Postgame Quotes - Wake Forest 24, Army 21
9/20/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
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Opening statement
"That was not a good second quarter (for Wake Forest). We were not slowing them down at all. Offensively we got out of a rhythm, I thought we beat ourselves a few times in the first half with really poor penalties and the one (interception). I thought our defensive staff made some really good adjustments at halftime, and our players executed it to their credit. Offensively we need to be balanced. We got a little bit of a run game going. And just to come from behind against such a well disciplined team and certainly to win the fourth quarter like we did - sometimes I think players, they worked so hard this summer when they don't see the results, they wonder `Gee, I put in all that work. Why?' It's a game like this is why. You work hard in the summer, you condition hard so that you can win the fourth quarter in tight games. Again, we have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of progress that we have to make, but I'm really proud of our football team tonight. We're going to enjoy this one, and it feels really good to get a win."
On stopping Army's offense...
"Well they run their traditional veer, and then they run a lot of what we call the trap-trap option series, and our backers were really getting hung up on the backs, and they weren't seeing the guard pulls. In the second half we did a little better job of seeing the guards pull. You know we weren't getting anyone on the perimeter, so they were faking that dive and the quarterback was getting on the edge, and we were playing the pitch, we didn't have a quarterback player. I think their quarterback had 80 or 90 yards at the half. We were trying to defend that inside-out, and in the second half we did a better job of getting there."
On getting the running game going...
"I said that we were maybe going to have to run some non-traditional runs. If you're not knocking people off the ball, the draw plays give you some vertical leverage. Sometimes when you run those draw plays, we throw the ball so much that you can get the tackles up the field. I don't want to say that we don't have to execute as well, but there's less critical blocks at the point of attack that you have to win, and I thought that helped us."
Army Head Coach Jeff Monken:
On Army's first half...
"I don't know if we really saw anything we could exploit. We just tried to block them and make some plays...At times we did [run well in the first half]. We only had 14 points; we didn't turn it into enough points. We had to punt in the first half, it's not like we scored every time we had it. If you're going to be worth a darn, you better be able to score. You're not going to have many possessions when you're running the football. You've got to be able to make them count, and we didn't."
On what changed in the second half...
"They didn't do anything differently, we did. We didn't block them, we got penalties. About every drive in the second half got stopped by a penalty, except maybe one three-and-out. The rest, we had a penalty that set us back. It's just foolish - stupid penalties, jumping offsides, chop block. That was a heck of a time for us to do that. We just have to be smarter. You get a 15-yard penalty on your last drive, it kills you."
On what Army can build on...
"I don't know [if there were positives]. You miss assignments, you miss tackles, you miss blocks, snap the ball into the ground on the field goal at the end of the first half. You've got an onside that's wide open, knew it would be, can't execute it. What do you build on? We didn't do anything really that well."
Wake Forest Cornerback Merrill Noel:
On defending Army's option attack...
"It's tough but you have to be mentally tough and know that your teammates depend on you to do your job just as much as you depend on them to make the tackles."
On shutting out Army in the second half...
"It's a great feeling. Do that when we're home and on homecoming. We just had to come out and execute our defense the way we know we should. Once we got in the locker room (at halftime), guys were down but I said some cheerful words and let them know it's not over. We went back out there and played a great second half."
On the offense going ahead in the fourth quarter:
"Offense moved the ball the best they could and they took care of the ball and put points on the board so we were proud of that. We knew it was going to end up on us at the end of the game to shut them out.
Wake Forest Linebacker Brandon Chubb:
On the defense in the second half...
"After the first half, we made some halftime adjustments and we came out on fire. We knew that we could win this game and it was still in our hands."
On the upcoming match ups...
"We're excited to play Louisville, especially coming off their two successful years with Teddy Bridgewater. But we know they can be beat; we know that it's possible and we're really excited about it. That's one thing Coach Clawson stressed, you want good momentum going into these next eight games. This one definitely helped us (with) our confidence on offense and defense. We'll be prepared."
Wake Forest Safety Ryan Janvion:
On the win over Army...
"Coach told us we had to win this game. We needed to be 2-2 going into ACC play. We needed to have some momentum going into ACC play, and we know that it's just going to get harder and harder as the year goes on because of the teams we're facing. We needed to get this win, and now we just need to work off of it and continue to get better, learn from our mistakes and continue to improve."
On the second half...
"We were struggling in the first half, especially the second quarter. Just to be able to come out there and shut them out in the second half was just a big stand for our defense, proving to ourselves that we can be the detailed defense. It was a great satisfaction. It's a great win and feels good, especially winning against this team where it's just hard nose football. It's a big toll on the body, but for us to be able to go out there and stop them the whole second half was just a great victory for us."
