University of Pittsburgh Athletics
Pitt vs Maine Postgame Quotes
9/10/2011 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 10, 2011
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PITTSBURGH -
Pitt Head Coach Todd Graham
Opening Statement:
“The most positive thing I can say is that we’re 2-0. That game was definitely playing down to our competition. We didn’t play very well. I told our guys that whenever you get a home field win, you’ve got to celebrate, and then work hard to get better.”
On turnovers and mistakes:
“We had too many mistakes. We’re killing ourselves making mental errors. We’re playing good defense for periods of time and then we turn the ball over on offense.”
On special teams play:
“On special teams, we are not kicking the ball well. We need to get better there. We make every kick in practice and then we miss a field goal and an extra point today. Our kickoff coverage was stellar. We have some players doing an unbelievable job on that. Our punt return group – other than letting the ball hit the ground that one time – I thought was very positive.”
On the play Tino Sunseri:
“I have 100 percent belief in Tino. He has a difficult job. Tino is our number one quarterback. I believe in him and what he’s doing. He’s just got to get better. The last interception that Tino threw was on the coaches. We’re going to be aggressive and we thought we had a play, but that was on us. Tino’s learning a new system and I think that’s what you are seeing. He’s doing some great things. He did some great things last week and he did some great things today.”
On the passing game:
“I’m trying to get us to learn what we’re supposed to and pass the football. We’re just not executing our passing game. We took a lot of sacks, and we’re a timing team.”
On the play of Ray Graham:
“What gives me grounds to stay positive is the performance of No. 1 (Ray Graham). He is just absolutely phenomenal. It’s not just his skills -- it’s how he plays the game with tremendous passion.”
On the play of the defense:
“Defensively, we’re giving up stupid plays in the passing game. It’s ridiculous and it should not be happening.”
On the next game (vs. Iowa):
“We’ve got to look at film and correct things. We’d better go to Iowa and play well.”
Pitt tight end Hubie Graham
On reaction to the game:
“We’re improving each week as a team. We’re practicing hard and doing all the right things. If we continue to do that things will fall into place.”
Pitt quarterback Tino Sunseri
On the close score:
“We’re 2-0. You need to take the positive out of it and learn from the negatives. We need to keep pressing this week and work on getting better and better.”
On offensive mistakes:
“Mistakes happen in the heat of battle. When you’re out there you have to make fast decisions and sometimes you make improper decisions.”
On whether or not the team was frustrated with the performance:
“Last year at this point we were 1-1 and coming off the loss to Utah. We’re 2-0 and a lot of teams around college football right now are getting upset by teams that are beneath them. We knew that Maine was going to come in and give us the best game they possibly could.”
Pitt wide receiver Mike Shanahan
On receivers trying to get open:
“We felt like we had some guys open today. Obviously, we hit Street early for a couple of nice completions. We just need to work the entire game to get the open man. We felt we were able to take advantage of some of the things they were doing.”
On whether or not the offense struggled more this week:
“I don’t think it got worse. Literally we scored the same. I think it’s just little things. Down in the red zone we had some opportunities to finish and we have to score touchdowns. We can’t settle for field goals, especially against a great team like Iowa.”
Pitt right guard Lucas Nix
On where fault lies for sacks:
“I put most of them on us. We have five guys and they didn’t bring a lot more than five. We should be able to pick that up.”
Pitt free safety Jarred Holly
On lack of turnovers by defense:
“We’re just treading our keys and trying to put the defense together as a whole. We’re still working out some little things, but we will get it corrected.
Pitt linebacker Max Gruder
“I think the biggest thing for us is discipline. Coach Patterson says it every day. The greatest sport in the world is football because you can have 10 players doing what they’re supposed to do, but if you have one mental breakdown or one missed tackle by one person it doesn’t matter. You’ll have a big gain like you saw tonight.”
Maine Head Coach Jack Cosgrove
Opening statement:
“I thought our guys had a great week of preparation. We came out here to win a football game and we didn’t do that, so we are disappointed. There were some things I thought we did very well. One of the concerns last week was that we didn’t play 60 minutes and I thought we did this week. I thought our defense did one heck of a job on keeping us around. Our field position was awful and we played them a short field, but yet we managed to hold them to field goals. I thought we made Pitt earn everything they got and I thought our offense finally got some things in order. We found some ways to throw the football successfully (and) protect our quarterback. I thought his fourth quarter was outstanding and there are a lot of things to build on from this football game.”
On the defensive effort and pass rush:
“You can ask (defensive end) Michael (Cole) about that because he was really a big playmaker for us on the defensive line I think we had a nice plan for them. We called one of our plays we called ‘Steeler’ in honor of Pittsburgh. Joe Rossi, our defensive coordinator, is a Central Catholic grad. We went after them and I felt we could force the issue a little and we did that.”
On positives in passing game:
“Going in, I felt that we could throw the football and I thought protection would be a concern and it was early in the game. We then figured out some things that we could do - some sprint and play-action things - and I thought our quarterback (Warren Smith) kept his poise. I jumped on him a little in the third quarter because I thought he got away from the focus that he has to have, but he certainly responded very well in the fourth quarter and threw the ball very well. I like how our guys competed and caught the football and again, if you can be successful against a team like Pittsburgh – a Big East team—with throwing and catching the football, there is room for optimism.”
On getting to within five in fourth and Pitt responding with two scores:
“They are a talented football team. A lot of the things we got beat on were our execution more than our mistakes. I don’t think we did a lot of things we will look back on defensively and say we blew coverage, we didn’t. They threw and caught very well. They are bigger, faster and stronger than we are that is the bottom line. They responded. We closed the gap and like a good football team should they responded. I don’t think it was on our end. I think Pitt said, holy cow, we got a ball game here. I credit them for responding the way a good football should.”
On the punting game giving Pitt good field position:
“We did not punt well. It was a strength of our’s last week. It was really poor punts. It was really not anything more than we did not punt the ball well. When you play Bryant and then you play at Pitt, you know the return guy gives you reason for concern. We probably over-coached with caution (on) their returners and it factored in with their poor kicking because we did not do a good job that way.”
Maine quarterback Warren Smith
On his initial thoughts of the game:
“We are able to take both positives and negatives from this game. I need to go back and look at the film to see exactly what happened. I thought overall we responded well to Pitt. Last week, we played one half of football and the second half we didn’t come out as good. This week, I thought we played two pretty decent halves. Like Cole said, you have to credit to everyone who was around you playing. A lot of our players made great catches and plays and the offensive line did a great job at protecting me. I thought coming in today that we were going to be able to throw the football. We lost and that is not what we came here for. We need to watch the film and fix any mistakes and get ready for Albany next week.”
On the first touchdown pass to WR Derrick Buttles:
“Last week, we watched the film on the Pitt vs. Buffalo game and Pitt got beat on a similar play like that but the guy dropped it for Buffalo twice. We knew if we came in and did man to man coverage then we would be able to do that double move play. The corner didn’t bite on it this time but Buttles’ being the athlete he is made the play for us.”
Maine defensive end Michael Cole
On the initial thoughts of the game:
“It was a really good experience coming out here even though we still lost. We felt toward the end of the game that we could have had a chance at winning. There is always good and bad to take from every game. Everyone pretty much took it as a regular game. We have played teams like Syracuse in the past so we are pretty much used to it.”
On the defensive effort with seven sacks:
“We have to attribute that to pretty much everyone doing exactly what they were supposed to do. We knew something was bound to come free and work out for us. We were lucky enough to clean them up today in that area.”
On pass rushing:
“We try to go 100 percent all the time and if everyone is putting in the effort, then something is bound to come free and it is our job to finish it.”
