Oregon vs. Stanford Postgame Quotes
11/02/14 | Football
Mark Helfrich – Head Coach
On Stanford…
“That's a really good football team. For those guys to not be a top-25 team, I don't understand that. They're excellent in every phase, and our guys—for whatever reason—haven't put our best foot forward in past years. We didn't necessarily put our best, best foot forward today, which is encouraging. We made a bunch of mistakes that we'll get fixed before we head on the road to a tough place to play. We'll enjoy this tonight and get ready for next week.”
On the game plan…
“It looked like we were going to have touchdowns matched by field goals, which we'll do all night if we can. Anytime you can put the ball in Marcus Mariota's hands and not have it be in Ty Montgomery's hands, that was the big goal tonight.”
On the team's performance…
“We had to be efficient and do a decent job on third down. Efficiency is the name of the game. Our guys competed their tails off.”
“We had a bad interception, but did a good job of creating a turnover by Dargan. They played great the rest of the way. We tackled a little bit better in the second half and had more of an edge.”
“Our guys did a pretty good job making some big-time, key plays to flip the field or stop the drive. The offense did a decent job of matching them.”
“We had a ton of missed layups. For Marcus Mariota to miss some of the throws he did was uncharacteristic. But that's very encouraging being able to play that well against that good of a team so decisively and still make a ton of mistakes. We just have to go back and look at ourselves and what we can improve on. Those guys are extremely competitive and critical of themselves in a good way.”
On preparing for Stanford…
“We had a great week of preparation and I believe a ton in our guys. It's just a matter of going out and believing in what they've done. They've had a great several weeks in a row of preparation and that leads to confidence.”
On the win…
“I think our guys are physical and tough, but I think the biggest thing right now is they are mentally tough. That comes from having a great Monday and Tuesday and the willingness and ability to come back and do that. That's probably the hardest part about tonight, is to get ready for the next one and flush this one. It's big for our fans and big in a lot of ways, but it's one. They don't give us two for this win.”
Marcus Mariota – Quarterback, Senior
On a big week …
“It was a big week. I am very thankful for it and it was truly a blessing. To get this win was huge and (it) built a lot of momentum heading into the rest of the year.”
On the offense starting out strong…
“We really wanted an opportunity to set the terms for the game. When you can go up 7-0 and take your first drive down, it is a huge momentum shift that allows you to have a foundation for the rest of the game.”
On having one game left at Autzen Stadium…
“It doesn't matter what year you are here or what position you are in, you have to enjoy every moment because Autzen is special.”
Royce Freeman- Running Back, Freshman
On filling blocking holes…
“It was a major point of emphasis for us. I heard it like ten times a day, to be ready to pick up the blocks and any lineman that needed help on the blitz pickups…to just be ready.
On splitting carries with Thomas Tyner…
“It's a nice situation. We are both doing great things out there on the field. Him coming out there with his speed and the different things he can bring to the table and both of us going back and forth makes it easier on the offense as far as the passing game as well.”
Hroniss Grasu– Center, Senior
On the mindset coming into this game…
“All we had to do was play our game and play to our standard. Last year was totally different from this year and I am really happy about how it turned out tonight.”
On the importance of the third quarter drive…
“That was big. The whole entire offense did their part to get that touchdown.”
Ifo Ekpre-Olomu – Cornerback, Senior
On beating Stanford…
“It feels good. Two years they beat us, and we got them back. It feels good to win, but now we have to get ready for the next game because we're playing a team that could be better.”
On the team's performance…
“You definitely have to watch the film, but I think we played one of our best games so far. We played with a lot of energy and played hard mostly the whole game.”
On preparing for Utah…
“We have to come out and practice hard. Practice translates to the game and if you perform the way you prepare, it shows on game day.”
On time management…
“It's a lot easier said than done. It comes down to how deliberate you are with your focus. Everyone's in school now and you've got to learn how to manage school with football and make sure that you're on top of your game in both.”
David Shaw – Stanford Head Coach
On the loss…
“The bottom line for us is we played one of the best teams in the nation tonight. We fought them as hard as we could; we tried to stay close and got within a score in the second half. We had to play a near-perfect second half and we weren't able to do that.”
On Marcus Mariota…
“I told him after the game he was phenomenal. He's tough to contain. You put pressure on him and he doesn't feel it, he escapes the pocket and he throws the ball down the field. As a runner and a passer, he's special and we just couldn't contain him.”
On his offense having to settle for field goals early on…
“When they get touchdowns and you get field goals it becomes a pretty simple game. It's a game of math and you can't keep up. For us, we had opportunities, we just didn't convert down in the red zone on third down.”
“You can't come up with field goals against this team, you have to score touchdowns.”
On the rivalry between the two programs…
You could say that the last couple years we've been evenly matched, with us winning the last two. This game, they were the better team and there really aren't a lot of weaknesses on this team. Offensively and defensively, they're really good.”
On what's next for his football team…
“The goal is to finish strong and see where that puts us. We dug ourselves in a hole with the conference early in the season.”
“We're going to try and win out and just see where that puts us.”
On the mood of the locker room after the loss…
“I think it's the same locker room as it's been. We have great human beings in there, guys that know how to work hard, guys that have won a lot of football games and guys that have been through some tough times also. We have to bounce back, the season is not over. We have to close the doors to the locker room and not worry about what people say outside our locker room and realize that, regardless of this score, offensively we're getting better and defensively I think we're really, really good, as good as anybody playing. Now we have a chance to play all three phases at our best to finish the year.”
A.J. Tarpley – Stanford Linebacker, Senior
On the loss…
“I thought our offense was moving the ball well early on and giving us a chance, but we couldn't get off the field on third down and just couldn't stop them.”
On Marcus Mariota…
“He's an elite player. He's one of the best players in college football, we knew that coming in. We had our hands on him multiple times we just couldn't bring him down and couldn't force them to get off the field. He made plays when he needed to.”
Blake Martinez, Stanford Linebacker, Junior
On Oregon's offense compared to the last two times the two teams met…
“I wouldn't say too much different. They have bigger backs and a bigger O-Line but they still run the same thing and it came down to who made the big plays.”
On the defense's inability to get Oregon's offense off the field…
“We had those chances during those drives to get them off the field and we just needed to be able to finish. Our whole thing was if we could finish it we could get our offense back on the field to make plays, but we didn't.”
