Oregon State-Washington Post-Game Quotes
November 19, 2011 | Football
Nov. 19, 2011
Recap | Final Stats | Notes
OSU Quotes
Head Coach Mike Riley
On the win…
“That was a great win. I think the best thing to say about our team and coaching staff is that they've been working, hanging in there themselves, and never quit working. It was great to see that performance today. I'm really proud of everybody.”
On the game's critical plays…
“I think that was big time. Ryan Murphy, for a freshman player, has a lot of good instincts. He's playing a coverage where he knew the weakness of that coverage was going to be inside, but he made it strong. He just hung in there with it, and the guy tried to get in to the inside and he wouldn't let him go, and made a big-time play. That was a big-time play. Then the poise of getting out of the end zone, that took the whole game, right there when we made that play coming out of the end zone. The poise, even on the previous two plays, when you're operating from the minus-one yard line or you're inside further, you have to have a lot of poise. And then we made the big play coming out, I thought that was terrific.”
On the rushing performance and the offensive line…
“The offensive line, the tight ends, and the receivers made some good blocks on the edge too, a little bit. The games that we have won, we have rushed pretty well. Today was another example of that. That's why I have continued to say that that has to be a part of who we are, when we get a little balance we're a good offensive football team because we can throw the football and we have good receivers, so if we can add that balance to it we can get better and better.”
On James Rodgers breaking the Oregon State career receptions record…
“James is in good company now with all those guys up there – Mike Hass, Sammie Stroughter, James Newson…I don't want to forget anybody. There's just been a bunch of them, and we're proud of everything James has done and what he's meant to the program. His impact on the field is obvious, but his impact in all of our lives is a real thing. We're glad to see him get that record today.”
WR #2 Markus Wheaton
On winning this game for the seniors…
"I feel great. I am just really glad that we did it for the seniors. The seniors have been here for a while and it was nice to send them off on a good note."
On why the offense seemed to mesh well this game…
"I honestly could not tell you. We just went into the game and our running game was really good so everything was just clicking from there."
On Sean Mannion's performance…
"I felt that Sean played a great game today. I personally feel that he always plays a good game. For how young he is, he performed very well.”
QB #4 Sean Mannion
On the keys to the game…
“I think that we just executed really well. We made some big plays both through the air and on the ground. Overall, it was just a pretty well-played game.”
On why the offensive execution was effective today…
“We had a great week of practice and have been working hard, so I guess it all paid off. It feels great to come out and play in such a good game.”
On getting a win on senior day…
“It feels great to get a win for our team and especially for the seniors. They have put a lot of work in every season that they have been here. They are all good role models for me and the other young guys. I definitely look up to them and I am glad that we could get a win for them today.”
S #3 Anthony Watkins
On answering the Washington running game…
“Everyone is doing their job. Everyone is playing within this game and not trying to do too much. From there everything just started taking care of itself.”
On extra motivation to play well for teammates who are from Washington
“I enjoy playing these games. Anytime we play a Washington school I enjoy playing. We have a lot of guys from the northwest and from Oregon so they take it personal too because that's their rivalry too. We all just enjoy playing these games. ”
S #10 Lance Mitchell
On his last game at Reser Stadium…
“It's special. A lot of emotions are going on inside right now. I could not ask for much more for it being my last game here at Reser. Going out like this and going against a good team like Washington. That's what we practiced for all week and that's what we did.”
On what came together for the defense…
“We just came together. We have played well against the run early on in the season and today it all just came together. I think we really felt bad about last weekend and we all took it personal. We wanted to come out this weekend and fight for the win.”
Washington Quotes
Head Coach Steve Sarkisian
On the game…
“The best way to describe that game and how I feel right now is frustrated. It was a frustrating, frustrating game. So many opportunities to make plays and to get off the field defensively, that didn't happen. Some opportunities, obviously, offensively to create some big plays that could have potentially swung the game and gotten the momentum back in our favor that didn't happen. I'm frustrated, I'm frustrated for our kids, I'm frustrated for our coaches. I know they really wanted to come out and play hard, perform, do all the things that we asked them to do, and they did that. They tried really hard and maybe in some aspects they tried too hard, I don't know. I know there is a great deal of disappointment, but the reality is that we have to figure it out, we have to figure it out fast, and we have to get ready for the Apple Cup.”
On Freshman Quarterback Nick Montana…
“I think today was a freshman making his first start. There were some moments where he did some nice things, and some other times, not so nice. That was somewhat to be expected. I didn't expect him to come out and just set the world on fire, but I thought he handled himself admirably and will only get better from it.”
On decision to substitute Sophomore Quarterback Keith Price…
“I just felt like we needed a spark. We needed something that could kind of spark our team and it did, quite honestly. I thought it worked. We went down and got a touchdown, we got the turnover there on the kickoff, and then a bang-bang play with Kasen Williams over the middle…Credit to OSU Safety Ryan Murphy for getting that interception. That was a heck of a play getting that interception on the goal line.”
On Oregon State's pressure against the run…
“To Oregon State's credit, they're good coaches too. They kind of hung in there on Chris Polk pretty good and created some opportunities for us down the field. We just weren't able to make a couple plays that I feel really could have changed the flow of the game. This got us back into utilizing Chris even more and it just didn't happen today.”
On the loss…
“We prepare our players to put them in position to be successful and unfortunately we weren't successful today. What we have to figure out is was is scheme, fundamentals, technique. The bottom line is that we just did not make the play when we had an opportunity so that's what we need to figure out.”
CB #6 Desmond Trufant
On the loss to Oregon State…
“When you lose three in a row, it's hard. It's tough, especially when we had our opportunities to win or cut the game down. We just didn't execute when we had to.”
On if they came into the game over-confident…
“We respect all of our opponents, especially when they do not have a good record because they come out hungry, It was senior night and it was a lot of players' last game so we knew they were going to come out ready to go.”
WR #15 Jermaine Kearse
On Keith Price coming into the game…
“Being the type of person Keith is, he just brought the energy to the huddle and everyone responded to that and felt the sense of urgency.”
On the game plan coming into this game…
“Our game plan was to focus on the run and that means there's blocking that we need to do and take effort and pride in doing that.”
On the team's emotions…
“People are obviously disappointed, but we can't be disappointed for long because we have the Apple Cup and we definitely have to get up for that. If people can't get up for that then there's something seriously wrong.”
QB #5 Nick Montana
On the game as a whole…
“It didn't go the way I wanted it to go. We need to play a lot better and we just didn't do it. We started off strong we just missed a few plays here and there, some big ones we needed to make a few throws, it comes down to a few plays.”
On the loss and how he feels right now...
“I don't like losing. I worked so hard with these guys and coaches.”
On Chris Polk's play today and how it helped him out…
“It was going good; the offensive line was doing a great job. They were killing the D-line making holes for Chris, we were doing a great job.”
WR #88 Austin Seferian-Jenkins
On his dropped pass…
“Big players make big time plays, and I didn't make that play. I'm disappointed in myself and let down my team, it's really hard to deal with right now but got to move on.”
On Nick Montana's game…
“He played hard, there's games like this where things don't go your way and all you got to do is be resilient like coach Sarks says and come out next week and just play better. It's Apple Cup week, we're going to be excited for that. It's just disappointing it had to come out this way when we really felt we had a good chance, even though all the mistakes we had, we had a lot of opportunities and we just have to capitalize on it. It's really disappointing sometimes.”
