Postgame Quotes - Wake Forest vs. Miami
10/31/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 31, 2009
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Wake Forest Head Coach Jim Grobe
Thoughts on the game...
"What we're going to see as much as anything is that we had opportunities to make plays in the second half and we just didn't make enough plays to beat a good football team."
"I was really disappointed in the second drive before half. They're a big play football team, they have the ability to get down the field in a hurry. We didn't seem to have a lot of balance on the touchdown. Second half our guys really played good football. When you are playing a Top 20 team with the kind of skills they've got, they are going to make some plays and unfortunately they made one more than we did."
On the tough loss...
"We've had a bunch of these this year. This has been a pretty resilient football team. We had a lot of heartbreaks this year, a lot of close losses, and this is another one. This is one where we played pretty good football for four quarters, we just got beat by a really good football team."
On Riley Skinner's concussion...
"Our first priority is the health and safety of our players. They weren't going to take a chance on him going back in. I thought Ryan McManus did some good things, I liked what he did at the end."
On the punt fumble...
"You want to try and field every punt that you can. With the rain coming down, it got over his head a little bit. He's really sure handed, it just got away from him. It was just kind of the way the ball bounced and he couldn't get back there."
Wake Forest Senior Defensive Tackle John Russell
On the game tonight...
"Miami has the talent to make the big plays at the end and they did and we didn't. The big issues with our losses this season have been in the fourth quarter, but we will get through it. Everybody will come back Monday, look at the film, and get ready for Georgia Tech."
On Wake Forest's attitude...
"Well you can't afford to get down. The encouraging thing when we look at film is that the mistakes are so small. In some cases, it's just a fraction of an inch. That keeps a lot of the guys going, reassuring them that we have the ability to win games, we just have to make plays in critical situations. We are going to try to find a way to get around it and get to a bowl game this year, with the last three games."
On the Georgia Tech game...
"I think Georgia Tech is a better passing team than Navy. I think Tech brings the ball up the field a little bit more efficiently. They are going to be a tough game, but we are going to come together as a defense and it helps that we played Navy just a week ago."
Wake Forest Senior Quarterback Ryan McManus
On the pressure of coming in tonight for Riley Skinner...
"Tonight was not the ideal situation to go into. I would much rather have Riley healthy and us well in the lead. It's one of those things with being a backup quarterback, you always have to be ready, and you always have to be in the game mindset. I thought I did a decent job with that."
On Wake Forest's record...
"Luckily we still have a bowl to play for. We still need a few more wins, but it gives us something to work for. That's the motivation to keep playing hard. It's not like we are getting killed, we are playing competitively."
Miami Head Coach Randy Shannon
On tonight's win against Wake Forest...
"You look at my first year. We went through a lot of stuff my first year. The three-game stretch where we got beat for a lot of points. We would get behind or things would go bad, and we weren't really able to respond. Well, we responded this night and things went bad for us. Offense couldn't do anything, defense struggled in the first half. And then finally we started getting turnovers and the offense started moving it a little bit, and that helped us out. And I think that shows you where this team can go and be at. We're still young, and Coach Grobe and I were talking were talking before the game. Everybody looks at this team and you say, `They're old,' but they're still young because those guys never played. And that's what we talked about before the game. A bunch of his guys are fourth-year juniors or fifth-year seniors but those guys never touched the field because of those nine guys that he had last year started for three straight years so it's kind of a new group for him, and a new group for us also."
On quarterback Jacory Harris...
"He got hit tonight. He got hit a lot tonight and that shows the kind of maturity he has. And it's like anything, you go and evaluate the film... He did it early in the game when he threw away the football - which was great. Then in the second half he was trying to press it a little bit too much, I think. But then he responded back and had confidence in his offensive line."
On what defensive changes they made at halftime...
"We made a couple of changes. We went with a lot of dime packages on first and second down, which got us where we needed to be at. But also we did a lot of stuff inside with our defensive linemen to game them a little bit, to get the quarterback not just stepping up and getting freebies."
On if the team was lethargic coming into the game...
"Anytime you come off a loss, everybody's lethargic a little bit. But you know, it's a road game - it's a tough road game - and it's our first time being on this field... Let's be honest, it's the first time we've won a game at three o'clock. So now we're one for two at three o'clock. And that was huge for us for psychological reasons because we've been playing so much at night."
