Arizona State Head Coach Todd Graham
“I tell you what I saw, almost 10 thousand students, and that’s awesome, that’s a new record for the opener, and man I just want to thank our students for coming out loud and proud. It was an awesome atmosphere for the opener. I was really pleased with our young defense. Going into the game we talked about being basic, being really simple, but we said we couldn’t do that and be successful in the league, so let’s throw a lot at them and see. We were audible-ing, checking, they were motioning we were, we were checking.
“I was very impressed with Smallwood and Calhoun. I’ll tell you that guy is 210 pounds, and he plays 230. Obviously, he made some mistakes but man he makes them going 100 miles an hour. I just love his attitude.”
“We gave up the long run there with the third team guys, you hate that when that happens, it kind of put a damper on the night I didn’t like it very much. I was pleased with how our defense, at the beginning of the game, just dominated. They had a couple of hit strings, and then we had them tackled at the line of scrimmage the broke one play.”
“The goal line stand was exactly what we needed in Game One so I thought that was positive. I thought we missed some stuff early on offensively. We went down and had to kick a field goal, and we obviously shouldn’t punt against a team that we are that much better than. So I thought it was a little lackluster from that standpoint. You know we dominated a team that we needed to dominate, I thought we just missed some throws, had too many penalties. We had two offside penalties, two newcomers, and we can’t have that. We had an illegal procedure penalty; we had a facemask penalty, and that’s too many.”
“I like this team, I really like their attitude, their spirit. And if you notice, I am stringing them, coaching them hard. It isn’t fazing them a bit. We really have got great character on this team.”
“I really was disappointed obviously on how we punted the football. Matt (Haack) has been good, Matt’s a great punter, and he’s going to be a great punter. He just had a bad night. I’ve never seen him punt the ball like that, but we believe in him. He’s going to be fine.”
“Coverage wise we did good things, our PBR team blocked a punt, that’s my team. It’s the only special team that I coach, and there are a bunch of guys on there that I am really proud of, that don’t play on offense or defense, and did a tremendous job for us.”
“So I thought it was a good night, obviously it’s a win, it’s one of fifteen, and we got fourteen more to go. We have a lot more work to do.”
Redshirt Senior QB Taylor Kelly
On his first impression of the offense:
"I think the offense did a really good job with our high energy in the beginning of the game. Our tempo wasn't there where it needed to be, but it started to get going in the second quarter. I really liked how we came out in the second half. Usually we're kind of sluggish and a little bit slower, but we came out with great energy. I think our team did a very good job. It's very exciting to see those running backs out there and some of those new receivers making plays."
On his teammate Gary Chambers:
"He put in a lot of work this offseason in the weight room, extra time running routs, studying film. He's been working his tail off this fall camp. We're finally seeing it all come together to get his first touchdown catch, have a nice catch on a third and long. It's really exciting. He's going to be a great player for us."
On Jalen Strong's performance:
"Jalen had a tremendous game. He had a great offseason as well, studying film, finally getting a full season of workouts and his ability to condition himself where he needs to be. He's a playmaker. He made a lot of big catches, especially when we were backed up on the half-yard line and caught that fade over the corner. He's that type of playmaker and just has to keep getting better each week."
On if he was satisfied by the team's performance:
"I was satisfied with how we played. We came out with a great sense of urgency against this team. We just have to keep getting better each week. We can't be satisfied with how we played tonight. We just got to keep staying hungry. We did get off to a slow start in the beginning with a few overthrown passes by myself. We just got to settle in. Once we start getting going, this is going to be a great season."
Junior RB DJ Foster
On his first game as the premier back:
"I tried to be more of a leader for a lot of the younger guys. It felt good to be back out there. It's been a while. I thought that our offense and our offensive line did a great job tonight and blocked tremendously out there. It was good communication all over on the offensive side of the ball."
On the offensive game-plan coming into the game:
"We take a lot of pride in our chemistry, me and Taylor (Kelly) and of course Jalen (Strong). I thought a lot of running backs came in and ran their butts off. They played really hard. They've been working hard coming into this week. A lot of young receivers came in and made an impact. I thought a lot of younger guys came in and showed a lot today. It definitely gives us more confidence going into the next couple weeks."
