Arizona State Head Coach Todd Graham
Opening quotes on the game:
"I just want to thank our fans. I usually don't get distracted by much in a game but when I first came out I was wowed. The atmosphere was unbelievable; the fans packed the house. My favorite part of the game was when Notre Dame made it a three-point game and our entire crowd just started chanting. That was awesome. That is something I haven't seen. I am very grateful of our fans. It is a great time to be a Sun Devil. I am proud of our players and staff. We are building something very special. I am proud of our players on not only winning but how we are winning."
On the team:
"We surprised a lot of people but we have not surprised ourselves. When you work hard and do practice the right way, we expect the result. Our guys are talented. I am proud of the players' development. I am proud of our coaches and how they teach. I think our fans in the stands got their money's worth today. We had a lot of explosive plays. We have a real football team. I am very proud of them.
On building a National Championship team:
"We are laying down a foundation. We talk about building a national power. I passed the National Championship Trophy in Wells Fargo Arena and I am determined to bring that trophy back to the Valley. Dr. Crow and I talk all the time about winning a National Championship and doing it the right way."
On beating Notre Dame:
"That is a good team. Coach Kelly is an incredible football coach. I have been coaching against him since 2010. Anytime you can beat a football team with that talent, coaching, and character is amazing. The only other football team that has beaten them is Florida State. I think we beat them more soundly. It makes a big statement that we can beat a very good football team. We have not reached any of our goals but that has been the biggest win we have had since I have been here."
On how the game played out:
"It was a hard fought game. You can feel it when there is a momentum shift. I had to keep reminding the team that we were winning. You can feel that momentum so you have to figure out how to change that. Like life, you cannot be great without facing adversity."
Redshirt Senior QB Taylor Kelly
Opening statement:
“I just want to thank our fans, all 65,000 of them that came to Sun Devil Nation. We couldn’t get it done without you guys. You’re the best student section in the nation. Go Devils.”
On what winning this game says about this team:
“It’s huge. Getting a win on a national stage like that is big time for this program and where it’s headed. Guys are doing a tremendous job of getting better each week in practice, trusting coach, watching film, making those sacrifices. We came together as family tonight even more.”
On how he felt today compared to the last two games:
“I feel almost, if not, 100 percent. Those first two games, I had to work on the timing down in my head with the rush and different routes. I did a great job in practice this week in individuals working on my timing with my feet, speeding that up. That helped me a lot sitting in the pocket and trusting my eyes.”
On the sideline communication as the game got closer:
“Nobody flinched. Our defense had our backs and we had theirs. On the sidelines, our coaches (say) keep doing what we’re doing, trust your eyes, trust your fundamentals and our leaders stepped up and made some big plays when we needed to.”
On how much he compares it to last year’s UCLA game:
“It was a big game. That’s when big time players, big teams step up. Our defense did a tremendous job of doing that. Our offensive line did an unbelievable job of protecting (me), coming off the football for our running backs. That’s what you do on a championship stage is show up.”
On what Demario Richards adds to the offense:
“He’s added a lot with how deadly we are with the receivers. Now you add one more with DJ (Foster) our there and speed. With him out of the backfield, he’s just a little pinball. He just keeps trusting his holes. He runs super hard and so you have to account for him, DJ, Jaelen (Strong), all our playmakers.”
On getting the crowd going early:
“It’s huge. Coach, his objectives in a game are to start fast. We did that. Defensively, they gave us those two turnovers down in the red zone and we executed on those. Those were huge. Past weeks we’ve been just getting field goals out of that. We put touchdowns on them and it’s great to have the crowd on your side. It helps us out so much.”
On if this one had any special meaning:
“Not really. It’s a big stage. It’s a great program. We had this one circled on our schedule. They’re a great football team, a great program.”
Redshirt Senior DB Damarious Randall
On the defensive gameplan against Everett Golson:
“We knew that we had to get a lot of pressure on him because he’s very, very mobile. We knew in their last five games that they turned the ball over twelve times. We just went and took advantage of that. Getting pressure on a mobile quarterback is kind of like their kryptonite because they just want to sit back in the pocket and run whenever stuff is not open, so just pressure them a lot. We just forced him to play for us.”
On what he saw on his pick-six:
“We were in man-to-man coverage and I was guarding the inside guy. My guy ended up running a slant, but Marcus Hardison tipped the ball and I saw the ball up in the air and just broke and got it. Touchdown.”
On if this one had any special meaning:
“I know I wouldn’t want to play ASU in Tempe.”
ASU Senior DL Marcus Hardison
On if this was the best game they have played all year:
“It was a pretty good game. Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t communicating as well as we should have at the beginning of the second half. But, so far, this was one of the best games. We will continue to get better.”
On the strategy to block passes:
“First of all [Evertt Golson] was 5’10’’, so he is pretty short. I just wasn’t able to get to the quarterback in time, but I saw him release and just put my hands up as quick as possible.”
