Sept. 1, 2007
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ASU Head Coach Dennis Erickson
On his overall thoughts about the game:
"I thought we played very efficiently. It was one of the most efficient games that I've had for a first game. We had a couple turnovers, some dropped balls, but very few penalties. The only one that was disappointing was the late hit out of bounds early, but other than that, we didn't have a lot of penalties, so we were very efficient for the first game. Same thing with turnovers. We had the one turnover where Brent [Miller] fumbled the ball there, but other than that I thought we were very efficient. I thought we played very good on defense, didn't give up the big play and ran to the football. We'll find out, I'm not sure how big a test that was, but it was a test, nothing against anybody. I thought we played very well for the first game, but now it gets harder every week."
On the offense:
"The first drive, Rudy scrambled out and made a big play. We just ran the football well. Ryan [Torain] had 123 yards. Shoot, we took him out with eight minutes to go in the third quarter, I believe. So, that's a credit to our offensive front and how they blocked. When you can do that, you can do a lot of things. You can throw play action pass. You can do all the things. We were able to do that and eat the clock up."
On the defense:
"I thought we ran around real well, got lined up, and ran to the football extremely well. I thought we tackled pretty well. They got some things going early when they were in spread. They made some completions. We kept stuff in front, and then we started getting pressure on them. I thought we ran around and played OK. We have to get better."
On center Mike Pollak:
"He's so athletic, we can do some things in our running game by pulling him. We run the G play, the outside G play and we pull a guard or a tackle, and then we pull a center if we're capable of doing that. A lot of times that depends on what kind of athlete you have at center, and he's a great athlete, and it really makes a heck of a difference. He's just a solid player in there. Your center is the leader of the front, but I thought all those guys played pretty well. Obviously, you look at tape and it's never as good as you think it is, so you know how that is, but we'll fake it tonight."
On Rudy Carpenter calling plays at the line:
"We did a lot of check-with-me's with Rudy. He'd come up and call the run play either way, make a call in the huddle one way or the other, tight end side or other way, depending on how their front was aligned and try to give us the best chance to have some success. He did an awfully good job. We got to a point in the second half where we just called it and went. But our plan early in the game was to do that. Last year, they were bringing an outside backer, so we wanted to be able to put ourselves in that situation, and I thought we executed pretty well."
On some problems with getting play calls in:
"We screwed that up some. We've got numbers, we've got our plays, and then give him a number, and we flash the number into him, he's got a wristband and calls the play. There were three or four times where he didn't get it, or he didn't get the sign right, or we gave him the wrong play, so we've just got to keep doing that. But that's the way I like to do it because you can get them in and out, and not have delay of games and things like that."
On the plans for next week:
"Well tomorrow we bring them in the afternoon and they run and lift and do some physical things. I like to do that on Sunday and get the kinks out. A lot of them are going to be sore. When they're done with that, then we bring them in and look at tape of the game and spend a lot of time on that, make all of our corrections, and when we're done Sunday, we are done with that football game. Monday, they have off, and of course, Monday we start prep for Colorado. Tuesday, we put part of the game plan in, and Wednesday the same thing, and then Thursday we finalize it. That's what we do every week."
On next week's opponent, Colorado:
"Colorado's a good football team. I watched them today on the tube, so it will be interesting. It will be fun, and I know our guys are going to have some confidence, so we'll see what happens."
ASU Junior QB Rudy Carpenter
On the game:
"We played really well on both sides of the ball. I think offensively we scored on every possession except for the one where we had the fumble. I thought our defense played really well. They ran to the ball. They made a lot of tackles. They didn't even give them a chance to score. Obviously there is a lot we need to improve on offense. We made some mistakes. I know I did personally. I think those are all good things though because once we get them corrected we'll be a better team."
On the running game:
"I don't know if I've ever handed it off that many times. All I care about is that W. When you have a player like Ryan Torain, you need to give him that ball as many times as possible. He is getting 5, 6 yards a carry. He is making the passing game easier too. It takes pressure off myself and the wideouts."
