Wake Forest vs. Virginia Tech Post-Game Quotes
11/18/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 18, 2006
Wake Forest Head Coach Jim Grobe
On the defense's poorest tackling job...
"I was very disappointed, especially out on the perimeter. At the same time, I have to give Virginia Tech credit. My biggest disappointment tonight was big plays. Ultimately our kids played hard but didn't limit the big plays."
On the team looking ahead to the Maryland game...
"I don't think they did. I'm disappointed we didn't play well tonight. I'm not taking anything away from Virginia Tech. I thought we did some good things, but we seemed to be always a yard or half a yard short of first down."
On Kenneth Moore...
"He was a bit sore tonight. He had one punt return that looked good but came out holding his shoulder. He got a bit dinged tonight. We couldn't use him anymore after that. He was going to be an emergency guy at running back if we couldn't get anything going, but since he got hurt we decided to shelve him.
Did you all hold back for Maryland?
"Not a bit. We're just out of running backs. Travo Woods was the only healthy guy coming into tonight. De'Angelo Bryant was sick and had dizziness before the game. We felt like Travo was our only healthy running back for tonight. We felt pretty good about Kevin Harris. He did some good things, a few runs were really good but then he got knocked out."
On the pressure that quarterback Riley Skinner faced...
"The reason Riley faced so much pressure is because we couldn't run the football. When the other team realizes that the only way you're going to move it is to throw it, they are in a good position. What they did to us is what we wanted to do to them. We wanted to control their running game. Protecting against that defensive line is not easy; they are a good defensive football team."
On the readiness of Kevin Harris...
"We felt like Kevin was pretty much ready to go with his knee. The knee was not really a concern; the thing with him was reps. When we got into the second half we wanted him to have some snaps so that if he's the guy at Maryland those won't be his first snaps. First and foremost, we wanted him to be able to help us. Secondly, we wanted him to get some snaps. He hasn't had any live snaps since early at North Carolina."
Are you concerned about next week?
"I think we're always concerned. I think our kids feel bad, they wanted to win tonight. They played hard, just not good. After a loss we bounce back pretty good. Kids get challenged and their pride gets hurt and we come back strong typically."
Will you look at this and try to move forward or do you operate on a clean slate from here?
"We cannot win at Maryland if we play like we did tonight. We can't move onto Maryland until we get this one out of the way. We will take care of that Monday night after our players' academic obligations. We can't go to Maryland and play the way we did tonight and win. We need to fix the mistakes we made against Virginia Tech before we even think about Maryland.
After the Boston College game, you said the players could "dream a little bit". What are your thoughts on that now?
"Our future is still in front of us. We still have our destiny in our hands. Our players understand that we've got to play better than we did tonight. We picked a bad time to play poorly. Again, I don't want to take anything away from Virginia Tech. That's as good a looking team physically that we've played all year. We certainly didn't help ourselves tonight though."
Thoughts on the injury early to Branden Ore...
"The one big kid they put it was more physical, more of a down hill guy, he gave us some problems. They've got really good players. Certainly Ore is great and I hope he is not hurt seriously. I thought their offensive line did well."
On the seniors' ability to rebound...
"I think this will be a challenge to those guys. They are the attitude of the football team. We really rely on those guys to keep things under control. The young guys tend to panic a bit, so we rely on older people to maintain the control. We've got good kids in all of our classes, we haven't had to rely on any individual thus far. I feel our whole football team is made up of good kids. I think all the kids, not just the seniors, will respond this week."
Wake Forest Player Quotes
#11 - Riley Skinner
On the running game...
"I would say that our running game was done tonight. They (Virginia Tech) were playing in the gaps, and they saw how we weren't doing so well. We were trying to improve our passing game. We weren't able to do as much as we wanted to, and it made it tougher on our offense. They had a great defensive scheme. They kept us on our heels, and we tried to fight our way through but they are very talented. They were stingy with points and yards."
On their loss and confidence in next week's game...
"We have confidence, it's not like this [loss] just shut our team down. We had a hard loss, and we are going to bounce back, so I don't think that it will affect our team because this season is a special season. We need to continue on doing what we're doing and don't let one thing get in our way. We want to be in Jacksonville on December 2. If we sit here and just shrug our shoulders and hang our heads there's no way we can be in Jacksonville on Dec. 2."
#90 - Jamil Smith
On the big plays on defense...
"The big plays on defense didn't affect us because it's happened to us before. It's just we had to stay away from the big plays. If you let big plays occur they will hinder us, but at the same time we can bounce back from it. We've bounced back this year numerous times, and we will continue to do it because all you have to have is strong leadership when you get in tough situations like it was tonight."
The key to bouncing back...
"I believe it's the strong leadership from the seniors on the team and also the coaches and everyone else taking it upon themselves to get their jobs done every week. That's the key to this season being great this year!"
Virginia Tech Head Coach Frank Beamer
On the game...
"I'm real proud of our football team. We had a setback in the beginning of the game with Brandon Ore. We got to fight through that. I thought the offense made some big plays; we had a couple of opportunities in the first half that we didn't get it done offensively. But we hung in there and made some big plays."
On Wake Forest...
"This Wake Forest crowd is a good football team and going to play for the right to go to the conference championship game next week against Maryland. I have a lot of respect for them and I'm really proud of our football team."
On Eddie Royal...
"He made a couple of big ones and he's a talented guy. We've encouraged him to use his speed more and not to dodge people as much. He's dependable and talented."
Virginia Tech Player Quotes
#2 - Josh Morgan
On winning...
"It feels good coming down here where everybody thought we were gonna lose. Everybody was against us. We came out and put out everything we had. Everything was just clicking! Nobody really expected us to do anything."
On when Branden Ore was injured...
"We always take it upon ourselves to get him free while he's in there, but when he went down, we knew we had to step up and that's what we tried to do."
On his touchdown...
"Sean put it on his back hip, and I just caught the ball. And I saw the endzone and I refused to be denied. I had to get in there. I had to make a play."
#36 - Aaron Rouse
On his big hit....
"It felt good to hear the whole stands go quiet and then seal the game with that touchdown."
On winning...
"It says something about our mental and physical conditioning and especially how hard Coach Beamer trains us during the summer time"
On the Virginia Tech defense...
''We just go out there and play strong. We just go out and prove it."
