Catching up on my emails last night from the Los Angeles Times and Daily Bruin with reaction from head coach DeShaun Foster, QB Ethan Garbers and LB Carson Schwesinger:
Foster
“A tale of two halves—didn’t come out in the second half and execute. Mostly, it was just—I always tell these guys, you’ve got to be at your best when your best is needed and that wasn’t the case in the second half. We didn’t really execute the way that we wanted to, just continued to shoot ourselves in the foot and when you’re playing teams like this at home and they had that win streak that they have, you can’t give them opportunities to continue to come out and make some plays on us, so we’re still working on finishing and we played an OK first half but that second half just wasn’t our ball, just not our brand of football, so that’s how the game got away from us.”
TWO INTERCEPTIONS ON THEIR SIDE OF THE FIELD THAT YOU ONLY CONVERTED INTO THREE POINTS?
“Those are huge opportunities—that’s what I’m talking about when you’re not at your best when your best is needed. We wanted to finish in the paint. We changed our wording a couple of weeks ago to not get points, we want to finish in the paint–we wanted touchdowns and the score showed that we didn’t get that and those field goals ended up catching up to us.”
AND IN FIRST HALF YOU HELPED THEM OUT WITH THE BAD PUNT AND ROUGHING THE PASSER ON FEMI LEADING TO TDS?
“Most definitely. Roughing the passer—I don’t get into that call, but that extended the drive for them and giving them a short field on that punt, that was another situation because our defense had been doing a really good job until that point. So we gave them a short field and they were able to score some points and that was the difference—field goals to touchdowns.”
WHAT DID YOU THINK OF ETHAN TONIGHT?
“From what I saw, Ethan was trying to make plays for the offense. We ended up losing another tackle so that was unfortunate, so we’re down to another guy in there and it’s tough when you’re down to your third left tackle it’s tough, but we’re not going to make any excuses—we’re going to just keep coming out there and keep playing ball and our guys all prepare for this opportunity to get in there and play, so Taka was excited to be able to get to play and we’ll break the film down to see how well he did.”
SIX SACKS AND ALL ON THIRD OR FOURTH DOWN. HOW DID THE GAME CHANGE UP FRONT IN THOSE SITUATIONS?
“You know, kind of what we just talked about but we’re not going to make any excuses. You know, they played a good game, had a good D-line. Coach Kaufusi does a good job over there, I coached with him before so I know he’ll have his guys ready.”
WHAT DID YOU SEE IN RUN GAME?
“That’s something we’ll go over on the film. Just weren’t at our best when our best was needed, so it’s hard to execute like that.”
SOMETHING LIKE 10 OF 19 ON THIRD DOWN, WHICH KEPT YOU IN GAME?
“Guys just finding a way to execute, digging deep—Ethan running around trying to make plays. But we just weren’t at our best. I’m not going to make any excuses for us: We just weren’t at our best and it hurts when you know you can come out and play a little bit better than you did, you know? You know you can come out and execute better and we did it all week and came into this game and the second half just got away from us.”
PATH TO BOWL WITH TWO WINS, WHAT WILL YOU TELL GUYS TO GET READY FOR THIS STRETCH?
“Well, this next game, there’s not much you need to tell them. They understand what kind of game we have coming up, so they should be a little upset and eager to get out on the field and the next one is another home game with another California team, so they should be excited for that one also but if you want to extend your season and play in a bowl game, you know you’ve got to take it one week at a time and we’ve got two opportunities to get to six, so we’re going to put our best foot forward and get out there and hopefully we get that.”
GUYS HAVE A GOOD WEEK OF PRACTICE?
“I would say we did—I wouldn’t put it on practice. It’s literally, from what I saw out there, it’s just literally not at your best when your best is needed, you know? Certain situations came up and if it was a bad pass, if it was protection not really exactly there, continuously putting the defense out there—you know, the defense did a good job of getting some turnovers for us in the red zone and we just didn’t come up with touchdowns like we wanted; we want to finish in the paint, so I think if we could have got some touchdowns it could have put a little pressure on them and put them in a different situation, but their defense held up—we had to kick a couple of field goals, we missed a field goal and it’s just a lot of momentum that didn’t really go our way tonight, but when you’re playing in this type of environment, that stuff happens sometimes.“
Garbers and Schwesinger
ETHAN, UNDER A LOT OF PRESSURE TONIGHT, WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO COMPETE OUT THERE, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE A LOT?
“We just had to do—we just weren't doing things on offense like we needed to do, you know, we weren’t executing at the level we need to to be successful and win a game. But that, that’s on everybody, you know, we just got to come back to work on Sunday and figure where, where this next week is headed.”
COACH SAID YOU NEED TO BE AT YOUR BEST WHEN YOUR BEST IS NEEDED. SECOND HALF, DEFENSE GOT TWO PICKS IN THEIR SIDE, JUST THREE POINTS OFF IT
Ethan: “Yeah, disappointing. We got, like I said, we got to be better, you know, and that's that starts with me, getting these guys going, getting them in and out of the huddle, you know, just focusing on how every play is the most important, you know. And then, yeah, I mean, it comes down to me making those throws too, and moving the chains.”
CARSON, THEY MADE CHANGE OF QB, GAVE THEM A SPARK? WHAT SAW OUT OF DEMOND WILLIAMS JR VS WILL ROGERS?
“He opened up their offense a little just in terms of being able to run the ball. But, you know, for us as a defense, that's something we knew coming into the game, and we had to plan for it, and we just weren't executing how we wanted to when he came in the game.”
ETHAN, LOTS OF PRESSURE ON THIRD DOWN, WHAT CHANGED? WHAT DID YOU SEE FOR THEM TO GET THE PRESSURE?
“Um, you know, I mean, we knew what they were going to do, you know, they like to get in those five up fronts and have twist games and create movement at the line of scrimmage. We just got to do a better job, you know, communicating before the snap and getting the protection dialed in. You know, I got to do a better job also getting rid of the football faster, and just having that mental clock in my head and finding the guys that are open.”
TWO GOOD WEEKS OF THE RUN GAME, WHAT DID YOU SEE THAT PRODUCED JUST 52 YARDS ON THE GROUND TONIGHT?
Ethan: “Yeah, I mean, end of the day just comes down to just, we weren't executing out there, you know, like I said before, it starts with me and it ends with me, you know, I got to do a better job of getting them motivated. And, you know, we got to, we got to get the run game going for sure.”
TWO GAMES LEFT, BOTH WANT TO FINISH ON THE STRONG NOTE, FINISHING ON A STRONG NOTE GOING FORWARD?
Ethan: “You know, I'm sure Carson will agree with this, but we're going to, we're going to watch the film. We're going to learn from it, flush it, and we got a big week next week, so we're excited for that, and we're excited for the last two opportunities to go play.”
Carson: “Yup.”
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