ULM Head Coach Todd Berry
Opening Statement:
“I'm disappointed; I hate it for our seniors. I appreciate the people that showed up because I know that other things that were going on, my hat's off to them. Wish we could have played better for that group that did show up. The players right now are disappointed and hurt; I think the bottom line was that we got dominated on the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball and I think that was evident throughout the course of the game. Our kicking game really hurt us and the turnovers hurt us and that's kind of what got everything rolling there in the second half. We couldn't control the line of scrimmage at all on either side of the ball, and then obviously the kicking game and turnovers let us down.”
On players not looking like themselves tonight:
“Well, I don't know I haven't seen the tape. I know this, the group is a bunch of pleasers. They really wanted to play well tonight and sometimes whenever you push the envelope too much, when you press, you don't play well. I don't know if that's accurate but obviously it's happened with this group before in some games where all of a sudden it felt like everyone was trying so hard to play well that, in the process, we didn't play as well as we needed to. They're upset right now. They wanted to show their appreciation to the crowd that showed up here tonight and the seniors certainly wanted to play well. They're pleasers, you know, so now we have to bounce back.”
On how much having older receivers out affected the game:
“I don't know that it impacted us that much just because of the nature, there's no question that we miss some guys. Even in the fact that we had some guys that had to play way too many snaps. In the process of playing too many snaps, you're not quite as crisp, you're not where you need to be at the exact appropriate time. The bottom line is that we didn't own the line of scrimmage; that was probably the biggest factor tonight, on either side of the ball. We got pushed around.”
On if he thinks they got beat by the better team:
“We did. Tonight, a better team tonight. I thought going in that this was a very even game as everybody else in the conference did. There's not any difference between anybody in this conference. It's who shows up that night. They showed up, we didn't show up as well as we needed to. We were not as physical as we needed to be and that was evident with yards per carry from a run standpoint.”
On how the team will react:
“We'll respond. It's a hurt group in there but they got pride. There's very little margin of error for us now. There's none and that's what I just told them, I mean there's no margin.”
Arkansas State Head Coach Brian Harsin
On Oku/Tryon Suspensions:
"It was a violation of team rules. Those guys will be back in the meeting on Sunday. They'll be ready to play next week. It was something that happened prior to the game. I'm really proud of our team and the way they stepped up. I'm proud of the guys that had to be in the positions to replace the two guys that had been playing for us all year long. They really rallied around each other tonight, so I felt like that was a huge part of our growth as a football team tonight. Those two guys will be back on Sunday and they'll be ready to play."
On Halftime Discussion:
"We really didn't change anything that we had talked about prior to the game. We talked about fighting in the game. We talked about offense and running the ball physically. We talked about defense playing the entire play every play because the quarterback is such a great scrambler. We talked about how on special teams (we needed to) simply out-hustle them. Period. It had nothing to do with scheme. It was a very simple plan that did not change coming into the second half. We just made some corrections as far as the concept that they beat us on. I thought the defense did a good job of that, but overall the whole concept was fight the whole entire time and I thought the guys did that."
On Special Teams:
“It's huge. If you get two blocks on special teams, you're going to win the game. If you get five turnovers in a game, you're going to win the game. That's just how it is, bottom line. I didn't see Albright's block, I happened to be turned around on it, but I saw the end result of it. He was excited about it. I'll have to go back and look at it on tape, but that's huge. We talk about it every week. You don't know who it's going to be, you just know we have an opportunity and when it comes, everyone has to be full speed and Albright just happened to be the guy.”
