offense just couldn't get going, but we stuck it out. We kept talking, kept motivating each other and just tried to pull out what we could. We knew it was going to be a fight from the beginning.”
Thoughts on the second half
I felt for the second half we executed well. We studied hard during the week about what they could do. We just knew we had to make a stop.”
Thoughts on over time
“We always preach over time, four quarter situations and stuff like that. We always want to keep fighting and finish the game how we started. We always try to come out with that mentality.”
Keon Williams, senior, running back
Thoughts on the game
“Jacksonville State did a great job executing their plays. They did their studying on us. I don't have too much more I can say about them. They just did a great job.”
Thoughts at the half
“We just wanted to get something going. We wanted to come out and get a first down. We didn't get a first down in the first half. We felt that once we got a first down we could get something going. We wanted to get rolling on a first down and that's what we did.”
Thoughts on the offense
“The offensive line did a good job in the second half. They came out battling, and the defense did an excellent job keeping us in the game. We just need to do better with the scoring points and helping the defense out. The defense had the two really big pick-six interceptions. You can't ask them for any more.”
On moving forward
“We just have to build from this experience. We have to take this negative energy, feed off it and make it positive. That's all we can do.”
Jacksonville State Head Coach John Grass
Thoughts on the game
“It was big. We have a good program. Just to be able to come on the road and preserve over time was big for our team. I'm hoping the next game we can get rolling. We have a lot we can improve on offensively and defensively. We played about as good as we can play.”
Thoughts on Chattanooga
“Chattanooga has a good program and a good football team. They are at the top of their conference and picked to win it this year, and I think they will. I believe they're every bit of a top 15 team”
On the overtime period
“Our defense played their butts off. They got us in position to win the game. We gave them a chance to win in overtime and they set themselves up to. I can take my hat off to them, they played extremely hard.”
