Quotes Following Football's 38-14 Loss To Cincinnati
Nov 1, 2014 | Football
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Cincinnati 38, Tulane 14
Tulane Game 8
Yulman Stadium
New Orleans, La.
TULANE QUOTES
HEAD COACH Curtis Johnson
Opening Statement
"It was a tough night for us. Offensively, it took Tanner a little bit to get back into it. I thought he played well for the most part. We lost Sherman in the second, you know he was a little gimpy. I thought we played outstanding offensively. I thought the offensive line did a really good job blocking. Defensively, I thought we started out pretty good, but when Tyler [Gilbert] got ejected, our defense kind of wandered around a little bit. We had too many missed tackles and too many missed plays that we really should have made."
On Tyler Gilbert's ejection due to targeting in the first quarter
"Tyler is one of our better players. he's a senior player. He was ejected for targeting, so we'll leave it at that. He is a part of every package. When you need a captain, you need a captain. Our team was kind of in la la land so Speedy [defensive coordinator Lionel Washington] had to call the game a little differently and run some different packages."
On no having Xavier Rush
"Yeah, it was another loss on senior leadership. We lost Rush on Thursday, so for a day and a half we basically force fed these young kids into his position. So it was a little tough."
On coming away with no points on the first drive
"That was very, very critical. I thought we could get into the endzone. That was one of the things we worked on in practice. In the future, I think Tanner Lee can definitely handle it a lot better."
On Cincinnati's speed
"I don't know if they're the fastest team. They were very explosive, especially in their wide receivers. Munchie played very, very well. He did a good job putting the ball exactly where it needed to be. They're a very, very good football team."
On Sherman Badie's injury
"Sherman had a little ankle injury. He could have played a little more, and Lazedrick also had an ankle injury so we had to play a couple of freshman. I thought the freshmen played very well."
vOn Dontrell Hilliard's performance
"For a true freshman to come into a situation like that, against a very good defense and very experienced team, you know my hat goes off to him. He really showed up."
On Teddy Veal's muffed punt
"You've got to understand those things. He knows the 10-yard rule. He kind of got lost a little bit. With 10 yards, you've got to just let it go and it will probably go into the endzone. There's nothing you can do. He's a young kid, he's going to play a lot and continue to shake it off and play through. Bad things will happen to some of these young kids, but they need to learn to play through it."
On Royce LaFrance in the first half
"He was playing, but as soon as we lost Gilbert we had to go to a 3-4 because that's what we practice all the time. He played some, but that was the package he played in during practice all week. Of course we didn't plan on playing that defense."
On the season as a whole
"Every time you lose it's a setback. You look at a player like Tanner Lee. He goes two weeks without playing. He's very encouraged and we've got a good offensive line. We got another touchdown for him, great touchdown, more encouragement for him. Defensively, I think we just need to play better. That team was too good offensively for us not to play really well. There was some hustle. I never felt they gave up. I think in some aspects, some kids are really playing well. [Darion] Monroe showed up really good. [Sam] Scofield had a bunch of tackles, so did [Lorenzo] Doss. I was encouraged with some of that. We just need to get better with tackling. Our front line guys have got to play better."
On Munchie Leqaux's time on the field
"Our kids should have adjusted a little bit better. Munchie played well, but we missed tackles. We made some really critical mistakes, and we just can't have that. We knew how good their offense is. They are a very good football team."
On the challenges of playing so many freshman
"If you look across the country, you're just not going to see as many true freshman as we have playing. It's encouraging, but again it's no excuse. Freshmen are freshmen. The best thing about freshmen is that they become sophomores."
On the rest of the season
"We are so young, we need to be very short sighted. We need to play East Carolina. We need to play Houston. We need to take it quarter by quarter and play by play. It sounds silly, but that is what we have to do. All of these kids were playing in high school last year, or they were on the redshirt team and hadn't played. We've got to go to Houston, and some of these kids have never even gone to Houston except for the storm. We need to continue educating and getting after it. We need to educate these young kids."
On the imbalance between first downs and points
"You need to understand field positioning. We need to get to the right spots. A couple of times, Tanner was looking for guys and again, no excuses, but those guys probably didn't practice that. When we were practicing red zone, Xavier [Rush] got hurt. They looked like they were a little close together. These young kids will get better in the next game."
