Oct. 5, 2008
Recap | Final Stats | Notes
New Mexico Head Coach Rocky Long
“A couple weeks ago everyone was talking about how bad we were. Now we have won two games and it’s ugly? I don’t think there is such a thing. Obviously we are struggling to move the ball. We are not throwing and catching really well. The only chance you have to win is to play good defense and control the line of scrimmage and run the ball pretty well. We didn’t kick the ball as well. We have been really good in special teams but we weren’t very good in special teams tonight. We ran the ball good enough and played good enough defense to win.”
On Wyoming’s initial turnover…
“I think it helped our momentum and I don’t think we gave it up the whole night. It probably hurt Wyoming psychologically, probably worse than it helped us get momentum. Because last week I think it was the first two series of downs that they turned the ball over and Bowling Green scored off the turnover. I feel bad for them because that has happened to us earlier in the season. If you turn the ball over close to the goal line its hard to win games. I’m glad we won, but I have been on the other end of that so I feel their pain.”
On UNM RS-Fr. QB Brad Gruner…
“I thought he did a good job running with the football and I thought he did a good job getting us in the right play a few times. I think he is going to have to throw the ball a whole lot better than he did tonight for us to be able to win down the road.”
Wyoming Head Coach Joe Glenn
“We’ve got to find a way to throw the ball. We are a mess right now throwing the football. We can’t be one-dimensional. We’re not good enough, so we’ve got to find a way to move the ball in the air. That’s the guys we got and we’ve got to find a way. What do you do? You just keep practicing and try to get better. Demoralized isn’t really in my vocabulary. You’ve got to try to find a way to throw the football. We can run the ball OK, but we are just an absolute mess trying to throw the football, to catch it, and get people open. Somehow we’ve got to figure it out. It is a tough defense to try to get a rhythm on. I don’t think the rain helped a lot. It is just frustration. I can’t think of a bright spot right now. We are not getting any points on the board.”
New Mexico Sr. Linebacker Zach Arnett
“It’s about time that we played like the Lobo defense from the opening kickoff. We’ve started slow too many times this year. Tonight though, Carmen Messina tips the first pass in the air and Frankie Solomon intercepts it and returns it for a touchdown. You can’t have a better start than that. Overall, it was a good performance by a whole bunch of guys that were flying all over the field.”
New Mexico Jr. Center Erik Cook
“We’ve (the offensive line) got to dominate the line of scrimmage. Rodney (Ferguson) was out tonight and we’ve got a young QB (Brad Gruner) back there, so we’ve got to control the game up front. I think we did that tonight. The defensive touchdown to open the game helped give us some momentum too. Every week we’ll need to control the line of scrimmage. We’ve been emphasizing it all week and we’ll have to continue to do so the rest of the season.”