Sept. 13, 2008
Recap | Final Stats | Notes | Photo Gallery 
New Mexico Head Coach Rocky Long
“Last week after the game I told our players that tough people survive and the other kind don’t. They came to work and practice hard and played pretty well. We didn’t play a perfect game, but I thought we played harder than they did and made more plays than they did so we won.”
“I thought there were two differences (in the game). I thought the turnovers that the defense caused – we could’ve made it a lot easier on us if we had scored touchdowns instead of field goals. But James Aho did a great job of kicking those field goals that gave us a good enough margin. I also thought when we turned the ball over, when Donovan threw an interception, the defense came in and stoned them.”
(on Rodney Ferguson’s TD pass and overall performance)
“That was a really good call at the right time and it was well executed. Rodney has been a good running back around here for a long time. We all know he is a good running back, but he doesn’t have games like that unless someone is getting him into the secondary, and that’s the big guys up front.”
(on James Aho)
“The coaches, we’d like to take credit for that but I think there’s a tradition around here on kickers. When kickers come into our program the other ones teach them what the meaning of being a kicker here is. Ever since I’ve been here we’ve had good kickers. When one leaves someone else steps in and steps up. So I think it’s a tradition between the kickers that if you’re going to be our kicker you’re expected to make it.”
Arizona Head Coach Mike Stoops
“(Rodney Ferguson) had us off balance. They did a nice job of keeping us on our heels. It definitely doesn’t help to have turnovers. We really didn’t play well on defense either. Again, we just were on our heels and not physical enough at times. Also, a little bit of inexperience with some of the unusual things they were doing, just trying to get adjusted to it. It kept us on our heels.”
“The throw back to the quarterback – we just didn’t execute. I give them credit. It was a good play and well executed. Our guys were looking for the double pass on the front side. We knew they were going to get rid of the ball quick. They didn’t want to force it down the field, but they were smart. They got rid of the ball, and that’s what they wanted to do – create turnovers, create field position. They did a real good job. We just weren’t good enough today. It’s a setback. No loss is good. We had a good week. Our team does the right things. We practice right. We by no means thought we had arrived. We knew we had to play our butts off today. We have to show more maturity. We have to play better on the road.”
New Mexico Senior CB Glover Quin
“All week we knew they were going to throw the ball 40 or 50 times. We knew if we could stop them in the pass game we had a chance to win. We practiced for it all week and we got after it tonight. We came out to out-hit them, be more physical and play with passion.”
(on losing No. 3 CB Jerome Jenkins to injury on the opening series)
“It was kind of tough because we knew we had to go every play. We just told ourselves `it’s a big game, we’re going to go every play, give everything we got’ and we made it through.”
New Mexico Freshman K James Aho
“I was just doing my job. That’s all I can say really. Practice hard and do it in the game. I was pretty nervous on my first long one because it was the first long one of the season, but after that I just said `whatever’.”