Aug. 30, 2008
Recap | Final Stats | Notes
New Mexico Postgame Quotes vs. TCU
Saturday, August 30, 2008
University Stadium – Albuquerque, N.M.
New Mexico Head Coach Rocky Long
“Obviously they had a lot better field position than we did. I think the wind had a little factor at the beginning, but most of it was that I thought that they established the line of scrimmage. I thought they controlled it on offense and on defense. I’m really disappointed. I’m the guy in charge and we didn’t do a very good job of coaching. But I’m not discouraged. There was always a possibility that was going to happen when you have new offensive linemen and there’s always a possibility when your starting quarterback goes out that you will have a very hard time making a comeback. Obviously, the field position was the key to the whole game and it started right from the beginning.”
“We’ve got a lot of young talent on this team and a whole bunch of them made a whole bunch of mistakes today – a whole bunch of mental errors and then I didn’t think we were nearly as physical as we have to be on both offense and defense. That’s a credit to them. Maybe they’re that much better than we are on the offensive and defensive line.”
“Most of being physical is attitude. The real problem is that if you have new guys out there and they’re thinking too much, they can’t be physical. They’re worried about what they’re supposed to be doing and so they’re hesitant.”
“We’ll get better. We’re going to be a good football team before it’s all over. Whether it’s next week or not, I don’t have any idea. But we’ll be a good football team before it’s over.”
TCU Head Coach Gary Patterson
“[New Mexico] lost some good players last year and then their quarterback went down (today). I was proud of my guys. We didn’t tackle as well as we are going to have to tackle later on. We have some people that are going to have to play a lot better. I was proud of them. When they won they didn’t act like it was the Super Bowl. They just knew it was one win and we have 11 games ahead of us. We just need to move forward.”
“A lot of conversation was about what we had to do as a team to make sure we went and got takeaways, which we did today – put pressure on the quarterback, stopped the running game, and make sure we didn’t turn the ball over.”
“We were in the game plan where we were trying to not get under their pressure. We threw the ball quick. I thought we ran the ball where we were able to be useful and do the things we needed to do. Obviously we were down inside the 20 a couple of times and we got to get points. We got to get more points. Our freshman kicker (Ross Evans) has to keep concentrating. There is no such thing as an easy kick.”
“One of the good things about playing a New Mexico team is it made you get ready for the kind of people you have to play later on. You get a chance to play and understand the kind of intensity that you will get when you play on the road and play a game like this.”
New Mexico Senior Safety Blake Ligon
“We’ve got a lot of work to do. We’ve got to get better prepared mentally, offensive and defensively. We’ve got to establish the line, both offense and defense. They were running up the middle and we couldn’t stop them from getting to our backs in the backfield. So we just need to work on getting a whole lot more physical.”
New Mexico Senior Running Back Rodney Ferguson
“We need to play as a team next week because today we got whupped as a team. They were just more prepared than us and we didn’t come out to play. The only thing we can do now is come out to play next week.”