Wake Forest vs. Navy Postgame Notes
10/9/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
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Wake Forest head coach Jim Grobe
On getting pressure on Navy quarterback Ricky Dobbs...
"I thought we were in good position a couple of times. It looked like we were going to get to him, but he got the ball off. That's the way it went. We were just a step away. We didn't make plays."
On the play of Tanner Price...
"It's encouraging that Tanner played as well as he did. We had planned on getting Skylar Jones in there some, but Tanner played so well tonight, it was hard to take him off the field. I thought he was going to do something pretty cool there at the end. We had a chance, but there was a dropped ball. I was really proud of him. I thought offensively we did some things in spurts. We dropped too many balls. We had five holding calls tonight, which is not good. We did some things to shoot ourselves in the foot. We showed some spark offensively and that was a good thing."
On losing close games in back-to-back weeks...
"I think the deal is for every young football team, there comes a point when they get tired of watching the other team celebrate after the game and when that point comes, we'll start winning games. Right now, we haven't done that. I told the kids after the game, that's what has to happen. You have to get to the point where you get tired of losing. We lost five tough ones last year with a more veteran football team. These guys are learning, but we've got to realize that most of our games in this league and the teams we play in non-league games are good enough to beat us and we're good enough to beat them. In the 10 years I've been here, we've been in the fourth quarter with a lot of teams and we've won our share, but we've lost some. That's what this team has to get over. They have to get to the point where they're determined that they're not going to have that bad feeling after the game is over. This was a tough game, but it's part of learning and getting better."
On the turnovers in the first half...
"Turnovers are always a big issue. There's no question that that was big. I think that's true every week. It doesn't change much. I thought we were spotty at times in some of the kicking game things that we did. I thought we were really poor on first down in the running game. The first down run at the end of the game when we were trying to run the clock out, we lost four yards. You can't pin it on two turnovers, but certainly those contributed to the loss."
On the quarterback situation after this game...
"They are telling us that Ted may take another two or three weeks before he is fully healed up. I think Brendan felt better today. His shoulder was feeling a little bit better. We really wanted to get Sky in tonight. I was really proud of what Sky Jones did last week and wanted to try to get him in there tonight, but Tanner just played so well that there wasn't any place to put him in."
Wake Forest wide receiver Devon Brown
On losing to Navy...
"It was just a tough loss. We came out and played hard, we just didn't make the plays that we needed to. We had turnovers and dropped passes and the defense giving up plays.
On whether the youth of the team has played a factor in the recent losses...
"We're six games into the season. There's no young players anymore. We've had freshman and redshirt freshman playing, but we're halfway through the season now. You can't wait until game seven. When your number's called you have to be ready to step up to the plate, make plays and do what the coaches tell you to do. We did it for most of the game, but we just didn't do it for the whole game."
On the dropped passes in the game...
"It's a lack of focus and concentration I guess. I include myself. I had one out there too where I just tried to run before the catch. People are trying to make moves before they secure the ball."
Wake Forest quarterback Tanner Price
On tonight's result...
"It's tough losing back-to-back games that we're close, but you just have to stay positive. We have to get back next week and keep working hard and try to move on."
On how he felt the team played...
"I thought we played pretty well, we just didn't capitalize on big plays. We had a lot of mistakes that really hurt us, and we can't have that if we're going to be successful."
On his comfort level on the field...
"Each week the game starts to slow down and it gets a little bit easier. It's definitely getting better every week."
Wake Forest defensive end Gelo Orange
On the end of the game...
"We've got to finish. We have the ability to make plays, but we didn't finish today. That was a big problem. Right now we just have to work hard and practice hard. We'll get it and we'll win some games in the next few weeks."
On whether preparing for an option team leaves you unprepared to defend the pass...
"It's not a big problem for us. We just didn't finish down the stretch."
On losing two close games in a row...
"It makes me so mad. I'm so frustrated right now that I can't even say anything."
Navy Head Coach Ken Niumatalolo
On the outcome of the game...
"Well first of all I want to say that my hat's off to Wake Forest. That was a heck of a football game. As much as I'm happy for our kids, I feel for those guys. They've had two heartbreakers in a row. Coach Grobe is a class man, he's a class coach, and he runs a class program. Unfortunately somebody has to lose, but I want to tip my hat to them. It was a hard-fought win, a hard-fought football game, and I'd like to congratulate them on a hard-fought game."
On rebounding from last week's loss to Air Force...
"It's a blessing for me to coach here at the Naval Academy. This place is about leadership, and this past Saturday and Sunday nights might have been the longest nights of my life. I was thinking what I was going to say to our team when we got back on Monday morning. What could I do to pick them up after a devastating loss for our program? But to my surprise, Wyatt Middleton, Ricky Dobbs, and the rest of our seniors had already talked to our team. They had been talking in the airplane and they had their own team meetings. We weren't going to let that one loss turn into two, we were going to continue to battle, and I've been so impressed by the way our guys have worked this week, because like I said, that was a crushing loss last week for our team. We looked at the tape and tried to put it behind us. The critics and other people were pointing out the negative things, but we have to stay strong. This is about being one, being a family, not listening to the negative stuff but trying to come back and win."
On the overall offensive performance of the team...
"I want to give props to the kids who were making plays and give credit to Ivin [Jasper]. He took a lot of heat this week, and Ricky [Dobbs] took a lot of heat also, but we understand that's part of the profession. We had to pick it up offensively, and I thought Ivin did a great job calling plays. Ricky made some nice throws, he did some good things, but we also missed some reads and he knows that. We've got to get better, but like I said, I couldn't be more proud of our guys bouncing back."
On the game-winning play...
"It was a fake toss play. Again, it was a great call by Ivin, and a great job by Greg [Jones] being in bounds and catching it. It just shows you how things go. I was yelling at Ricky for overthrowing another route, but the way it worked out we left less time on the clock. I would say that's how we planned it, but I'd be lying."