On the end of Xavier Rush's career at Tulane
"There's nothing he can do. It was a freak injury. he just jumped up for a ball and no one touched him. The best thing he can do is keep his head up. Xavier is going to graduate, and these ACLs you can come back from very fast. I know he'll get an opportunity to play somewhere if he just keeps his head up."
QB Tanner Lee
On getting the quick interception and starting hot
"It was good the way it started. Unfortunately we didn't get that score. That was a big part of the game, we could have gotten some points in the first half. And then the way we came out in the second half, it would have changed a lot of things."
On how they started second half
"That was good. It just shows a lot about our team. A big problem we've had in the past is that we get down and then it's kind of like `here we go' and accepting it. You saw some fire in the guys, and they weren't going to take it anymore. We're at home. It's a big game. We wanted to come out and make it a game, make it interesting. We got those two scores and then a couple penalties happened and we lost our momentum. The game just kind of ended. They were controlling the ball so well."
On the balance of the offense
"That's just another positive thing you can take away from these games. Teams have to prepare for anything now. We can throw it for 200 and we can run it for 200. We've got two running backs down, but then you saw Dontrell [Hilliard], a true freshman, running like a grown man. Guys getting experience like that, I'm just real proud of him for stepping up."
DT Tanzel Smart
On losing Tyler Gilbert early
"It's tough. We really needed TG. We lost a couple of pass penetrations because he's one of our biggest pass rushers."
On how the game plan changed after Gilbert ejection
"Well, it changed because someone always has to step up and do something they've never done before. I feel like we took it and ran with it a little bit. The defense stepped up a little more in the second half."
On the team's up and downs
"We came out kind of flat but the first play where Parry [Nickerson] had the pick, we were real hyped. Then they got back down and had a couple of big plays, and we got back flat. Came out at halftime and the offense started producing a little. They scored so we got back flat."
FS Sam Scofield
On how the defense played in first few minutes
"We came out just how we wanted to. Based on film, they throw the deep ball on the first play of the game. We were there for it and made a play. From there, we gave up too many big plays. We really didn't play that bad of a game...just five or six big plays that just killed us."
On the momentum change in third quarter
"I think at halftime, we realized that we could come back and win this game. The offense started off with a touchdown and then the interception. We had all the momentum. Then the guy made a hell of a one-handed play in the endzone that crushed our momentum."
On Cincinnati converting on fourth down
"That was a gutsy call. We definitely thought they were going to run it. Even the pass could have been intercepted. It was bang-bang play. That's just how the ball rolled I guess."
CINCINNATI QUOTES
HEAD COACH TOMMY TUBERVILLE
On the quarterback situation and QB Gunner Kiel not being able to go
"I was a little bit surprised. We get out there and they take a leg and throw it deep and I don't know what happened. But it was good. Munchie [Legaux] was able to come in and play in front of a home crowd. He'll always remember coming home and playing as well as he did. He threw the ball well, protected the football and made good decisions. I'm proud of him for what he did. We'll go with him as the No. 1 for a while. We just have to have a guy working as the No. 1. Gunner is going to have to get 100 percent healthy before we're going to let him work much with the ones. We'll let him work with the twos but we can't get in a situation like this where we just have to get back and forth. Munchie's got to take some snaps for once and he played well enough tonight to be the starter next game."
On Keil being too sore to keep going
"He's been that way for five weeks. It's just one of those things. He kind of got beat up and he needs to sit on the bench a little while and watch Munchie play."
On the defensive improvements
"The difference is we're getting lined up a lot better. We've made so many alignment mistakes in the last eight games, it's been amazing. But there are a lot of young guys on the secondary that hadn't played much. Tonight they had a 44-yard run on one of our linebackers, Nick Temple lined up too far inside. And that wasn't a young guy, he just made a mistake with a lineman. And that's usually what happens when you give up big plays, you either get outflanked or play inside or outside on the wrong side of a receiver. But we're getting better. We haven't given up as many big plays as we did in the first couple of losses that we had."
On calling more blitzes than usual
"We did tonight. Their front we felt like we could blitz them a little bit, what they'd do. We did a little bit more against the team last week at South Florida, but we kind of kept what we were doing, kept tempo. We'd look back at what we did on first, second, third down and we kind of just changed it up on them because that's how we usually call plays so our coaches have done a good job changing things up."
