Nov. 22, 2007
Recap | Final Stats | Notes
ASU Head Coach Dennis Erickson
On USC:
"They played like they haven't played all year, and obviously they're healthy. But the bottom line is that they did a nice job of preparing and a good job of coaching. They played hard, and we didn't play well. When you play a team that good and don't play very well, you don't tackle, you don't do the things that we've been doing all year; then it's going to turn out like that. We're all disappointed. They're good, but we didn't play well. Again, I don't want to take any credit away from them, because they're an awesome football team. We knew that going in. They had some injuries, and everybody is healthy now. They're a pretty darn good team."
On their defensive struggles tonight:
"Normally we're a very good tackling team. Normally we get turnovers, get around the football and we didn't do that, for whatever reason. We'll have to look at the tapes. On the other side of the football, we had some opportunities early in the football game and didn't take advantage of it. We weren't very consistent in any aspect of what we were doing offensively. I thought Rudy [Carpenter] did a good job of playing, Chris McGaha made some plays, but other than that, we just weren't very consistent offensively."
On USC passing so much early on:
"They had a great plan. I think they probably ran the ball twice in the first quarter. Everything was bootlegs, getting out on the corner, and play action pass. They did a nice job of planning against us."
On the running game struggles:
"When we can't run it, this particular football team right now, we've got problems. We've been able to do that for the most part. But we couldn't do it, and then we got behind, and it was impossible for us to catch up. The first play of the second half, we come out and we have play action pass called, Chris McGaha is wide open, and we get sacked. So the combination of them not worrying about the run and getting up the football field just created problems. That's the worst we've ran the football."
On next week's game against Arizona:
"That's obviously a big game for us. I know we're all disappointed, but we've just got to look and see where we're at, and then go from there."
Arizona State QB Rudy Carpenter
On getting hit:
"I felt the same really as every other week. They came to hit tonight. That is the one thing that they did do. They hit me and they hit me good. They're a good team."
On USC's depth:
"USC is so deep. They are deep on both sides of the ball, offense, defense. They rotate so many plays and they rotate so many guys. They're fresh. They had a great game plan and those guys played really hard. Tonight we were just a little over matched."
On the loss:
"The most frustrating thing for us is that a lot of these guys, our whole dream is to go play in the Rose Bowl. We had a chance for that tonight. Some things happen. That is the most frustrating thing; losing at home. Our goal is to not lose at home. It is frustrating all the way around. We got beat."
Arizona State WR Rudy Burgess
On USC's defensive line:
"Credit to [USC's] defensive line. They played a good game. They out powered our offensive line and were able to get to our quarterback and Rudy wasn't able to get the ball off in time."
On USC's defense:
"Everything we game planned for the season they did. They just out hustled us in the defensive line aspect."
On trying to comeback from behind:
"It was hard to regain momentum after they got up on us. We were just unable to get back and come out on top."
Arizona State S Troy Nolan
On USC's offense:
"We expected them to run a lot of play action. We were just too overwhelmed, too excited. We were just moving too fast and getting out of position on the plays."
On missed tackles:
"That just goes what I said. We were just too excited and overwhelmed. We just didn't wrap up at times. They were just running through our tackles and making plays. We just got out played."
USC Head Coach Pete Carroll
On the win:
"This was a really sweet win. We've been looking forward to the time where we really felt we were all together and had everything going in the right direction. We had a sense it would happen and it is just a great statement for our guys that they know we're capable of playing great football. That's a heck of a team we just beat there."
USC QB John David Booty
On ASU offense versus USC offense:
"We knew they would try to pass the ball and we used the run and it opened it up."
On Rose Bowl chances:
"People counted us out after the Stanford game. We dealt with so many injuries. It's always difficult to deal with everything but it's a long season. We gave it all we had."
USC DE Lawrence Jackson
On a sack on Rudy:
"We knew that they were going to throw the ball deep and we took advantage of the rush. The coaches called a good play and we took advantage."
On Rudy Carpenter:
"He's a good quarterback. He's very resourceful; we knew that coming in today."