Sept. 4, 2010
– GEORGIA TECH HEAD COACH Paul Johnson
Opening Statement
“I thought it was a very typical first game. It wasn’t always crisp and pretty but we found a way to win the game. I think you have to give South Carolina State credit. I thought their kids played hard, they showed up, and even when they got down they continued to fight. I think they will be a pretty good team on their level, I really do. We made a lot of mistakes, missed a lot of tackles, got sloppy, but we have a lot of stuff to work on now. Hopefully you make the most improvement from game one to game two and that is what we need to do.”
On What You Want To See in the First Game
“Being more crisp, playing faster on offense. It looked like we never really played fast. Offensively we were playing okay, just okay. In the first half, I think we scored on the first three possessions, and then we lost our focus and turned the ball over. We fumbled the ball which was just taking our eye off of it. We got hit in the chest with one trying to body catch falling down, it bounced up and they had an interception. It was actually one of the better balls [Nesbitt] threw. We just lost focus and then we started messing around some in the second half trying to do some other things that we can’t do. We just had to go back to the basics there at the end.”
On Fumbled Pitch from Nesbitt To Peeples
“I think it was that he was looking downfield, it was a little bit low, and I think Joshua kind of double clutched him and [Peeples] didn’t think he was going to pitch it. It was a lack of focus on both. Not either one of their faults, it would help us if the guy inside would block somebody and then there wouldn’t have been anyone there anyway. He has to catch the pitch but we have to be able to cancel somebody with our inside guys.”
On SCSU Limiting B-Back Anthony Allen
“They took him on the option every play. They did a pretty good job of that.”
On Nesbitt’s 2 Fourth Down Touchdowns
“They were just triple option plays. The first one we caught them in a different defense and the second one we changed the blocking a little bit and cracked the safety.”
On the Defense
“We missed a ton of tackles. We didn’t give up many big plays which was a positive. We just need to be able to get them off the field better. In the first half, there weren’t that many possessions. If we don’t turn it over on the first play of two possessions, you are probably looking at four possessions in the half. I didn’t look at time of possession, but they probably had the ball more than we did. But, they kept them off the scoreboard so that is a positive. They gave up the one big long run play. Just like on offense, we missed a lot of tackles and we can go back and you would like to think that they are going to get better each game as they get more experience.”
On Izaan Cross
He made some plays and he got cut off some. Until you watch the tape it is hard for me to evaluate those guys in there. We lost contain on the pass rush several times or we would have had a couple of sacks. I guess I am a cup half empty guy. I want it to be done right all of the time. He needs to be a good player for us; I think he has a lot of ability.
On Backup QB Tevin Washington
“He was our quarterback all spring. He has played. We’ve got confidence in Tevin. It was good to get his feet wet. I’m sure he was a little bit tight for the first one with all of the people there but we have confidence in him.
On Nesbitt’s Running and Passing
“I thought Joshua played well. He didn’t throw the ball particularly well, and we didn’t throw it a lot. He did have the one drop, and a pass interference on another throw. He had a couple that were off-line, but we didn’t throw it a bunch. He did a good job running the offense. He got us into the right play for the most part. 130 yards, a couple of touchdowns, we will take that. I said a long time ago, it doesn’t matter how you get it. We got 41 points, I don’t know that it would have been any better if we had got them all passing. Then we would have been saying we couldn’t run.”
On Take-Aways from the Game
“I think there is a lot that you can take out of it. I talked to the team afterwards; they understand it and are pretty subdued. There is a fine line there. You only get to play 12 regular season games, and when you win 41-10, you have to be a little bit happy. But at the same time, I think that we know that we can play better and that is my job to point that out to them and I did. We will come back and go to work on Monday and see if we can get better. They know, they aren’t dumb; they will watch the tape and see. Some of those guys will be embarrassed.”
On Scouting Kansas
“They play one game, we have some of the Buffalo tape. Offensively I know a little bit about them because the defensive coordinator was at Mississippi State last year when we played them so we will have an idea how they are going to play.”