ASU Junior RB D.J. Foster
On the unanswered (28) points that Notre Dame scored in the second half:
“We just kept talking. The captains communicated to us that we needed to have our defense’s backs. As you can see the defense battled the whole game. We needed to show up for them. We kept talking, said we need to put together a drive. That’s what we did; we came together as an offensive unit.”
On drawing experience from past games when Notre Dame got within 3 points:
“We do. Like I said this team is progressively growing, and growing every week. It’s unbelievable to see my teammates putting their heart out there. Throughout the week at practice, they grow and mature. We have guys like Demario Richard coming in and stepping up every game, playing his butt off. Our ‘O-line’ is playing tremendous. All the pieces of the puzzle are coming together. It’s a sight to see.”
On what happened on the sideline when the game tightened up:
“We have been in this position multiple times this year. When it gets toward the end of the game and when we are in a rough patch, we need to get things going. Like our coaches say we need to stay positive. The guys on the sideline do a great job of keeping the energy up. Our leaders, team and coaches knew what we had to do. We all had each other’s backs.”
On what Demario Richard has added to the offense:
“He is the ‘yin’ to my ‘yang’. I am proud of that kid. I have seen him grow so much since arriving here. It is unbelievable to see his growth, and what he is doing every week for this team. He is going to keep bringing it. And I am just proud of him.”
On if the game has special meaning:
“I think that we knew that this was the hump we needed to get over. At the end of the day, it was justanother game for us. But we knew that we had to get this win to impress some people.”
Notre Dame Head Coach Brian Kelly
Opening Statement:
“Five turnovers and a mishandled PAT is the story. You can’t expect to win football games against good teams and turn the ball over five times—two of them pick sixes and two of them in short-field drives. That’s a potential 28 points. I think we played well enough defensively. We probably needed one more stop there late when we got it to 34-31. We played well enough defensively for us to win, but we shot ourselves in the foot offensively. We battled back to get it to 34-31 with a chance to win the game, but we couldn’t come up with a big stop. But this game was not set up for us to rely on our defense to come up with a big stop. This game was set up for our offense to win the game. We put our defense in such a bad situation today and battled back. Great resolve, great character. The kids are as good a group of kids that I’ve coached. But if you’re sloppy—this isn’t rec ball. There aren’t pats on the back for being great competitors. We’re doing this to win. We didn’t win the game, and it’s because of the obvious circumstances in the game—five turnovers.”
On what got the team going in the second half:
“We knew there were plays out there for us, and there really wasn’t much of a change. They kept pressuring and doing what they did. First turnover, Everett [Golson] has got the ball in one hand. Second turnover, we don’t cut the tackle—we shoe dust the tackle and he knocks it down. Third one, we were supposed to hand the ball off. We just did what we were supposed to do in the first half in second half. We moved offensively like we were expecting to move in the first half.”
On what went wrong in the first half:
“We turned the ball over three times. That’s sloppy football. We had a 13-play drive that we would’ve liked to score on. We balanced it, we ran it, and we threw it. We moved it all the way down the field, chopped time off the clock. That’s not flat. We just weren’t executing. We turned the ball over the next three out of four times that we had the ball. That’s the problem.”
On Everett Golson’s turnovers:
“We’ve been working with him. Sooner or later, he’s got to take it on himself to take care of the football. I don’t know what else to do. We’re at that point now where it hurt us in the game. He knows it. He’s going to walk in here and you’re going to ask him the same questions. He doesn’t want to turn the football over. He was extending, he put the ball out—he’s got to take care of the football better.”
On Cody Riggs:
“We put him through pregame, and he just didn’t have that fire coming out of his back pedal. We were going to get matched up with [Jaelon] Strong, and we just felt like he wasn’t at the level that we felt he could go. It’s a stress reaction, so there’s no fracture.”
On the third turnover:
“We have run and pass routes. The ball should’ve been handed off. Everett saw it differently. That’s coaching too. We have to do a better job coaching him so that when he sees that look, he doesn’t think that he’s supposed to throw the football. So that’s coaching.”
On first half looks from ASU’s defense:
“Everything that we practiced, everything that we saw last year, we saw this year. Absolutely no changes in what they did. It was nothing that we saw out there which makes it even more maddening and frustrating.”
On slowing ASU down in the second half:
“Our run fits were a little bit better. Our tight front was better. We moved to a little bit tighter front because they moved the ball a little bit. They ran the ball a little bit better than we wanted to out of some of our bench fronts, so we went to some tight fronts. I think that adjustment helped us. They were bouncing it into our boundary, and our boundary corner was not there where we wanted them to be, so we needed to make a couple adjustments. I think that helped.”
On Nyles Morgan:
“I think by and large he did a nice job of communicating and getting us the information that we needed. There was good communication. He gets there quickly. He bothered [Taylor] Kelly when he got there. He’s a guy that we activated a lot today. I’d say he did a pretty good job.”
