Oregon vs. Georgia State Post Game Quotes
09/19/15 | Football
Mark Helfrich – Oregon Head Coach
On the game…
“We got off to a good start, obviously getting the pick six to start things off and the defense did a great job of creating possessions and turnovers and finishing them off with touchdowns.”
On rhythm…
“We just have to play off of each other a little bit better. We just need to play complimentary football a little bit better.”
On Lockie…
“For the most part he did a good job, there were a couple of missed plays. For a first start in that situation, with a lot of young guys playing, he ran the show well. I expect Jeff to play perfectly because I've seen him do a lot of great things and that is an 11 man deal.”
On younger players…
“Johnny (Ragin) has been practicing better and better. Johnny is a talented guy and we believe in him a lot more than he does sometimes and hopefully he'll rise to the challenge.”
On defensive points…
“They did a great job, our whole field goal and PAT team rallied for this game. It was a little bit different, but they did a great job.”
On Pac-12 play…
“We had a crazy game there last year, with the infamous Joe Walker fumble return and some serious injuries on both sides. Utah is playing great this year and we will start on them tonight.”
On the defense…
“I am similarly concerned. There were a ton of dropped passes and a couple of those balls were deflected and we had a couple uncontested drops. We ran to the ball a little bit better. In the quick game, we did a better job of getting three or four guys on the ball.”
On cleaning up going into Pac-12…
“We will just coach the heck out of them, we try to create as much confusion and discomfort in practice. That's hard to duplicate fourth and one on the one with a 300 pound guy lined up across you. “
On Taj Griffin…
“He has a ton of potential. Sometimes he's scary good and sometimes he's like scary what the heck you doing. We are trying to limit the what the heck you doing's. Taking care of the ball is a huge thing for him.”
On learning about the team…
“They are a competitive bunch. I think they respond to challenges very well. I think we will be challenged more as we go into conference play. I just love the group of guys that they are. They know they have a lot of improvement to do.”
Jeff Lockie - Quarterback, RS Junior
On how they played...
"The rhythm was a little off, we didn't really score touchdowns in the beginning, but at the beginning of the second half and the end of the first half when we started moving the ball and the tempo, and that's how we need to play the whole time."
On his confidence and his start...
"It felt good to be out there, it was the first time getting consistently hit since I was 17 or 18 years old. That was good to finally get hit and get back up. I think settling in there, getting some good shots and moving the ball definitely progressed as the game went on."
On making a case for more playing time...
"I'm just going out there and we're trying to win. I think if you ask Vernon and Coach Helfrich I don't think anyone truly cares who's out there as long as we're winning games. If I get another opportunity, it's good to have this building block to know how it goes."
Royce Freeman - Running Back, Sophomore
On the rhythm of the offense...
"We're just trying to find the identity of the offense and trying to click from all angles offensively and defensively and make sure things are running smoothly. We're trying to work on coming out from the gate fast and hard."
On the difference playing with different quarterbacks...
"It really doesn't matter. We shouldn't know who's back there. We should just run it, whoever is back there. It should be flowing smoothly."
Tyree Robinson - Strong Safety, RS Sophomore
On the pick six...
"I was seeing the outside receiver...and I was trying to be physical and trying to get their receiver to go backwards instead of forwards."
On forcing turnovers…
"Going into this game, we knew we were going to be tested. After game one and game two, everyone is trying to test our secondary just because we're young and inexperienced. I went into this game trying to make big plays trying to help the defense out."
Taylor Alie – Quarterback, Sophomore
On being the third string quarterback…
“I just focus on myself every day. I don't focus on who is a starter, who is a backup or whatever it may be. I am going to go out and perform and practice like I am going to start or that I am going to come to the game.”
On his touchdown run…
“There is nothing different between doing that at Sheldon or doing that here. It's just a bigger stage, faster people, bigger people. It's unbelievable. I can't describe it, but I am so thankful that I got that opportunity, and like I said I am so happy for my other teammates and the guys that made that happen.”
Rodney Hardrick- RS Senior, Linebacker
On what needs to be done going into the Utah game...
"We have to focus in practice and really believe how great we can be, and transfer that from practice to the game."
On room to improve for defense...
"Of course there is room to improve on defense. We had way too many missed opportunities on defense. A missed sack, stupid penalties by myself. That small stuff just really bothers us, and if we get rid of that, and look at what could have happened, it could have been so much better."
Joe Walker- Senior, Linebacker
On defensive play...
"I think we did well in the turnover game, I think we have a lot of stuff we need to work on."
On what needs to be worked on for Utah…
"Missed tackles, we need to work on that"
Arrion Springs- Sophomore, Defensive Back
On start of game…
"It was pretty good, we came out kind of flat, well I did at least. But Tyree got the pick and that gave us some juice, but other than that I think if we always had that energy, some of the big plays wouldn't have happened. We just have to come out with way more focus, no matter who the opponent is".
On what the defense will be focusing on for Pac-12 play...
"We played a pretty good game, but I guess execution, tackling, and stuff like that."