SCSU HEAD COACH BUDDY POUGH
On not keeping the offense on the field
“Offensively, we want to try to mix it up and keep people off balance. It was the strangest thing, It caught us off guard that we were able to rush the football as well as we did. There were times when we probably should’ve just stuck with that and stayed on the field more. But you’re always working so hard to vary your style, that at times, you shoot your own self in the foot. That was probably a mistake on my part where we blew a couple of third-and-shorts. Those were situations where we should have stayed on the field. You can bet that we’re going to clean that up next week.”
On missing backside help on defense at times
“There were some times when some people came free. But more than anything else, I think they just outmanned us from time to time. We had some problems with some of their technique against some of their physicality. They blew up some of our blocking assignments. That was mostly because of the difference in their physical strength as opposed to us.”
On the opening onside kick
“We didn’t really want to go onside. It was supposed to be a squib kick, and our kicker didn’t have the best of days. He just got up there and hit the first guy he saw. I’m still kind of waiting to hear what he’s got to say (smiling). But we would have liked to kick that a little bit farther. Georgia Tech had a new defensive coordinator and a new special teams coach, and we didn’t know how they would attack us in the special teams game. So we thought we would squib and sky kick some of that stuff, but it didn’t come off quite so well.”
On making mistakes at inopportune times
“They generally do. There were some times when we needed to hold onto the football, and that may have cost us some points. But that’s what happened. Sometimes you’ve got to risk some situations to get some reward, and you’ve got to decided on the percentages of those risks. We just didn’t quite get it done.”
On the performances of your running backs
“It makes me think that we might be able to rush the football against most of our schedule. If you can rush the football 129 yards against Georgia Tech (Asheton Jordan has 129 yards), then there might be another team or two you can rush the ball against in our league.”
GEORGIA TECH PLAYER QUOTES
QB Joshua Nesbitt on his performance
“I think that we had a good start, but we have a lot of work to do still. The team got in game shape this week and we will be better next week.”
Nesbitt On scoring three touchdowns
“I think I did alright, but I know that I can do better. I just have to go out there and make sure that everyone is doing their job and doing the right thing and it will all fall in place.”
Nesbitt On his one interception
“When I threw the ball I knew that would be my first completion today, but it was the wrong completion.”
Nesbitt On the fumble with Embry Peeples
“I tried to get downhill and see what the defender was going to do. I pumped once to see what way he was going to move and when I thought that he was coming at me, I pitched it to Embry, but he thought that I was going to run after I pumped it. There was just a miscommunication there.”
DE Izaan Cross on his role on the defense
“Last year I was just trying to get my feet wet. There is a huge difference between high school and college and I was just trying to make that transition. This year I will be out there for more plays.”
Cross On the lack of sacks
“We came into this game knowing that they throw the ball quick so trying to get a sack on them was going to be tough.”
LB Kyle Jackson on his return to the field
“I wasn’t really nervous about getting back out there, I was more ready to play after rehabbing for the last 16 months. When I actually stepped foot on the field that is when I got nervous. It was good to get all of the nerves and kinks out today.”
Jackson On the defense
“We as a team came in feeling solid among the defensive line and linebackers. We had a good productive camp. There were some questions coming into this game about the defensive line but I think they answered and got better as the game went on. People were questioning whether the linebackers could stop the run, we had a few mishaps but I think we proved that we could.”
B-Back Roddy Jones on his performance
“It was definitely nice to be healthy and contribute to the offensive performance. On my second touchdown, anytime you go up in the air you get nervous, but I wanted to get the ball across the goal line and that was just the quickest way to do it. “
A-Back Anthony Allen on the overall performance of the team.
“I think that we answered the questions that we needed to but the biggest jump during the season is between games 1 and 2. I got what I could as a B Back, SC State was targeting us during the game. As for passing, we are working on that and as the year progresses we will get better.”
