ULM Warhawks

Post-Game Quotes (at Oklahoma, Aug. 31, 2013):
ULM Head Coach Todd Berry
Opening Statement:
“Obviously disappointed in the way we played. Congratulations to Bob and the Oklahoma Sooners. They took it to us and we didn't respond very well. We knew that we were facing a great football team. A well-coached football team. But, quite honestly, I thought we had a chance coming in, based off of past history and all other kinds of things. I thought early in the first quarter we played like it, and for whatever reason in the second quarter the wheels started coming off a little bit. We didn't play very good assignment football on defense, we struggled with an adjustment that Oklahoma made. From an offensive perspective, we could never get a guy blocked, which we should be able to handle that thing. But I am proud of the effort of our players and I know that we will bounce back. I do believe that we have a good football team even though we didn't show it today. The fact that, quite honestly, it's even possible that we were in a game with Oklahoma is probably, when you look at where our program was and all that other kind of thing, is probably saying something in relation to our players and our expenditures and all those other things that kind of play into this. I'm disappointed but not distraught. Obviously I am anxious for another game because this one I would like to forget.”
 
On ULM's offensive struggles:
“Well, we have got an injury with Kolton right now. It happened in the first quarter. He is a tough kid and he kept playing with it. But obviously that changed some of the offensive structure. We'll see how much he can go later on, but, that changed some things. And then obviously our backup quarterback is not completely healthy. So, consequently, we could not even put him in. We had to start winning the game with other people and quite honestly our offense is kind of built around our quarterbacks doing all of the things that we need for them to do, as is every other spread offense. So it made for a very difficult evening because I do think we have a very good offensive football team even though it didn't show tonight. I think some of the kind of things we are dealing with, we have to find some ways to maybe not have to lean on the quarterback as much because, again, when they are not available it creates some problems for us.”
 
On Kolton Browning's injury affecting his running ability:
“I think that his ability to extend plays is pretty critical and the moment we cannot extend plays with him changes our structure of offense. Against what Oklahoma was doing, which is playing a lot of man-coverage, bringing four but also bringing in a fifth guy, occasionally six, in those kind of games is when your quarterback needs to come alive a little bit. Because generally man-coverage there is nobody responsible for the quarterback. He wasn't confortable, which I understand, with running. That is kind of the difference in  being able to get them out of that man-coverage. Quite honestly, bad term, very descriptive, they kind of 'big boy'd' us up front. We didn't handle that very well. I like to think that we have some good speed at reciever but we had some difficulty getting open and that was a little bit surprising, but good for Oklahoma. And we have got some good recievers. We have got some rated, NFL recievers. They're pretty good players and we had a difficult time getting open in just individual match-ups.”
 
On Oklahoma's defensive gameplan: 
“There was no question that on both sides of the football we saw some new things. But you're expecting that in the first ballgame. Again, one of the things I said in this last week, that it was significantly important that we have a team that is mature enough to transition in-game. Because most of the time when you have young teams you are not transitioning you are just making suggestions because you do not know exactly what they are going to do. This group has got some maturity, and we did, we did do some adjustments on the sideline. But, we have got to do a better job of coaching and we have got to do a better job of playing. It's starts with me. We are a better football team than what we showed today. I don't know if we are good enough to win, but I know we are a lot better than what we showed. Again, disappointed but not distraught. I am disappointed. Our players are too.”
 
On Oklahoma's changing the tempo on offense:
“They changed the speed and we panicked. That was disappointing. We couldn't get the call in, they weren't getting lined up, things we had worked on, actually. There was a little bit of maybe just getting tired. We quit bringing our feet on tackles when we were there to make the tackle. We did not tackle very well. We are going to work on tackling this week. That's one of the concers always going into the first ballgame. How much do you hit and stay healthy? How much do you hit where all of a sudden you cannot play? There is a fine there as a coach, in terms of that, but obviously we need to do some more tackling drills because we didn't tackle very well.”
 
On what adjustments need to be made before the next game:
“I won't have to do anything, not with this group. They're embarrassed right now. That will be just enough. I don't have to do anything. I just have to get them back out there on the practice field. They will go to work.”

On injury in the first quarter and how it affected the team throughout the game
“I tried to scramble one time and my leg just wasn't quite cooperating with me. I didn't get the burst I wanted to get running away from them. It got tighter and tighter over the game and it was tough to loosen up. It really cut out part of my game, which hurt me, hurt the offense. We couldn't really move the ball that much. We cut ourselves on third downs, as you could see, I'm not sure what the stats are, but we couldn't convert and we couldn't help our defense on the field. They were dead tired. As an offense, we have to move the chains and get more first downs and get those guys some rest, get healthy and go out next week and prepare for Grambling.”
 
On the outcome of game considering how prepared they were:
“We didn't expect to not score on offense. Our defense had been doing a heck of a job all camp against us. We'd been doing pretty good with tempo and moving the chains, like I said. Just tonight, everything fell apart. It felt like they didn't do anything we weren't expecting them to do, we just didn't do what we knew we could do, which is move the ball down the field. At times we did move the ball but we had a sack, or interception or penalty, just some things we've got to cut out on.”
 
Going through frustration in four years as ULM's starting QB:
“It's hard to swallow, but you can't dwell on it. You got to move on and go to the next one, especially being a senior and opening up your last first game and getting shut out, but the team... give Oklahoma all the credit in the world, they played a heck of a game. But we feel like we shut ourselves off, offensively. We didn't give our defense a chance to rest and that defeinitely hurt us in the end.”
 
On if they saw a different defensive scheme than what they saw on film:
“Honestly, they did everything we thought they were going to do. We were prepared for them; we had a game plan for them, but we weren't exactly on key on offense tonight. Like I said, we had interceptions. We weren't getting enough on first and second downs to make third downs managable. We'd find ourselves third-and-six or third-and-seven all night long, which defenitely makes it tough on our offensive coordinator to make some calls. It makes it tough on us because they can bring some pressure, especially when they knew I couldn't neccessarily move. They started bringing more pressure every single snap.”
 
On adjustments head coach Todd Berry was trying to make in-game:
“There's nothing we can't adjust to on the sideline with all the experience that's come back and all the games that we've played in. We've seen a lot of different things with different coverages. We may run a route different or we may put receivers in different spots to get them open quicker. They way they were playing, it felt like they were swarming the receivers really well in man coverage tonight and we were just talking about different ways to rub a guy and get him open and get him the ball, but we didn't do that.”
 
On emotions of the team coming off the loss:
“We've got to pick each other up. It's a tough loss, it's a hard one to swallow, especially since with the season we had last year and the expectations everyone has for us this year, to open the season like this is very dissappointing, not only for us, but for all the Warhawk fans as well. We just have to come back and support each other, go in, be real critical of our mistakes, correct ourselves and then get back out there on the practice field and just execute and play Grambling next week."

ULM Senior LB Cameron Blakes
On tempo change by Oklahoma defense:
“They definitely move a lot faster than they show on film. We didn't communicate and get our defensive calls in. A lot of it was just execution. We didn't play up to par for that kind of offense.”
 
On defense's execution tonight:
“It's a good feeling, especially because in the past year, we didn't hold up our weight and the offense did the best they could last year. Now we're holding up the end of our bargain.”
 
On outcome of the game:
“It's very disheartening becuase we had a good game plan on both sides of the ball. Coach Berry just sat back. We were so confident about our game plan. He just sat back and let us play ball. For us to go in... a lot of us had an out-of-body experience. We just never got a chance to regroup. By the time we did get a chance to regroup, it was just too little, too late.”