Trent Miles - Georgia State Head Coach
Opening Statement…
“We can't turn the ball over the way we turned it over. Give all the credit to Oregon, they did a great job, but when you're playing a team of their caliber and you hand the ball over on a silver platter, it doesn't help your cause.
Our kids did a great job of fighting back and we were in a position in the fourth quarter where we have a guy running wide open to the end zone and we overthrow him and come back on the next play and instead of it being a 12-point game, it jumps up to be a 26-point game.
With turnovers, we work on them every day, we talk about them every day, we do a circuit drill every day to protect the football and then we come here and we give up two touchdowns on turnovers. Those 14 points that we gave up on turnovers with the interception return and the fumble return didn't help our cause as we were already fighting uphill there in the fourth quarter. We have to take care of the football.
We came into this game with the expectation that we were going to win and again, Oregon has great talent and a great program, but our kids are talented too. The big difference today was all the turnovers”
On the interception return on the first offensive series…
“We don't ever talk about the worst-case scenario, but it definitely wasn't the best case. What happens with that is you put yourself in a hole. It's tough enough when you're playing on the road and you're playing in a hostile environment and you're playing against a team that competed for the national championship last year. Our expectation is to perform well enough to win and it's hard when you basically give them a 7-0 head start. It makes it an uphill battle the rest of the way and you're playing catch-up from there on and it's very difficult to play catch-up on offense with the way that they control the ball and eat up the clock and move it.”
Positive takeaways from the game…
“I take a lot of positives away from this game. When we execute, we belong with anybody. It doesn't matter who you are. When we execute, we have the ability and talent and that hasn't always been our case. We just have to put it all together. Our kids do a good job of tackling. We'll miss some sometimes, but some of that is the kid that you're trying to tackle. That kid's on scholarship too and pretty dog-gone good. It's hard to sit here and say the defense did a decent job when it reads 61 points for the other team on the board but they did when you look at the position that the defense was put in by the offense. The first three touchdowns, maybe four, came on a very, very short field. No one is without blame or error. We all did things today that we wish we would have done better but there are a lot of positives. The way you saw our offense perform when they clicked. Our offense can go and move the ball and throw it around and we weren't able to run like we did last week, but we had some spurts. We put ourselves in a position to be within striking distance in the fourth quarter on a team that played for the national championship last year and that says a lot about the kids.
Nick Arbuckle – Quarterback, Senior
On the offense's ability to move the ball down the field today…
“I felt that we had a really good game plan…The coaches put us in a really good position to get open and be able to make plays. Our receivers were able to come out and execute. We spent a ton of time in film. The receivers and I were in the film room until 11 p.m. on Wednesday and I think 10:30 or 11 o'clock on Thursday. We knew the kind of looks we were going to get, and we knew who was going to get open on what plays, how to run the routes, how to get open. When it came down to game time, it was all about executing. I felt really comfortable in the pocket and with what the receivers were seeing. It showed on the field that we were able to go out there and make plays. If we eliminate the turnovers that we had earlier in the game and continue to make plays in those series, who knows what the score would have been in that fourth quarter.”
On how disheartening his turnovers were…
“They were incredibly disheartening. It was the talk all week for our offense about not putting our defense in a bad situation. Not only about not turning the ball over, but being able to consistently get first downs and keeping our defense rested on the sidelines so they would be able to come out and perform well. Our defense performed really well. Considering the situations we put them in offensively, our defense really shined. The 61 points on the scoreboard aren't really indicative of the performance our defense had. We take away the 14 points that our offense literally gave them off turnovers, and maybe we put up some points on those drives, then you're looking at maybe 42-47 in the fourth quarter with us having a chance to come down and win in the last series. Those turnovers really hurt us…Being able to take away those turnovers is a huge part of what we need to be able to do as an offense.”
On the positive things he can take from this game…
“There are no moral victories. We're really pissed off that we didn't get the victory, because it's what we expected to come in and do. Every hour we spent in the film room, we got more and more excited because we saw how our game plan was going to work. We saw in the film study that we were going to make plays. We knew we were going to come out here and make those plays. We knew as long as we didn't turn the ball over that we could win the game. It's incredibly upsetting that we didn't, but what we can take out of it is that we did so many things well. When we executed, all 11 of us, we were unstoppable against a defense that was very, very good. We were able to move the ball on them. When we came out in that second half, I think we scored in our first three series. Those kinds of things we can take from it. This is a great time to have our bye week. We're going to spend this whole bye week looking at ourselves, fixing things that we did wrong. I'm going to take the quarterbacks and the receivers. We're not going to turn on that Liberty film until mid-week. We're going to spend that first few days all about us. Fixing us, fixing the mistakes we've made this game, fixing the mistakes we made the last two games. Too many turnovers, too many missed assignments. When we're not beating ourselves, we can very easily beat the other team. If we can take care of that stuff, like Coach Miles said, we can easily win every other game on our schedule if we can fix ourselves, fix those mistakes this bye week. We should come out of this bye week going into Liberty as a whole new team.”
