POST-GAME QUOTES (vs. Georgia State, Oct. 26, 2013)
ULM Head Coach Todd Berry
Opening Remarks:
"That was more fun. I could have said earlier this week in our press conference that I felt like we've come back emotionally. I really think that was a lot of it. Obviously, we've got some physical things in relation to our guys being back, but I thought we got back emotionally. As I mentioned on Tuesday, good football teams are desperate teams. They are desperate to win and desperation sometimes has a negative connotation to it but I don't think in football it does.
I thought we were desperate. We practiced like it all week long. You could feel the energy was back on the sidelines. We didn't play perfect. We certainly had some lost opportunities, but we made enough plays. We're anxious to get back out on the field tomorrow and practice to get ready for Troy."
"I think it's safe to say he's back. It's good to have him back. He has a great control and understanding of our offense. He obviously can make plays and he allows people around him to make plays, too. He saw things really well. I was anxious to get him moving around a little bit, and he moved well. I think he's back and that impacts us pretty dramatically.
"I think about
Je'Ron Hamm. He played well tonight and also made some big plays. It's amazing when you take a few people out of your system the impact that it can have."
"I do think Coach (Trent) Miles is doing a great job over there at Georgia State. It's a good-looking football team. He's got them playing hard. They're time is going to come. I compared them earlier to Western Kentucky from a couple years ago. I think their time is going to come and he (Miles) has done a great job. I knew that they were a winless team, but that was a pretty good football team. It really was. That makes things a little more pleasing because that was a pretty good team out there."
On "easing" Kolton into the game:
"As I mentioned on Thursday, we opened him up. It's now or it's waiting for a while, and we needed to find out right then, so we opened him up on Thursday and made him do the things we needed to see him do. We forced it on him, and he responded well. When he came back Friday morning and he didn't have any soreness, he was back. I'm happy for him. He came out of the game pretty healthy The only concern I have right now is Tavarese Maye. He has a lower body injury and we'll have to come back and see how he's doing tomorrow."
"Again, if you take some good players out of your program, it impacts you, and Centarius made his presence felt this evening. I'm not surprised by that. He continues to get in better and better shape. I keep waiting for him to break one of those really, really long ones and right now he's running out of gas at the very end. We have to get him past that, but I'm excited for Centarius and having him back. Obviously, you know for your football team that these guys coming back is critical from an offense perspective. They're critical people, and you can't pull people out that are critical players and think it's going to be the same. When you get them back, good things happen, and that's kind of what happened tonight."
On his return:
"It felt good out there. It felt good to be able to run out there without any pain holding me back. Tonight, I really didn't have to run around a lot because my offensive line did a great job blocking up front and holding their gaps and fulfilling their responsibilities, but we also had a heck of a run game going with everyone tonight. It was also great to see receivers making plays and running backs breaking long runs and putting ourselves into scoring opportunities."
On the defensive success shifting to offensive momentum:
"It helped us a lot. The defense was making plays the entire night. They had three picks and a fumble recovery right before halftime. The fumble we recovered at the goal line was huge for our momentum and it killed their momentum kind of and brought it back to us. It felt good. The defense played great and covered well. They made some great plays for us and put us into good field position at times. We got to capitalize on it a couple of times tonight."
Georgia State Head Coach Trent Miles
Opening Statement:
It's tough to win a game after turning the ball over so many times against a really good football team. We won't make any excuses though.
Tim Wynn did an outstanding job for us all night. He played the whole second half as center after so many injuries and really battled and learned as he went. He was a big positive for us.
However, the turnovers really hurt us. We were down 14-10 and had the momentum after an onside kick, and we gave the ball back over deep in our own territory. We then had a chance to put points on the board right before the half and we turned it over again. The turnovers put us in a bad situation and we didn't play well.
On the defense scoring a touchdown:
Well thank goodness. It was the only way we scored. It was a good play by Robert Ferguson and our defense but it was far too little. We needed to play a little bit better in some spots tonight.
On finishing the season on a strong note:
I'm not worried about finishing out the season, I'm worried about getting my guys ready to play next week. We only go one game at a time and it doesn't matter who we play. Our kids will practice hard this week. We just need to cut down on the turnovers since our margin for error is so small. The turnovers and the injuries make it really tough. But our kid's spirits will be up and the biggest game of the week is next week, and that's all we worry about.