On Devin Butler:
“He competed today. He got matched up with Strong a couple of times and I thought he did a nice job. There are things that we need him to do better. The last touchdown, he’s got boot control. He’s not there. He needs to force the ball a couple of times on that last drive. He hasn’t played a ton, but he competed. I like the way he competed out there. He’ll get more snaps. He’ll get better. But I like the way he competed.”
On the game overall:
“If you really look at it closely, we turned the ball over five times. You can’t turn the ball over. Our guys were ready to play and you can’t play sloppy like that. It’s ridiculous. What I’m upset about is how crazy it is that we saw everything for a week—the same stuff today that we saw all week—and we turned it over five times. We shoe dust the right defensive end and don’t bring him down. We get the ball tipped. We inexplicably put the ball on the ground on a scramble. They’re maddening mistakes. We could’ve moved the ball today effectively. Our defense would’ve hung in there and done enough for us to get a win on the road. But it didn’t happen today, and that’s what I’m most upset about.”
On Golson’s performance overall:
“It’s one of the deals where you take one step forward and two steps back, and then he comes back in the second half and he does some really good things. He’s got to strive for consistency. If he plays clean in the first half, who knows where we’d be right now. We just have to get a consistent performance. And that means a clean performance and taking care of the football. Not all those mistakes were his, but I think the first one kind of set a bad tone to the game.”
Note Dame Senior QB Everett Golson
On the Turnovers:
“Honestly I think it’s all on me, you play with fire as much as I did today, you know you are going to get burnt eventually. I’ve go to practice to get better, got to clean up in practice. I think that’s where it really starts, is in practice.”
On if he reverts to old habits on the field:
“I think it’s the competitor in me, sometimes just trying not to give up on the play, I got like I said, burnt today. Just different calls, I had a lot of tipped balls, things like that. Like I said we just have to clean it up.”
On the tip into a pick six, Kelly says he should of handed the ball off:
"It was basically the Sam was inside, I guess it was just miscommunication, me not understanding what they wanted. What I saw was basically man outside with the safety rolled down, played number two corner was outside trying to play some quicks, and same thing they brought it from the backside, the end didn’t rush really rush he just got up, and got his hands on it , and made a play on the ball. It’s definitely something that we’ve got to clean up. Just us really understanding what we are trying to do.”
How to “clean it up:”
“Just trusting what the coaches are going, just understanding what they want, I guess there were times where I thought that was the right read, probably though it was one of the better plays, and it’s obviously not what they wanted. We just got to clean it up.”
On whether he felt like the turnovers were piling up
“I never really give up on a game at all, I always have that mind set that we are going to win, and we are going to find a way to win somehow. And I think we’ve one a great job of being resilient, despite the turnovers and things like that. Second half we were very resilient on both sides of the ball, just a couple mistakes made, just messed it up for us.
Staying focused coming out into the second half:
“Just being resilient, never giving in. We were down 34-10 and, 34-3. Still there never was a point in that game I thought I was going to lose, I thought we were going to come back like I said, and find a way to pull it out. Certain mistakes happened, if you are going to play like that in the first half you almost have to be perfect in the second half, and we weren’t able to do that today.”
Notre Dame Senior RB Cam McDaniel
Message as a captain to the rest of the team:
“Right now, there is just no excuse not to win the rest of our games. We didn’t come out and take care of business in the first half. We played flat and it showed. We turned the football over. You just can’t do that with a team like Arizona State. They capitalized on it. We came back and fought really hard in the second half but we weren’t able to completely execute. We fought hard and we were resilient in the second half after coming out flat but it wasn’t enough.”
On the sloppiness of the first half:
“There is no excuse. As a football team - from a leadership standpoint, all of the captains have to do a better job making sure the team is ready. There is no excuse. You can’t point to anything. It wasn’t the heat or the atmosphere. We know how to play in big games because we’ve won big games. There is no excuse why we didn’t come back in the second half. We had them.”
On the team mentality after Amir Carlisle’s Touchdown:
“We were going to win the football game. That’s what everyone expected.”
On Arizona heat affecting the team’s ability to execute:
“The heat was not an issue. The whole team was good. Nobody cramped up. Their players cramped up but we didn’t cramp up.”
On the teams’ pass protection:
“They were pressuring almost every play; every other play. We started to pick it up more in the second half. We missed a couple but it just wasn’t enough. We were doing a good job in the second half but didn’t execute all the way.
When asked if player probability effected team execution:
“There are always hypothetical situations but that’s not what our teams is about. Our team is the putting the next man in. We look to compete and win no matter what the odds are or the previous outcomes. There is no excuse why we didn’t come in here and take care of business today.”
If previous weeks practice indicated a sloppy performance:
“I feel like as a captain we had a very good week of practice. I felt as though we did really well. I don’t know what to tell you at this point. I’m just as baffled as you guys are. We came out and didn’t take care of business in the first half.”