ULM & Nicholls State Post-Game Quotes, Sept. 12, 2015
Head Coach Todd Berry
Opening Statement…
“I'm pretty proud of our team. I thought the bounce back was good. The first half was probably one of the more complete halves we've played since we've been here – relatively clean. We had a few penalties that I would like to see us take care of there in the first half and I'm talking about with the starters. I would have liked in the second half for us to kind of come back out and do what we needed to do and we didn't quite do that. That's something I just talked to the team about – about coming back out after halftime and putting a ball down. It was great to see some younger players play. We certainly got a look at a lot of different guys – gave them some exposure which we were excited about being able to do. Our starters were excited that those players had a chance to play, and that's great for them. It gives us a chance to evaluate them. They work hard and the reward for working hard should be that opportunity to play. So we were excited that they had a chance to do that, and I think we played everybody tonight that we were not planning to redshirt.”
On Garrett Smith's night and the offensive production…
“I thought we played pretty well. I think we are throwing the ball around well – would have liked to run it a little bit better again. That's something we still need to work on. We had a couple of silly penalties but overall I thought Garrett's decisions were really good. He made some strong throws; he made some good runs. Yeah, to do that in only a half in terms of the amount of yards he put up – that was big. He's a lot of fun. He's a lot of fun to work with. There's still a lot of room for improvement, and I know he knows that. He's excited about continuing on that little quest that we are on right now to be a really, really great quarterback. I think he's got a chance to be special.”
On Ajalen Holley and Rashon Ceaser's big nights…
“Well, they came in and they were loading up the box, making it hard for us to run the football. They were kind of daring us to throw it around a little bit. I knew that those guys would answer. Rashon had a big weekend last weekend. I kind of felt like that was going to give Ajalen a few more opportunities, and I think Ajalen probably stepped up. I don't know what he had – probably 150 or close to that (155). It was a good night for him. We were able to spread the ball around a little bit. It was good to get Harley [Scioneaux] involved. I would have liked to throw it around a little bit more in the second half quite honestly just to give those guys some more work – some of the younger receivers work. It probably wasn't the good thing to do, but I would have liked to throw it around just to give some younger receivers some more opportunities.”
On building on this performance…
“Again I thought we challenged our guys – it was kind of decision time. They needed to go someplace with this. Whichever place they went – they were going to choose which way they went. They chose a good path. I thought the defense played well. There were a couple of opportunities in there when our backups were in that I would have liked to see them play a little better – play a little bit more disciplined, but that's part of the maturation process that we're in. We'll continue to try to grow them up. This opportunity for a lot of those guys to play in their first collegiate game – because we had a number of guys who played tonight in their first collegiate game – it's that much more of an opportunity for them to mature and for us to watch them.”
If there were things that he saw that could be improved…
“Sure – There's always things that we can improve on. I really challenged them going in to play to the level that we needed to play at. We need to get better every week. We need to strive to make sure that happens. Our standard performance is really the only thing that matters. The wins and losses will take care of itself if the standard performance is on a high level each and every week. So I challenged them with it. I think they answered that. We can enjoy this one and then obviously we have a little bit of time to heal up – which will be nice for us – and then we obviously have a really outstanding team in Alabama.”
R-Fr. Quarterback Garrett Smith
On what were some things going well
"I think the receiver did a great job of just giving me the opportunity to give them the ball. Everybody was running good, sharp routes. Hitting multiple receivers, not really focused on one guy. Spreading the ball around. O-line gave me great time to really make those plays, and then our running game was better than it was against Georgia and that helped out the passing game as well."
On Caesar and Holley's performance
"Most of those guys run great routes, and again other receiver run their routes good to make those guys open. Next week it could be Harley with 12 catches. It could be Jared Mapps, something like that. Other receivers do a great job of running their routes, doing what they're supposed to do to pull apart the coverage and make those guys open."
On if he saw improvement from week one to week two
"Yes, I did. We started off fast, which was good. A few penalties kind of set us back a little bit. I think offensively we started off real fast which I think was good for us."
R-So. Linebacker Caleb Tucker
On blocked punt and playing back home in Monroe
"It feels great, you know. My mom and my dad got to witness that and it was just basically a sigh of relief because you know I was waiting for that moment to just spark. That opportunity presented itself so I made it happen."
