Sept. 19, 2009
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery
ASU Head Coach Dennis Erickson
On the game:
"It was a win, that's the bottom line. I thought we played well at times and didn't play well at times. We won the football game, and there was a time last year when we lost this kind of football game. To me, that's the most important thing. I thought defensively we played pretty well most of the football game. We got some turnovers and we did not turn the ball over, so that's two games without turning the ball over, plus we're creating turnovers. Obviously that's the difference in the game. Louisiana-Monroe is not a bad football team. They have some athletes and they run around, so they're a little bit different. You're never happy. I'm never happy, but we won and that's just how it is. I think we have a tougher opponent next week."
On what ASU did wrong in this game:
"Too many penalties. That's ridiculous. I'll have to look at the tape tomorrow and see where they all were, how they were created and all that stuff, but that's disappointing. In a close football game when you have those kind of penalties, that's when you can get beat."
On how the wide receivers and offense performed:
"All of our receivers, for the most part, caught the ball extremely well. I thought Danny [Sullivan] threw it pretty well. We were able to do some good things. After two weeks, which seems like a month ago when we played Idaho State, I thought those receivers caught the football very well and did a good job."
On breaking the news to Bobby Wenzig that he would have to play:
"I was trying to run him down Friday, because I didn't know where he was. I'm glad he wasn't at home. We would have had a little problem getting up here. Hopefully Thomas will heal up and be ready for next week, but Bobby did a great job. Our backup was [Mike] Nixon. He kicked some pretty good ones yesterday in practice. You don't want to make a living with him, but he could get us through a game. He's pretty athletic."
On Dimitri Nance's performance tonight:
"He ran real well. He protected real well. He broke a lot of tackles. I thought all three backs that played, played pretty darn well. The thing about Dimitri [Nance] is he's not going to make very many mistakes, and he's going to protect against the blitz. They blitzed us a lot. I thought he did a good job protecting."
On going to Georgia next week:
"That'll be a great experience for our players to go down to the South and play. It's really special. I know our players are excited about getting down there."
ASU Quarterback Danny Sullivan
On his first career touchdown run:
"The touchdown run and the touchdown passes felt the same. The touchdown run was more unexpected so it felt a little better."
On if ULM played as they expected:
"They showed us what we expected. They covered us. We had a couple runs and moved the ball well."
On how confident he is in the offensive line:
"Very confident. We are going to make mistakes, but we are playing well and moving the ball well."
On how this compares to last year's game against UNLV:
"That was a heart-wrenching loss, and we have talked about that the last two weeks. We definitely did not want to fall into that trap, and we knew that Louisiana-Monroe is a good team that can give us hell. Tomorrow we will talk about Georgia."
ASU Cornerback Omar Bolden
On his kick return touchdown:
"I saw a wide-open lane, and the credit goes to the ten other players that were on the kickoff return team. They set up the blocks nicely and I did the rest."
ASU Running Back Dimitri Nance
On his performance tonight:
"Coach said he would use me a lot more today, so I practiced hard this week and looked forward to it. I followed my blocks."
ULM Head Coach Charlie Weatherbie
On the game:
"We played a good football team tonight. Arizona State has a great football team. We didn't give ourselves a chance to stay in the football game with the mistakes that we made early. I thought the kicking game was very lopsided. There were a lot of hidden yards there. They averaged 60 yards on two kick returns and we averaged 20 on four. In terms of punting, I would say we did a fair job. Overall, the kicking game was a big difference in the game. We drove the football down there offensively but threw an interception, which killed the opportunity. We gave the defense a short field the whole first half. Arizona State is a good football team, and I believe we are a better team than we showed tonight."
On DE Aaron Morgan:
"Aaron has done a great job. He made a great move and sacked the quarterback. He has great ability and can be a leader of this football team. He is a heck of football player, and he can be dominant for us once we get into conference play."
On the offensive game plan tonight:
"We thought we needed to run the football against them to be successful. We didn't run it as well as I thought we could."
ULM Defensive End Aaron Morgan
On what the team can take from this game:
"What you can take from this game is you can't make mistakes when you play an opponents like this. They're no different from any opponent we play this year. You can't make mistakes and expect to win. That's it."