Houston - UL Lafayette Postgame Quotes
10/7/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 7, 2006
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- 2006 Houston Cougars Football Postgame Quotes
UL Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns (3-2) at Houston Cougars (4-2)
Saturday, Oct. 7, 2006 * Robertson Stadium * Houston, Texas
HOUSTON HEAD COACH Art Briles
Opening Statement
"I don't know what I can say. It's demoralizing, gut wrenching. I should have done a better job. I think our players played hard. I think I could have made some changes during the game that could have given us a better opportunity to win. We knew they would come in here and play extremely hard. We knew they were a hot football team winning eight out of their last 10 football games. We knew it was a big game for them, but it was also a big big game for us. We came out and played well early, but we self destructed a little bit there and gave them some hope. When you give someone hope, it makes it a lot tougher scenario for them. We should have put our foot on their throat and not let them breathe but we did. We tried, but a couple touchdowns got called back before the half and we took our foot off for a second."
On giving up a 21-point lead
The 21-0 lead didn't last. They ran the kickoff back to the 25 and next thing you know, it's 21-7. It was 21-0 for about two minutes on the game clock. You have to have a three-score lead ot feel safe in college football. We never had that for very long. We had a chance to go up by 18 at the half and it didn't work out. That took a little air out of us. Their points, with the exception of their last drive, were from mistakes on our part.
On how the team will regroup after the loss
"It's our job. It's our duty. It's what we do. Football is a tough sport. You take a lot of time and effort and put it into activity on the field and it doesn't always work out like you want it to. You have to check out hold card and see what you're made of. That's what we'll do. We still have our same goals and the opportunity is in front of us. How we handle those will determine how this team is judged after the season."
On UL's fake punt in the third quarter being a turning point in the game
I think it had some impact. Believe it or not, we were hollering 'watch the fake'. You catch a team in a game like that and you expect around midfield when it's fourth and six. If we had to do it over again, we'd be in safe return mode and let it go.
Impact of the penalties late in the first half
Their impact is evident by the fact we didn't get seven points. I think we lost some momentum there. That's self inflicted. That's our fault. That's my fault and we've got to remedy that.
On quantifying how devastating the loss is
I don't rank losses. They all hurt. They all sting. What we have to do is create momentum and attitude going into Southern Miss. They've had a week-and-a-half to prepare for us. We've got to go in there and win the football game.
HOUSTON QUARTERBACK Kevin Kolb
Opening Statement
"It's like it always is. We let opportunities slip away from us. You could kind of sense it coming. We didn't pull together and stop them when we needed to. We had a lot of things go wrong for us tonight in the second half on both sides of the ball. Every player should be held accountable for this loss."
On Louisiana-Lafayette's 31-7 Scoring Run
"Momentum is the biggest thing that turned. They began to get it at the end of the first half with the blocked field goal. We scored twice at the end of the half and both of them were brought back with a penalty. Everything went their way tonight. We can't let this ruin our season. We're still have a chance to win a Conference USA championship. We have to a short memory and forget about his heading to Southern Miss next week."
On What's Next
"We have to hold together and fight back. We're a fighting team anyway. We're not going to hold our head down and feeling sorry for ourselves. I see us going into Southern Miss next week and taking care of business."
HOUSTON DEFENSIVE TACKLE Marquay Love
On Louisiana-Lafayette's Last Drive
"We couldn't step up and make plays. We couldn't step up and make a play. They had the momentum throughout the entire second half and scored at the end. We have to regroup and get ready for Southern Miss. We're not going to dwell on this game"
On Louisiana-Lafayette's 31-7 Scoring Run
We just got too comfortable out there on defense. We weren't worried about finishing at the end. We were too worried about making big plays and forgot about our assignments. It just goes to show that our senior leadership needs to step up and play. It's not just one person, it's all of us. We have to stick together against Southern Miss."
On the Difference Between the Two Halves
"We didn't wrap up and finish our tackles. They broke too many tackles and their running back was getting too many yards after the first hit. That was the big difference. We have to make a commitment to get ready next Sunday with our work outs."
HOUSTON DEFENSIVE BACK Will Gulley
On Louisiana-Lafayette's Last Drive
"There's not to say. We felt like we let the whole team down as a defense because we felt should have stop them. There wasn't much change in their offense from the first half to the second half. They caught the ball a little better. We got complacent and let them hang around. We didn't finish them when we have a chance."
On Louisiana-Lafayette Quarterback Jerry Babb
"He's just a regular quarterback, but he made plays for his team when he had to. Our defense didn't make plays to stop him. This loss hurts. We have to bounce back and have a great week of practice to get ready for Southern Miss."
UL LAFAYETTE HEAD COACH RICKEY BUSTLE
On UL's performance
"I feel like we beat a top-25 team. I think Houston is that good. I felt we took their best shots early and we hung in there. We went into the game feeling like we needed to open up a little bit and wanted to establish the run and you can't bail from it. We went into to halftime and decided that we needed to throw the football more and it open up some running lanes for us. I just wanted to stop the bleeding in the 1st (quarter). As we got in the second we scored and after the fake punt we had another opportunity and we were back in."
On the stop before halftime
"At halftime I think that was a big stop we had right there. I think our players felt confident that we took a great shot from them."
Game plan against UH QB Kevin Kolb
"We gave him as many looks and tried to confuse him a little bit and did some basic in the second half and made him move a little bit"
On the play of QB Jerry Babb
"Jerry is a senior you don't have to tell him that much cause he believes in what we are doing."
UL LAFAYETTE TIGHT END KEVIN BELTON
On the game winning play
"We run that play about two or three times everyday in practice. We end up running it in the game and we got a touchdown."
On how the win feels
"It feels awesome. It feels as just as good coming back from behind and beating UL Monroe last year."
UL LAFAYETTE QUARTERBACK JERRY BABB
On this game being a signature win
"This is one of the best wins I've been around. We were down early against an extremely good team. We played as a team we made plays in special teams and defense stepped up."
On coming from 21-0 down to win
"The defense got after it. We knew we had to drive the ball. We couldn't do that back to back in the first half and were able to do it in the second."
UL LAFAYETTE CORNERBACK MICHAEL ADAMS
On slowing down the UH offense
"We really didn't change too much we did the same things. We gave up some cheap ones early we wasn't challenging like we should have and we came in and talked about it halftime."
On UL's halftime adjustments
"They had not done anything short on us. It was just screens and everything else was deep. We just figure we would play the deep ball and we will give the short stuff if they wanted to run that. "
On UL's second-half mentality
"These guys had a lot of speed. You had to give them some room and let them do something and then try to make the tackle. Sometimes, they made us miss when we had the guy there."
