University of Pittsburgh Athletics
Pitt vs Utah Postgame Quotes
10/15/2011 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 15, 2011
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PITTSBURGH -
Pitt Head Coach Todd Graham
Opening Statement:
“It was a very disappointing day for us to say the least, an abysmal performance by our offense. It was embarrassing. We didn’t execute anything in the passing game at all. I think the thing is the inconsistency in how we are distributing the ball.”
On getting the ball more to Ray Graham:
“They dominated us defensively and took Ray away. They were dominating the line of scrimmage up front. Obviously, we want him to have more than 15 touches.”
On the special teams:
“I’m proud of how our special teams played. We worked really hard. We felt we needed to bust out on special teams. I thought we had been consistent in the past games, but we had not returned a kickoff for a touchdown. We had not blocked a punt. We worked really hard on that and I’m proud of our special teams.”
On the defense:
“I’m proud of our defensive team. They played hard through a lot of adversity in a similar type of game to the game we had last week. But, defensively, I thought we played better than last week. We’ve got to be able to create takeaways. But, I thought we played well enough defensively to win the football game.”
On Trey Anderson:
“I liked that we handled some of the read zone plays well and I like the way Trey Anderson ran the football.”
On Tino Sunseri:
“As I’ve said all year long, the player who gives us the best chance to win is Tino Sunseri.”
On the play of the offense:
“To go from 500 yards of offense [versus South Florida] to 120 yards today, I didn’t think that was possible.”
On preparing for the upcoming game against Connecticut:
“We’ll have Lucas Nix and Todd Thomas back to help us in the next game. We’ve got to get better. There is not one person in that locker room who questions what we’re doing.”
Pitt cornerback K’Waun Williams
On the performance of the offense:
“We win as a team and we lose as a team. We just have to try and fix it and get better.”
On the mood in the locker room:
“It’s a little frustrating, but we’re just going to keep working at it.”
Pitt free safety Andrew Taglianetti
On the loss:
“It’s a team effort. I think on defense we left some plays out there and on special teams too. I’m proud of the way our guys fought out there. It’s disappointing but we’re going to bounce back.”
On success blocking punts:
“The coaches are doing a great job of scheming it up for me. They’re giving me the opportunity to succeed and I’m just going out there trying to give it 110 percent. Luckily enough it went my way today.”
On the mood in the locker room:
“Obviously it’s disappointing. A game like that is frustrating but at the same time we can’t really dwell on it. We have to bounce back. We have five conference games left and those are the big ones. We need to focus up and come back and finish strong.”
Pitt running back Ray Graham
“Give credit to Utah. They had the ball for a long time. They tried to slow the game down. They tried to keep our offense off the field.”
On Utah spying him:
“They were keying, had a spy everywhere I went. Everywhere I went someone was there.”
On preventing teams from keying him:
“We have good players on this team so they’re going to do their jobs. When I can’t execute, someone else is going to.”
On Utah’s defensive effort:
“Utah did a good job. They had a good game plan. They came in and executed very well.”
Utah Head Coach Kyle Whittingham
Opening Statement:
“An outstanding effort and a shutout really with those two touchdowns we gave up on special team errors and Colem Petersen had a successful afternoon. The credit goes to the defense and I can’t say enough about how our defense played and our numbers were outstanding, 120 yards of total offense. They played hard from start to finish (and) they played smart and did very good things. We have a lot of work to do on offense and that is very evident. It was disappointing in that respect with a couple of chances to put the game away and great field position we did not take advantage of.
"We also did not put it in the red zone much and had to settle for field goals way too often so there is work to do, but the bottom line is we got a win and it’s nice to be back in the win column after a few frustrating weeks and we did take care of the football which was what we talked about ad nauseam the last few weeks and that has been our downfall so we did get that corrected for this week. Congratulations to the players; our players did a great job and our defense had a great job. It’s all about the players. They did a nice job."
On play of John White:
"I don’t think I would have thought that if you told me that going into the game. It wasn’t the plan and we weren’t anticipating that. The winds were as heavy as they were when we woke up that added to it and it was how his carries accumulated. He did a great job, 170 yards and John White was a bright spot in the offense.”
On the defense and limiting Pitt tailback Ray Graham to 46 yards:
“I think a dozen times he carried the ball and our defense and front seven were getting after him pretty good. We have some big guys in there and some physicality in the front seven plus we loaded the box. Take nothing away from our rush defense. They have been good all season long except for one half and one poor half otherwise we have played the run very well. Good players (aid the run defense), we have physical guys up front and we have coaches doing a nice job teaching technique. We have good players up there.
"(We took the run away from Graham) by just gang tackling him. You have to be able to hold up on the outside and cut corners and we didn’t give up much in the throw game and again the wind was part of that, but still you have to cover and do things correctly in the secondary and we did that.”
On comeback from 14-3 deficit on the road:
“I am proud of the guys and being down 14-3 after those two special team errors or lack of making a play because they made plays. Let’s give them credit because it was a nice job by Pitt, blocking the punt and we missed some tackles on the kickoff return. We kept fighting and nobody ever questioned anything and we kept playing. The fight (back) is starting to become our personality, our MO. Never quit and play full 60 and give everything they’ve got. We have a few things to fix and correct, but effort is not one of them."
On the win:
"That will clean your pipes out a little bit (on the win). Really the only solution to get to feeling right and cure the frustration we have been in the last few weeks is to get a win. It will be a nice plane ride home, for sure.”
Utah quarterback John Hays
On Utah’s offensive strategy:
“The first quarter was tough to swallow but we have a team full of fighters and that’s what we do. The offense scored when they needed to and we had a big interception for a touchdown on defense. The mentality of this team is to keep fighting, to scrap and claw for every point we get or we don’t get. We were down in the beginning but we knew we had to keep going.”
On Pitt’s defensive strategy:
“We had some rhythm problems and we converted some big third downs when we needed to. We are going to have to check the tape and take a look at in order to make changes for the next game.”
Utah right end Derrick Shelby:
On Utah’s defensive strategy:
“The last couple weeks we have been kind of coming out of a lull with turnovers and things like that. This week we wanted to show that could fight the whole way through. We had a game plan and we believed in it. We knew we had to tackle Ray Graham and it looks like we did that.”
On Pitt’s 14-3 lead in the first quarter:
“We knew there was still a lot of football to play. It was only the first quarter so it was a downer for us but we knew we still needed to fight through it. As a defense we didn’t give up much today so we knew we had to hold them to zero so that our offense could score some points.”
Utah strong safety Brian Blechen:
On Utah’s offensive strategy:
“We watched a ton of film this week, everyone did their job and paid attention well to detail. I think it paid off because everyone was in the rights spots and made the right plays.”
On Pitt’s QB Trey Anderson:
“I was definitely surprised because Tino Sunseri is a tough guy. We knew his ankle and his rib were hurting but both times he came back in. At first we thought Trey Anderson was a wildcat guy or something like that, but then we saw Sunseri on the sideline injured. We had mostly prepared for Sunseri, but Anderson did a good job stepping in. He is a fast player and had a couple of good runs today.”
On the Utah’s defensive strategy after the first quarter:
“We knew it was still early, there was a lot more football to play and a lot more chances for us to make plays. We played solid defense the whole time and we didn’t give up on big plays.”
