Postgame Thoughts: Southeastern Louisiana
10/25/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
Recap | Final Stats
SFA Head Coach Clint Conque
Opening Statement:
“Well, I couldn’t be happier for our players. Certainly, the investment that they’ve made, the buy-in. For our assistant coaches, they’ve done a wonderful job of keeping these young men on point, and then of course the kids are playing hard. We’re making mistakes. I made a big coaching mistake tonight, but it was a nice win for our program. The number eight team in the country, Homecoming, Hall of Fame Day; there was a lot of significance with this day, and I thought that we showed a tremendous amount of heart, character, and courage out there tonight. They were a very physical as team, very fast and a very athletic football team, but we persevered, and found a way to get it done, and a real nice win for our program.”
About SLU quarterback Bryan Bennett not playing the first half:
“Anytime you lose a player of that magnitude for whatever reason, you are going to struggle a little bit, and they did in the first half. He certainly ignited them in the second half, but when they punched we punched back. Our young men were determined to prove that they were a quality football team and to do that you have to go beat a quality football team. This is the defending champion, and a top-10 ranked team in the country, and we have kids that didn’t play tonight because of injury as well. He came back in and he didn’t look hurt to me. He was running and throwing and making people miss, and you just had to hold your breath every time he had the ball. But they are more than just Bennett. They have guys who can stick their toe in the ground and score from any point on the field, and you saw that when they hit the short post and just out ran our secondary.”
On not turning the ball over:
“We did not have a turnover tonight. That was one of the things that we talked about, that we needed to win the turnover battle. Obviously we had a key turnover there on the interception on the goal line, and a nice return that flipped the field. It was a defensive night. We new it was going to be a slugfest, a very physical football game. Gus (Johnson) had 22 carries, Zach (Conque) had 20 carries, combining for almost 190 yards. We knew it was going to be tough sledding, but we had to pick our spots in the passing game. We did hit some critical routes, hit a few screens, and tried to keep them off balanced, but their blitz package is pretty sophisticated, and again with the tremendous athletes they have we knew it was going to be close-to-the-vest type game.”
On putting up 27 points against the SLU defense:
“I think they came in only giving up 20 points a game. They held Northwestern State to 22, held UCA to 24, and I thought our young men rose to the challenge. We really challenged them this week to show some maturity and some mental toughness. There was some ebbs and flow of that game that really challenged us, and again the fourth down right around midfield I really wanted to win the game right there, or at least roll off another two or three minutes. I should have punted the football, but we made a lot of fourth downs in less then a yard, and when you’ve got a 230-pound quarterback you feel good about your chances there. We just came up short, but the defense made it right, and it was really a credit to our defense, and our kicking game to be honest. We really contained them in the kicking game, and we knocked down some kicks. Joe Minden had a big play, the one play that we played him. We talked about this all the time, regardless if its one play or 50 plays, you need to step up when your number is called. We put Joe in for the quick kick and it’s a 65-yard punt that flips the field. We are able to get a stop and get the ball on the short field, leading to the second score. I was really proud of our kicking game, and everybody involved in all three phases.”
On being in the conference chase in November:
“Being in our first year, we really just needed this signature win to continue to add validity to things that we are doing day in and day out in the program when no one’s looking. Certainly, the investment that the players have made, and their dynamic approach to the buy-in, I’ve never been around anything like it. They believe in us as coaches, and they believe in themselves. I think the big challenge moving forward this week is for the next 24 hours we enjoy this win and make good social choices. Then we’ve got to dump it in the garbage can tomorrow night and turn our focus to the next game, which is Sam Houston State in NRG Stadium for the Battle of the Piney Woods. But 6-2, 3-1 and at the top of the conference race as we head into November, we are definitely very relevant.”
On what was said in the locker room with a 17-0 lead:
“We just talked about finishing. We had a lead in the second half against UCA, and we had never really been in that position before against a quality team with us as a coaching staff, and we let that one get away. We couldn’t get the stop we needed, we couldn’t get that score we needed, and we needed it to put them away. We really just talked about finishing. Of course, they take the ball, we kick it out of bounds, and then they go 65 yards and score, and we are able to respond and score on offense. We counterpunched, and that’s kind of the way it went, back and forth the entire second half. Again though, how our team responds to adversity, we are growing. The theme was finishing at halftime.”
On the interception from Patrick Martin:
“Oh, the pick was huge. Obviously it was a huge play. Patrick Martin made a tremendous play. He got his eyes in the right place, he played fundamentally on that particular play like he was supposed to, and made a great break on the football. It was a well-thrown ball, he just undercut it, and made a great play there, and then a heck of a return that really helped us out. Big play in the game - there is no question about it.”
SFA quarterback Zach Conque
On what the win meant to him:
“A lot, and not just because it is Homecoming. I’d say it’s the biggest game that we have played up to this point. It was said in the locker room that this was probably the biggest game that this program has played in the past three years. But at the end of the day it’s a win, and it’s the most important game right now. But next week is going to be the most important game, and then the next week, and then the game after that. So we are going to enjoy this for 24 hours, watch film on it tomorrow night, and then throw that in the trash and then move on to Sam Houston.”
On the offensive game plan:
“We were stubborn with the run game. We knew going in that we were going to have to run the ball to really beat these guys offensively. We knew that Gus was going to have to get a lot of carries, and was going to have to carry the load, and then we knew that we were going to have to get some quarterback run game in. We did a good job of establishing the run. Passing-wise, the stats probably don’t show it, but we threw the ball well in critical times, and the run game is what helped get us in that situation to throw the ball.”
On how nice it is to be relevant heading into November:
“6-2 going into Week Nine - it’s huge. Not many teams can say that. Not many teams can still say that they are still playing for a conference championship come week nine. There is a lot of people that would trade places with us, and we are definitely blessed, and it is due to the hard work we’ve put in that we’re in the position we are in today.”
On the play of the defense keeping the scoring at a minimum:
“It’s nice, because offensively you could play the best game in the world, but you can’t win the game without the defense. It’s a three-phase game and one without the other it’s tough to win. Seeing the defense out there making plays and holding them to zero points coming into the second half, it was huge. It kind of gave us a sense of confidence and made things a little more comfortable.”
On closing out a quality opponent in a competitive game:
“Coach Conque said that after the UCA game, now we’ve learned. A big game like that, we learned through failure how to finish a game, and tonight we did that. After the interception, we needed to seal the deal, punch it in and we did that. Then after that they went down and scored, but we came back, we had to get a first down to close the game out, and we were able to get it done. I think experiencing what happened against UCA, and how we failed to do that really motivated us today, and we were able to get it done.”
-SFA-