On the first two offensive drives:
"I thought we came out just a little lackadaisical. We expect more on our drives than a punt and a field goal. That's one thing we worked very hard on in this offseason. We need points. We need six points. We need to score. We definitely tried to get the guys going."
Freshman LB DJ Calhoun
On his first game as a freshman:
“I played pretty good. I was just kind of nervous being out there in front of everybody. I couldn't really hear plays, but I had to listen to the best of my ability.”
On Coach Graham's comments on performance in locker room:
“He said we did pretty good. We just have to finish out. It wasn't right for us to let them score, but he said I was playing good and aggressive, and he likes that.”
On hardest part of being a freshman:
“Just keeping focus. You focus on the crowd and when you come out, you have all that adrenaline running through your body. But once you make that first hit, you just start settling down and play like yourself.”
On playing good defense:
“Being young, I have to step up. I just told everybody, "Come on. We can stop them. We've been practicing our inside blitz. This is it right here." Then, the play just happened and we smashed them.”
Weber State Head Coach Jay Hill
"Well if you look at it the stats pretty much explain it all. They ran for 267 yards, we ran for 152. They threw for 303 yards, we threw for 156 yards. They did basically what you would expect a Pac-12 team to do. I'm a little disappointed we didn't defend them better than we did, and they had too many opportunities when balls were up in the air and with plays down the field.”
“Overall, I thought our DBs should've made more plays earlier in the game and if you make a few of those plays, who knows, maybe you are looking at a whole different ball game. As the game wore on, we had a stint from the early second quarter to the early part of the third quarter where we were missing way too many tackles. But I thought our guys bounced back. They took a lot of punches and I thought they bounced back and played hard.”
“A couple positives were that we didn't turn the ball over, but Arizona State is a smart football team and they didn't turn the ball over either. And that's why they won. The bottom line is that we need to get better as a football team. We need to be able to run the ball when the other team is expecting us to run and we need to be able to get our completion percentage up. Billy (Green) was a little less than 50 percent tonight and that can't happen. I thought (ASU) did a good job with their pressure packages, I thought we did some good things on special teams, especially on our return game. And that was a positive. Bottom line, there is no moral victories and we aren't leaving here thinking we stood toe to toe with a top-20 team and we can't do that. That's not what we're about as a program. We came in thinking we had a chance to win if we played perfectly and that just didn't happen."
On what it meant to get a score in the fourth quarter, and if that helped Weber State build any momentum for their game next week:
"I told our team and our coaches that no matter what I wanted us to win the fourth quarter. The biggest reason is that that's part of our plan to win. We have five things that we feel like we have to abide by to win games and one of those is to win the fourth quarter. And we did that and I was proud of our guys for how they finished the game. Another win for us is that we stayed relatively healthy and to me that's a huge positive."
On what he can take away from this game and put toward the rest of their season:
"I think if a couple things go our way in the first half the score could have been 24-14 and that's what I think it should have been. We got stuffed on four plays within the four-yard line and you can't do that if you are going to go on the road against a great team and come out with a win. But you can't play the what if's card and focus on things that didn't happen."
On what kind of grade he would give himself in his first game as a college head coach:
"Not good enough. Again, there are no moral victories, and it's not like I faced a bunch of tough decisions that I had to make throughout the game. The bottom line is that you are graded on winning games and we didn't win tonight. Playing this game 10 times, I really think we can win two of them. And unfortunately we didn't play well enough to do that."
On what his thoughts are heading into the rest of the season:
“We can stand toe-to-toe with anyone left on our schedule. We're going to have to play great this week against North Dakota State. They’re a fabulous team. They're physical and strong. I've been watching a lot of film this summer of teams that we will play this year and it's not even close who our toughest opponent will be. It's Arizona State. And that's obvious. But that doesn't mean that we can have a letdown. We can't have our guys thinking that we stood toe-to-toe with a Pac-12 team and get complacent. We have to BEAT North Dakota State, and that has to be the big thing on our players' minds."
Weber State QB Billy Green
“We expect to win every time we play but they are a good team and we just need to learn from our mistakes and watch some film and get back at it next week.”
“ASU is a top 20 team in the nation so it’s always fun to go out and play them and see where you stand.”
Weber State RB Zach Smith
“We’re here to fight and keep playing hard no matter what the score is.”
“We are going to come into the next game with our fists balled up and ready to fight.”