On being in the thick of the league race and closing in on bowl eligibility
"We've got five wins and four left. We've got an opportunity to win four games or lose all four. The main thing we want to do now is finally we've got an open date. We've had eight straight, we're beat up - a lot of them didn't need to be out there, but we had no choice. But it's good now we've got thirteen days before we play a game and then we've got eleven days before we play the next one so it's like having two open dates back to back which is going to help us. We've got to get healthy. This has been the most screwed up schedule I've ever seen, and it's been really unfair to the players. But they've fought well, they haven't complained, and they leave all the complaining to me."
On having two 100-yard rushers in one game for the first time in 11 years
"That was good. Both of them are running hard. Rod (Moore) had a much better night than he did last week; Rod broke tackles early, played faster, he was a little bit beat up last week, he had a bruised hand, he couldn't clutch the ball as well as he probably should have but he had a very good first half and then Mike (Boone) comes in and has a good second half, so those guys are going to complement each other and it's been fun watching them the last couple of weeks."
QB MUNCHIE LEGAUX
On throwing three touchdowns in front of his hometown
"It was great. It was great to come out and get a victory in my hometown. But most importantly, it wasn't about me; it was a team effort. Hats off to my team who rallied around me throughout this whole process the last two weeks. I'm just excited for the win and excited to get the win in the city I am from. I'm proud to be a Bearcat. These last two weeks have been good. I've done some good things that no one thought I would do. I'm just going to continue to learn from them and get better."
On if he knew he was always in the plans to play tonight
"Coach just told me to be ready to play throughout the week, no matter the circumstances. He just told me to be ready and I was. If I was going to go in the first quarter or the fourth quarter, I was going to be ready to go out and play."
On the recent winning streak and nearing bowl eligibility
"We want to get bowl eligible. We started off kind of shaky. We had three tough losses, back-to-back-to-back. But we rallied as troops. This is a great team and a great group of guys. We are all in. We are all in for Bearcat Nation. We want to win and we are going to continue taking it week-by-week."
On his expectations on playing in his hometown
"I just hoped to be able to see my family, first of all. I just wanted to see my family and fans. That was one of the coolest things. I didn't expect to go out and have three touchdowns or anything like that, but I'll take that any day in my home city. I just want to congratulate my offensive line and my teammates and everyone who supported me throughout this whole process these last two weeks."
On his family coming to see him, not knowing whether or not he would play
"I didn't tell them anything. They just wanted to see me back in uniform in my home city. They were just excited to see that."
RB ROD MOORE
On moving to cornerback last year before playing running back this season
"The coaches have put me in a great spot. They've coached me up and everything. It's been really good. Hosey Williams and Tion [Green] have taught me some things. I played running back in junior college and high school, but this is a different level. They coached me on some things, and it's helped me a lot."
On possibly giving up on ever playing running back again
"Of course not. I've always had the passion of being a running back. It's what I like to do."
On the team playing well as of late
"We are a family. This is not just a football team. We are a family. We are just trying to keep grinding and grinding and trying to win. That's all we are going to do."
CB HOWARD WILDER
On getting the sack on the first drive and how crucial it was
"It definitely was a turning point. They drove the ball all the way down the field and then got to fourth down where we had to make a play. We made the play, and that was a changing point from a defensive point."
On how he read the play on fourth down during the opening drive
"I had seen the play action, but (Tanner Lee) kept the ball in his left hand the whole time and faked with his right hand. I just had good eyes and good awareness. I had to make a play at the end."
On whether he thought Tulane would run a bootleg or a passing play on the aforementioned play
"I want to say bootleg. My nickel (cornerback) said he pressed up his man on the line and he didn't go anywhere. They ran the ball pretty much the whole drive until that point, so I think they were thinking they would fake that and get an easy play."
On the defense playing well the last few weeks
"These last couple of weeks, we have pretty much just been having fun. The first couple of weeks, we weren't having fun. We were just out there playing and waiting for other people to make a play. Now we are having fun and competing out there. We aren't waiting on a person to make a play. We are going to make plays. That's all it comes down to."
