Chattanooga Football Postgame Quotes
Mercer at Chattanooga
Finley Stadium – Chattanooga, Tenn.
Saturday – March 27, 2021
 
Head Coach Rusty Wright
On the general thoughts of the ballgame:
"Made too many mistakes. We had chances. Didn't come away with points early. Could have changed. And then fumbled two points. That's the difference."
 
On how he assessed playing the two's as the one's today.
"Those guys were one snap away from playing every down. We had to find out who could do it and who couldn't do it. That's the thing. We had to find out who could play, who we could count on."
 
"Sam Hall, actually, I think he broke his thumb in the first series of the game and he played every snap. It wasn't pretty for those guys out there, but they played their tails off, gave themselves a chance."
 
"I knew we'd have a chance to win it. I knew we would – even after the delay we'd have an opportunity. We just didn't capitalize on the opportunities we had."
 
On how impressive Lance Jackson's game today:
"We found out we can count on him. We got one we can count on. He's going to be just fine … it's just he'd never had an opportunity. We have to see what these guys can do, or I'm wasting my time. He actually protected really well when he was in there, which was good to see. He hit some holes like he should. It's good for him; good for us."
 
On the takeaway from a game like this:
"Seventeen guys starting for the first time that ain't never started in a college football before. That's what I take away from it. Guys we can be able to count on – sometime or another. That offensive line that was out there playing – they got a chance to be able to play in the fall. You just don't know. You gotta put them out there and find that out, figure that out. You gotta let them go play. There's no other way to do it."
 
On balancing thin margin between developing and winning:
"We had a chance to win. We don't drop two punts we got a good chance to win. We got a really good chance to win. That's something you can't simulate in practice. You can't. We had an opportunity to win the football game and didn't get it done. That's the thing we have to grow from. We got some guys that can play … we just have to play. We have to keep playing guys."
 
Christian Snyder – Jr.-LB
On his first career start:
"It obviously feels great, just to play football. It's what we all want to do. We were able to go out there and perform to the best of our ability. I enjoyed it. It's hard to take the emotion away of the final score. It's hard to do. We all want to win. That was the goal. Mercer played very well, and we weren't able to win today … but, we'll continue to grow."
 
On the dept of the team:
"Our whole coaching staff keeps saying we're one snap away from getting in and playing a whole bunch of snaps like we just did. I think, you know, we just need to continue to grow, continue to work every day and workout every day and continue to get better in every facet in school, workouts, on the football field, our personal lives. I think we can grow a lot from this."
 
Drayton Arnold – Sr.-QB
On how little mistakes may have hurt in the end:
"I think we're going to have to go back and look…watch the film, obviously. I think it's kind of hard to say how well or how, you know, where your kind of missing an opportunity when you're just kind of thinking about it. It's interesting. I'm going to watch film and find out where we can improve as a team. We're going to move on and get better as a team."
 
On five freshman offensive lineman starting:
"I think they did a great job. I think the first few drives we were able to kind of move the ball down the field. Just wanted to finish those drives there. Those guys are all extremely talented."