On special teams play being better against Nicholls State than Georgia and how it helps to clean it up before bye week
"Yes sir it does because against Georgia, we didn't have the best game ever so Coach was on us the whole week about special teams and we have to pick everything up so we focused a lot on special teams and we got everything corrected and it showed tonight."
On alternate jerseys
"They were amazing! I've never seen jerseys like that and it was just a blessing to be able to go out and support the military and what they do for us so it was amazing to be able to do that."
Quoting Nicholls State head coach Tim Rebowe
Opening Statement
“Early on, ULM got after us. The speed of the game got to us, and we were able to hang in there for a little bit but it caught up to us. What I was really disappointed in was the end of the first half. We let it get away and looked sloppy. We gave up a blocked punt and then ULM had a tunnel screen that went the distance and it was kind of disappointing. We came out in the second half and tried to play hard, but it is hard to play down by 40 points. Also, field position, we can't shoot ourselves in the foot early on with a bad kick or a block in the back; those are the things that just kill us. ULM is a good football team and I give credit to Todd Berry. In the second half, ULM ran the ball and didn't run it up on us.”
On the speed of the game
“ULM is really talented at the wide receiver position. [ULM's] quarterback does a really good job of running the offense. Though, we have to get better and worry about ourselves next week. We have to get ourselves corrected and lined up. Maybe we need to simplify some things to help our guys get in some better situations.”
On ball security
“I was disappointed in the kicking game. There were three plays that I could remember off the top of my head that made us look sloppy. We put the ball on the ground twice and I didn't see that coming because we did a good job with that in the last couple scrimmages. We'll have to get back to work with that this week.”
On getting better in the second half
“Yes I was pleased with how we were able to grind it out. We put a good drive together and I decided at the end to try and kick it to get some points and I wanted something positive, but we have to be automatic from there. I was disappointed in the kicking game. Defensively, we did stay base and we found some guys who could make some plays, and we'll have to give them a few more reps this week.”
On having such a young roster
“Yes and there were a couple guys that stood out in my mind. Chris Major and Ahmani Martin showed they could make some plays and could get more playing time for us. We did a decent job of front. We had a guy get injured on Thursday and didn't make the trip. We'll get back to the drawing board this week and we can't stay too long on this one because we open up conference play next week.”
On getting better from week-to-week
“We're hoping to see a lot of improvement from the first week to the second week. In the first week, we may have had some guys that didn't know what to expect so hopefully we can make that big jump. We need to get back and re-focus on ourselves. We'll see the mistakes, learn from them and move forward from there.”
Quoting quarterback Tuskani Figaro
Opening Statement
“We were expecting to give them a better matchup. We felt like we knew what they were going to do and what their plan was against us. It was just some of the little things that we didn't connect on: miss-communication up front, a bad ball by me or a dropped pass. It was just the little things that can be cleaned up and we'll be ready for conference next week.”
On ball security
“I had to fumbles; one we lost and one we got back. We can work on that throughout the week with some ball security drills and I need to do a better job. Though I think these are easy things to fix.”
On Nicholls' 14-play drive
“We were connecting and got a little rhythm going with some passes here and there. We got some good runs also and I felt we could have done that in the first quarter. But no excuses, we can definitely improve and that's what we're expecting to do next week going into Incarnate Word. We want to put up some points and get into the red zone rather than settling for our field goal team. Instead of trying to get three we have to go get six.”
Closing Statement
“ULM came back from Georgia and were prepared. We have to take the same thing that they did and use this as a learning experience, don't put our heads down and go out there ready to play.”
Quoting linebacker Geoffrey Hebert
On how he felt the defense did overall
“In the second half we did a lot of good things. Our linebackers and d-line played really well in the second half, our defensive backs made plays and that's the type of momentum we can carry forward into next week.”
On the mind-set coming into the game
“We were prepared. ULM made some plays. We were in position to make plays and we're going to make this plays moving forward. We'll be a better team going forward. There's definitely a lot of things we can build on from the second half. Going into next week we have a lot of good things, and the things we didn't do as well we'll watch film and correct them. We've got a lot of momentum going forward.”
