Postgame Quotes: A&M-Commerce
9/14/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
Recap | Final Stats
SFA Head coach Clint Conque
Coach Conque’s opening statement:
“Well, it’s always good to win. Certainly, they had our undivided attention this week coming off nearly a one hundred point game and a thousand yards of offense. I was certainly very pleased with how we focused this week. We were on point for this game. At times we played spectacular, and at times we looked a little rough around the edges. A great win, that’s two in a row, two in a row at home, and we’ll be home this week. We’ve got a few bumps and bruises we have to get healed up and get ready for a real physical Weber State team.”
On the turnovers and mental mistakes:
“I’m not real pleased with the turnovers. The hail Mary ball, that’s going to happen. The tip ball at the line of scrimmage put our defense in a sudden change situation, that can’t happen. We complete a ball down in the red-zone and then we fumble it, and then we’ve just got to throw that deep ball late in the game a little further outside. Those three are obviously correctable things, but not real happy with the turnovers. We missed a field goal, and I’m certainly not happy about that. But we played really really hard, and I thought defensively we had a good plan. We had some dropped balls again too, we had a dropped touchdown pass. We need to correct those.”
On the improvement in the secondary:
“We are coaching them hard, and we’re obviously emphasizing staying on top and tackling better, and I think we’re doing some of those things. They (A&M-Commerce) had some explosive players out there tonight, but I’m pleased with how we are getting lined up and how we are communicating. We’re making tackles in space and certainly we are trying to keep everything in front of us.”
On the two-quarterback system:
“I thought both played well tonight. Both made some mistakes. We had 450 yards passing and I think it’s just like any position, if you have good players, you play them. We played nine receivers tonight. I thought Zach (Conque) gave us a big lift out there tonight with his athleticism. He stepped out of two plays and threw three touchdown passes. Joe (Minden) came in and was methodical as well, so I feel really good about the quarterback position there. We’ve got two good players there and both of them got nicked up a little bit tonight.”
On the importance of the home stand:
“Not having to travel on Friday gives us an extra chance to get in extra treatments and gives us a chance to sleep in our own beds, extended meetings, walk troughs, those kind of things, which I think are very beneficial as young as we are in our program right now. I couldn’t be more pleased with the defense - just a phenomenal job there. Offensively though, for the last two weeks we’ve left some points on the field, but we have a lot of momentum and some energy, and we need to give ourselves a great week of preparation to give ourselves a chance to go 3-1 (in non-conference play).”
On the showcase of East Texas football:
“Our young men took on the challenge of wanting to be ‘the real east Texas school’ mentality. It’s a big deal to them. Certainly there was a lot of camraderie between the teams as far as guys going to high school together and that sort of thing. I thought coach Carthel had his team prepared they came in and played hard. That was an extremely talented team out there tonight.”
SFA junior wide receiver Aaron Thomas
On his thoughts about the game:
“I thought it was good; we played well in some aspects. We made too many mistakes on offense, probably, but the defense played so well that they gave us room for error, so that was nice. That was a good team out there, obviously. They scored 98 points last week, so I’m proud of our defense especially, and offensively we showed sings of some great things, but also turned the ball over too much and made too many mistakes, so we’ll get that corrected and we have high hopes for the rest of the season.”
On the miscues in the redzone:
"Well, we have to capitalize more in the redzone. We had too many mistakes down there, and we obviously had an interception at the end and a fumble and so we have to capitalize more and limit the penalties. We had a couple dropped balls down there we have to make those catches and then just get the ball in the end zone.”
On building momentum with two-straight wins:
“These two wins are huge for us, especially for confidence. Last year obviously we ended the season losing five or six games in a row and so it’s been a while since we’ve won around here. Two games in a row will just build confidence in this team, especially as we move on and if we can get a win next week and then go into the bye week at 3-1, that builds a lot of confidence as a team. It gets everybody knowing that we can do this and that we can win around here.”
On the defense holding A&M-Commerce’s offense in check:
“That’s huge. If they had been putting points up like they did last week and we were having turnovers like we just did then that game could have gone completely different. It’s a huge relief when your defense is stopping them, and honestly I’m glad that the only film that we have seen on them really this year is the 98 points. When you look on paper it’s a DII school so everybody might take it a little lighter, but them scoring 98 points - I know our defense thought they had their hands full, and they did. That was an athletic bunch and they stepped up so that’s awesome.”
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