UTAH COACH QUOTES
Head Coach Kyle Whittingham
Opening statements…
"That was a good football team. They were stingy on defense like they have been all year. I thought our defense was lights out. Washington State averaged less than four yards a play. It was not enough to overcome seven turnovers. Certainly going minus four in that area, you cannot win. The defense had their backs to the wall the whole first quarter and things could have really got out of hand. Our red zone defense was tremendous. That is a good offense and you hold them to that type of yardage you expect to win. However, the most important stat in football other than the final score is the turnover margin. As bad as it was, we still had a chance to get it to overtime at the end. The kids are resilient. They never quit. They could have wilted but they battled to the end. They do not flinch. A lot of things could have happened to see it get out of hand. There are no moral victories, but I am still proud of the way they competed."
On WSU's defensive front…
"They have done that to everyone they have played. They are near the top of the Pac-12 in that area and run defense. Hercules Mata'afa is probably the best in the league."
On blitz pick up early in the game…
"It went horribly early. It was not an issue with the blitz, just simple four-man rush. We "out-statted" them with a few more yards. The first quarter was a disaster offensively, just like last week. Our defense had its back to the wall for most of it but we did manage to generate some points and yards offensively."
On the play of his defensive backs…
"They did a great job. Luke Falk threw the ball almost 70 times and what you look for in coverage is a good efficiency. I know it was pretty darn good tonight. I thought at one point we needed to get some offensive guys on that side of the ball, but they held up."
On Zack Moss…
"It was tough sledding inside and he had to leave the game. He is not 100 percent and he tried to contribute tonight."
On Tyler Huntley…
"We are committed to Tyler. He is a competitive guy and he made some plays out there I am sure he wishes he had some back. He is a fierce competitor and a tremendous athlete. There have been some growing pains this year, no doubt about it."
On getting bowl eligible…
"We are 5-5 with two more chances. We have a tough road game in Seattle with a team that will be ticked off after being beat last night. Then we have the last game here and we are fully aware we need to find one to get these seniors to a bowl."
On the offensive line…
"We had some good individual performances. The right guard positon is really the only one in flux. No one is going to feel sorry for us with our injury situation. We just have to keep going."
UTAH PLAYER QUOTES
Defensive Back Corrion Ballard
On how the defensive backs were able to do so well this evening…
"We flew to the ball. It is what we do in practice and we just try and make plays."
On playing defense with a short field…
"You just have to keep working. It is the game of football. Sometimes you are put in a bad position and have to pick up the slack."
On playing against WSU, specifically, Luke Falk…
"It was fun, especially being a defensive back. It's a dream to go against a team that throws it that much."
Wide Receiver Demari Simpkins
On the turnovers…
"I think we pressed too much. People tried to do too much."
On the receiver struggles early in game…
"I don't know if it was nerves or if we are just not executing."
On the team's mindset through the game…
"We found some adversity, but we handled it the right way. It just did not go our way."
On injuries…
"Everyone has to step up every week. They played all one-on-one, straight man and we did not make enough plays. You just have to win your one-on-one. I did not win enough."
On the weeks ahead…
"We are not going to lay down. We will keep fighting and next week we have another chance to get bowl eligible. That is the goal. We always keep a positive attitude and we just did not make plays when we had to. We had too many turnovers."
Quarterback Tyler Huntley
On his thoughts about the game…
"We turned the ball over more than they did. Washington State did a nice job of taking the ball from us. We did not do a good job keeping the ball. It all came down to the end. Give it to them, they played a great game."
On handling the growing pains…
"When we go back and watch film we see that one thing can cause us havoc on one play. We have a lot of things to work on, but we know we are a good team. We need to stop making mistakes."
On not having Darren Carrington…
"He brings another element to the team, but our receivers stepped up. It was not like the field was spread out tonight but we did miss him."
Offensive Lineman Jackson Barton
On struggling with WSU's front line
"It came down to simple execution. There were some people who did their jobs and some who did not. We just need to execute better. We just had some one-on-one improvement. Our adaptability going forward in the game. We realized we had to throw the ball more and improve in those areas since we were trailing."
On how to improve…
"The best way to do it is to not turn on each other. We need to keep each other up and not get down. The beautiful thing about football is you can learn from your mistakes."
On getting bowl eligible…
"We have been close so many times and we can taste it. I think we will be bowl eligible."
WASHINGTON STATE QUOTES
Head Coach Mike Leach
On his defense getting seven takeaways…
"The defense played really well. I thought we ran to the ball really well, which was key, and I thought for most of the day we ran to the ball really well on defense. We had a slight lull, but it was a pretty complete game defensively. These guys are really explosive and there's some explosives that we'd like to have back but I did think they ran to the ball well."
On the productivity of his offense…
"We moved it into the red zone several times and I felt like we should have gotten touchdowns but we got field goals. We had a couple of really good drives, but I thought we could have done more."
On what his team did well…
"I thought we had contributions on all three sides. We had mistakes on all three sides too, which I thought we overcame by playing together. And I thought we were pretty consistent with that. I thought we played consistently extremely hard. Utah's always a really aggressive team on all sides of the ball. They run it around, they fake it, the quarterback takes off, they try to get you to bite up and they launch it down field. Defensively, they blitz you like crazy. They are big and strong, and they try to bat you around. It was going to be a very aggressive game on both parts, so there were going to be a few burst pipes in the process, which there were. This is one of the loudest places to play in in the conference and I think this is one of the most underrated teams too."
On Luke Falk setting the Pac-12 career touchdown passes record…
"This is a big one. It's a real credit not to just Luke but to our team. There's a lot of people involved with it. There's a lot of offensive linemen involved, a lot of running backs involved, a lot of receivers involved, a lot of scout team players involved on the defense, etc., etc. etc., that were a part of this too. He's the all-time leading passer in the greatest passing league in the history of college football, and he also leads it in touchdowns."
On where does Luke Falk rank among the best passers in Pac-12 history…
"I think his numbers speak for themselves. I think, especially early on in his career, most of those other guys came from a better supporting casts because we were a team that evolved and got better and improved as time went on. I think that's your real distinction there. Your best is always gauged by what's within your capability. I think that he and our team stretched themselves in a fashion that's unique over some of the other competition that battled for that distinction over the years."
On Luke Falk's play today…
"I thought he did pretty good. I thought he let a few get away from him but I also thought that he did a pretty good job managing things at times, especially when they heated him up. We were over 50 percent on third down conversions, and against a team like this that's pretty tough to do."
