HERM EDWARDS
On having fans back
“I think for all of us, it did help having that great fan base that we have here, and we played into it too, with our emotions. I've always said you don't want to be an emotional team, you want to be a passionate team. When you look at the files, we had 13 fouls for 135 yards, we turned the ball over twice, we did a lot of things that good football teams can't do. Now, fortunately for us, we took the ball away and we were able to keep them out of the end zone for the most part, but we’ve got a lot of work to do. We were a very sloppy football team, and our emotions got the best of us at times. And we gotta get that corrected."
On highlights of tonight’s performance
“Well I think the run game going into this had two very talented runners, and we ran the ball pretty well. When you look at the numbers, we ran 40 times for 220 yards and we got all our backs in there, but I thought we ran the ball and we took care of line of scrimmage. I liked the effort of the players; they never questioned that they weren't going to win the game. But it’s not about this game, it's about really getting better, and you can't play this type of football if you want to become a good football team.”
JAYDEN DANIELS
On his performance
“If I’m being honest, I feel like we played sloppy on offense. We had a whole bunch of penalties. I think you guys (the other players) would say the same thing. We still executed on some things, but we have to limit the penalties and mistakes. It’s just the little things. O line did a great job, but it’s just the little mistakes up on the perimeter that took us back. But going forward we can’t be the team with this many penalties. We just have to clean up the little things, but it was the first game, we got the win under our belts so we’re just moving on to next week."
On not involving the passing game as much
“The offense was in a good rhythm and I was in a good rhythm with the receivers making a couple good catches, but our run game was so dominant. The coaches made a business decision to run the clock out to get everyone out of the game healthy to build on this experience for next week.
Senior Linebacker Darien Butler
“Our communication can get a lot better. We know we cannot have 130 yards with penalties, it really did hurt us a lot when it came down to it. “I’m the guy that is normally locked in, but with the fans making all that noise, it’s hard to not notice. It was a blast, I’m grateful to be in this position, I’m grateful to be talking to you guys, I never thought this would happen.”
On losing Tyler Johnson early on
“Losing Tyler is always big. That’s a guy who wants to be out there and he’s going to give everything he’s got. He’s one of those guys that has a nose for the football, he’s always on the ball, good things happen when he’s around the ball. So, it’s always big when you lose a guy like that. But it’s all good, we’re going to clean it up at practice to make sure those things don’t happen again, we’re good.”
RICKY PEARSALL
“Obviously it was a sloppy outcome with the penalties, although we still put 41 on the board with that many penalties. But it was killing some of our drives and we can’t have that going forward. Obviously, there were some positive plays that came out of it with the run game.”
On downfield blocking
“It's one of the biggest aspects of our game that we work on. In practice we work on premiere blocking all the time against the DBs. I feel like it helps us out a lot, we had a few penalites with our blocking, and we’ll go back and look at the fundamentals to block better.”
SOUTHERN UTAH HEAD COACH DEMARIO WARREN
“I’m proud of the way they played, man, they played hard. They played two FBS opponents in five days. It's a tough feat. The guys just worked. They went all the way down to the wire, got a huge third down stop there on the goal line at the end of the game. We had a couple opportunities to take the lead in the first quarter with the ball on their side of the 50, and then late in the game down three scores we got the ball back to the offense. So, there were some opportunities. Four turnovers, but I think our guys know that they can play with anybody after tonight. That was the goal to improve from week one, I thought they played a ton better.”
On the frustration of turnovers
“It’s frustrating. Especially to turn over the ball two times in plus territory. It’s frustrating. Justin is a phenomenal quarterback. I wouldn’t want anybody else back there and I think he’s going to bounce back and be ready to go. That D line and those linebackers are ridiculous. Our O line really stepped up. I don’t know how many sacks we gave up, but it didn't seem like much, maybe one or two. I think we had two, right, one at the end of the game. So, two FBS opponents and three sacks combined I think that’s a pretty good job by the offensive line and the running backs.”
On the ability to move the ball
“We ran the ball the first time pretty well the first two weeks versus some really good defenses, and that was something that we needed to get better at from spring. If we could run the ball, we could have a real good shot. We’ve got some real good receivers, a good quarterback. I think we controlled the clock. We led in time of possession the first two games. That’s hard to do against these FBS opponents, so we’re excited about that. A lot of good things moving forward. We’ve got 17 days to rest up and get healed and hopefully get a couple more players back for the next game.”
On the ability to learn from a top-25 opponent:
“Just the confidence that we can play people. Our team has climbed out a deep hole that we’ve dug ourselves the last couple of years. Huge road game in two weeks. I think the confidence to be able to play on the road is going to be huge going into another hostile environment next week. I’m just so proud of these guys. Two games in five days, they didn’t complain. They went to work on Monday, had a tough practice and then we tried to get them healthy for this game. They just came out and fought."
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