On setting the tone in the first game of the season:
I thought it was important [to set the tone]. Last year we got off to a slow start a little bit against NAU. We struggled offensively from that point forward. Today we got into a rhythm. We came out fast. We established the running game. I don't know what the numbers were in the passing game but I'm sure we're ok. I think once we establish the passing game a little bit more we'll be a good team.
On the passing game:
I thought we did fine [in the passing game]. Like I said, I'm not sure what the numbers were. I thought our wide outs did a good job of getting open, running good routes. We didn't make a lot of mental mistakes and we got guys the ball. Kerry Taylor, first game had a touch down. I think that will give him some confidence along with Mike Jones, Kyle Williams, and Chris McGaha. We don't have Rudy Burgess too. Once we get him I think that will help out too.
On Ryan Torain:
I think that's demoralizing for a defense. I think when you have a back that is carrying a lot of times. Not only is he breaking for long runs, he is punishing the defense. He is hitting them. I think what is also demoralizing is when we play action pass and throw balls down the field. That is hard for them. They don't know what to do.
On Coach Erickson's energy level:
Coach Erickson definitely not calm. He is more upbeat and energetic. I don't know if you saw but he coached all the way through the entire game, which is important for us. He is more firey. I think the players respond to that.
ASU JR WR Mike Jones
On the game:
"We were saying we can't wait until we play people who have never seen us before. New offense, new guys, people have improved. We just came out and had fun."
On respect:
"[Respect] is something I say a lot. Last year we really didn't do much and a lot of people didn't respect us. They thought we had one of the worst receiving cores in the country or the Pac-10. This year we've come out really fast and on fire to try to earn that respect."
On bonding with Carpenter:
I actually roomed with him at the hotel last night and we talked about plays. I told him I wanted to be his go to guy. So I tried to step up and make as many plays as I can.
ASU SR LB Robert James
On the defense staying fresh throughout the game...
"We were able to stay fresh because our offense was on the field for so long. The offense did a good job of moving the chains and eating up time on the clock. We were able to get in the game fresh and a lot of the times it was three and out so we didn't have too many long drives, so we didn't get tired."
On the defense tonight...
"We practiced full speed so we wanted to carry that over to the game. Coach Bray expects a lot from us, so we wanted to come out tonight and execute."
On San Jose State's offense...
"We expected a lot more from them, so it ended up being pretty easy for us to make our reads and make plays. We were expecting a lot of split zones, speed options and reverses, so them spreading out their offense didn't really affect us too much."
ASU Senior RB Ryan Torain
On the play of the offensive line tonight...
"The offensive line was great. They are very experienced and they showed that tonight. It was nice to have those guys in front of me and overall we had a great game."
On scoring three touchdowns tonight...
"I haven't done that since high school, but it was great to do it at this level."
On the play of Keegan Herring tonight...
"Keegan ran the ball well tonight. We always try to help each other out; give one another great advice. It's fun to help each other out."
On finally starting the season...
"It felt good. It was fun playing against another team that doesn't necessarily know what I like to do or the plays that we run, but it was great to go against another opponent rather than my teammates."
ASU Dexter Davis
On the performance of the defense tonight...
"I definitely think we had a solid performance. The coaches prepared us well, so we were ready for anything they were going to throw at us. We still have some things to improve on, but we are going to get them corrected this week and we are going to be ready for ."
San Jose St. Coach Dick Tomey:
on Torain:
"He's a good player. I don't know how good, because we were so bad, but we got our asses kicked and we needed it. We needed that because we obviously aren't well coached, we don't play well, we aren't tough enough, we're not disciplined enough, but we needed that. And if we handle it the right way we'll get better. They were infinitely so much better."
on offense:
"Nothing went to plan. We couldn't stop them on defense, we couldn't block them on offense, the throws we need to complete, so it was a team effort, but it started on coaching. It started with head coach, their head coach whipped our head coach, their coaching staff whipped our coaching staff, their team whipped our team; it's not very complicated. A game like that's not very complicated."
on ASU:
"They did nothing we didn't expect."
San Jose St. QB Adam Tafralis:
on why they lost:
"They were better than us. They played better than us. They wanted to win more than we did. I can't say a whole lot more than that."