University of Pittsburgh Athletics
Pitt and Navy Postgame Quotes
9/19/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 19, 2009
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Pitt Quotes
Pitt Head Coach Dave Wannstedt
“Leading up to it, I thought this game was what we talked about. We knew the type of team we were playing from an abilities and character standpoint. We knew that nothing would be easy. This was going to be a four quarter game.”
“I thought our team, from start to finish, had a lot of energy and enthusiasm. We knew we had to play that way because of the type of football team we were playing tonight.”
“We came in with a plan to throw the ball and I thought we did that effectively. I was very pleased. We had a couple of dropped passes out there. Otherwise, Bill Stull would have had outstanding numbers. He ended up with 17 completions and easily could have had 20. I thought he made good decisions and got the ball out quickly. For the most part, our offensive line did a good job of protecting him.”
“Last week, the best thing that could have happened for Bill was to play on the road. I think it was good for him mentally to get away and play in front of a road crowd where he could focus on just playing football. He went up to Buffalo and had success.”
“Defensively, Adam Gunn had tried to practice and worked every day. I made the decision at Friday’s practice that he would not play. I thought Dan Mason played better than I thought he could. As a freshman, with his first start, I thought Dan was outstanding. I thought Gus Mustakas had an outstanding performance on the defensive line. Elijah Fields had his first start and played every down and I thought he played well.”
“This is a difficult scheme to prepare for and I thought our defensive coaches and our players really bought into what we were trying to do this week.”
“We want to try to get Tino Sunseri into games, just like we played Ray Graham. The plan was to try to put Tino in the game and finish it out that way. The defense gave up that score, and it was a 10-point game. That’s the difficult thing I have right now. I have all the confidence in the world in Tino and that’s why we put him in during the third quarter.”
“I was pleased with our defense. Navy doesn’t turn the ball over very much. When you play a team like Navy, you can’t turn the ball over and give them any cheap possessions from a field position standpoint. We did that tonight and fortunately, we were able to overcome it.”
Pitt defensive tackle Gus Mustakas
“It’s like we’ve been saying all week, the big thing about this game was responsibility. And everyone has to do their assignment. You can’t be heroes when you face this kind of offense. We did a great job with responsibilities.”
“Playing against Navy, it’s very lateral. That’s one of my keys; I’m a good lateral player, so that helps me out against teams like Navy. Hopefully this will open it up for the rest of the season.”
Pitt defensive end Greg Romeus
On freshman LB Dan Mason
“He was making all the calls, he was confident with it too. He’s a young guy, but he didn’t act like it. He went in there and took the role and played very well”
On the defense as a whole
“It’s a big step for us. We know today was a better performance, but we’re still not where we want to be. We’d like to have teams not score at all. It’s something that we are happy about, but we’re not satisfied at all.”
Pitt safety Elijah Fields
“Our defensive front played well and came up big. That helped us out a lot. This week in practice we went over our assignments over and over again so we were comfortable being out there tonight.”
“I’m happy with my first start. My biggest thing is trying to be consistent. I feel like I made some big steps, but there is always a lot of work to do.”
Pitt quarterback Bill Stull
“Things were rolling today. I was screaming a little bit on the sidelines to get the defense pumped up. The only thing that can stop us is ourselves.”
“We protected the ball pretty well today, except for myself during that fumble. It was pretty much a sound day for us offensively.”
Navy Head Coach Ken Niumatalolo
“That was probably one of the worst performances as a team we’ve had in a long while.”
“The opening kickoff was kind of a big swing. When you coach defense, you teach the guys to scoop and score but hindsight is 20-20. If he (Ram Vela) just falls on the ball in sort of a worst case scenario, then it gets us off to a strong start. That kind of hurt us but there was plenty other chances we had to make a play and we didn’t. Give Pitt all the credit.”
“We have to be able to run the option. I think (today’s game) will show Ricky (Dobbs) that he has to get better at making reads. He missed a ton of reads and put us in third-and-long situations and that is not our game.”
“Obviously the option is our bread and butter and Pitt did a great job of defending it. They’ve done it two years in a row. They’ve played great football.”
Quarterback Ricky Dobbs
“We just couldn’t get off to the start that we wanted. We couldn’t get good protection, we missed reads – and that starts with me. I need to just settle down and be patient and start making reads before they actually happen.”
“I felt we had several opportunities tonight but we just shot ourselves in the foot.”
“Pitt definitely has some good pass rushers up front. Today, they just got the best of us. No matter what though, I’m going to give them 100 percent and I know that my teammates are going to do the same.”
“We just had a real bad night. It’s hard to even put a finger on it. I’m just speechless, I guess.”
Linebacker Ross Pospisil
“I think Pitt threw the ball really well tonight. They hurt us on some third downs and picked us apart so they did a good job there obviously. You have to give them credit. They did a good job spreading the ball out.”
“I thought Dion Lewis was almost as good as McCoy last year and he’s only a freshman. Look for him to be doing some good things in the years to come. He’s a guy that if you don’t bring everything, you’re not going to be able to grab him. I know we all missed some tackles because he’s a little guy that runs his feet and just keeps going. With the passing game and the strong backfield, they’re obviously well balanced.”