Houston-Sam Houston State Football Postgame Quotes
9/16/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 16, 2005
Recap | Final Stats | Notes
HOUSTON - 2005 Houston Cougars Football Postgame Quotes
Sam Houston State Bearkats (1-1) at Houston Cougars (1-1)
Saturday, September 10, 2005 * John O'Quinn Field at Robertson Stadium * Houston, Texas
HOUSTON HEAD COACH Art Briles
"Today's game was like a 2003 game. Last week we were trying to feel out our personality and find out what kind team we had."
"We came out and thought we would run the football much better. And this is without Anthony Evans, because Anthony would have had a big night tonight. Today would have been a good game for him because he's a slasher."
"Sam Houston has a run stop defense. They're a team that loads the box, but we thought we had to come out and try to establish something running the ball. Any win is hard to get and we'll take it"
"I knew it was going to be a tough game, I knew it was going to be a war because those guys have been playing for us since the spring and summer. They didn't work on Bacone last week they were working on us. We didn't get any film on them until Friday, and it was one half of one game. We had a pretty hard time finguring out what they were going to do from an offensive and defensive standpoint. We made some pretty good adjustments as the game went along."
"We just really didn't feel in-sync offensively, I felt like our defense really played well, they bent a little bit but they didn't break. I thought they made some big plays when they had to, the interception before halftime by Fontenettte was huge."
"UTEP is going to be a big game for us next Friday, we're ready to get after them."
"Kade Lane is smart, he's a gamer, he's going to do whatever it takes to help us win. He's a fast and tough. He is a team guy."
"We squibed it all last week, but in between the two games we really only called for one squib. These guys are just learning out there, and one of these days there going to start hitting and everybody is going to be happy. The thing that is good is that we're making extra points and field goals. The field goals are not chipshots, and that's encouraging."
SAM HOUSTON STATE HEAD COACH TODD WHITTEN
"Offensively we dropped so many balls and didn't make very many plays. I thought we had so good effort, but we have a lot of work to do. I knew there would be issues that would show up, and they certainly did. "
"We had two missed field goals so that certainly wasn't good, but I was happy with the fact that we only had one turnover.
"Third down conversions we were two of twelve, and that's just inept.
"We dropped a touchdown pass which wasn't good, but the game easily could have been 31-24."
"We're just not capable on offense right now. We have no playmakers, we had at least six to eight dropped balls."
"All in all I think we played ok, this is kind of a typical first game where you can test yourself in a bunch of different situations, and we made some mistakes."
"We were trying to cover up all of there receivers, so we had everything spread open. That's one of the reasons he was able to scramble so much."
"They were trying to play their little screen game, so we knew we had to take something away. We'd rather let Kolb run the ball then get the ball in the hands of their receivers."
HOUSTON RUNNING BACK Ryan Gilbert
"In the first half, they were shutting us down a little bit. Coach came in and told us that we were going to run the ball. We were going to use our strength and power up front. I needed to pick it up and move the chains myself and get the team motivated to keep moving the chains and put points on the board."
"We have four running backs. With us four, we can all do a lot. Jackie and I had to step up and run the ball and pound them. We can throw the ball as well as we can run the ball."
"That was the plan coming in. We wanted to get Jackie (Battle) to pound them a little bit as well as bounce it outside and move the chains. I felt like I had to run inside as well as run outside. With them playing so close, once we broke the line of scrimmage and got past the linebackers and secondary, we would kill them."
HOUSTON LINEBACKER BRENDAN PAHULUM
"They kept us off balance in the first half a little bit... but we started getting the flow of the game. We had to settle down and do our job, get three-and-outs."
"Coach told us it was a middle block, so the linebackers had to push the defensive tackles and get a hand up. It tipped off Chris Pilot's hand."
HOUSTON NOSE TACKLE Kade Lane
"It was important on the defensive line to get pressure on the quarterback. We didn't succeed as well as we would like tonight. Our secondary and linebackers stepped up a lot to fill in our void on the pass rush. They had a good offensive game last week. We didn't succumb to all of our goals this week. By holding them to 10 points after 77 last week, that was a big reach for us."
"That's our job. We have to adjust. If they adjust to passing the whole time, we have to be able to adjust and put some pressure on them with a four-man rush."
"The younger guys are going to have to step up. We are definitely on the upswing."
