Oct. 19, 2014
Recap | Box Score | Notes | USATSI Photo Gallery
Georgia Tech Coach Paul Johnson
On the onside kick
“We had a chance to get the onside kick. We practiced that, and it was actually pretty good. We had a chance to get it, but we just didn’t get it. We just didn’t make the play.”
On getting hurt on tackles
“We missed a lot of tackles. They missed a lot of tackles, too.”
On rest of the season
“You’re still 5-2, so you can still have a good season. But we’re going to have to play better. Just like I told the guys after the game, we can win the rest of our games or we can lose the rest of our games. That’s why you play. It’s hard to win football games. It’s not easy. It’s hard to win.”
Looking back at the game
“When you look at the tape, it’s probably never as good or as bad as it seems. I’m sure when we look at it, we’ll find all kinds of things that we screwed up that we can do better.”
“We had chances to get off the field defensively. We had chances to make plays. Like their last touchdown – not the last one, but the one before it – we got them on 3rd and 8, they made a nice play, but we can’t make a play.”
“When we were blitzing, we would get to the quarterback late. All you got to do is knock the ball out.”
“The very first third down they had on the last drive to win the game, 3rd and 7, the tight end catches the ball. We got a guy right there – just make a play, knock it out.”
North Carolina Head Coach Larry Fedora
Opening statement
“That was a heck of a game. A heck of a game. That’s a much different locker room than it has been over the last few weeks. I’m proud of our guys. Again, throughout that game, it didn’t matter if something bad happened or good happened, they really did a nice job staying level-headed and kept playing. We knew it was going to be a 60-minute game. We didn’t know all the things that were going to happen, but I can tell you, when adversity hit throughout the game, nobody flinched. They just kept playing and believing in each other, so I’m proud of them.”
On Marquise Williams’ poise in the last drive
“I said as he was going out, `3:07, three minutes.’ He said, `We do this every week. It’s no big deal,’ and he’s right. We work two-minute (drills) every week and we’ve been doing that since the first day that we got here. He’s comfortable with it. If you look at our guys in a two-minute situation, they’re not helter-skelter because we go at that pace all the time, so it’s very calm for them actually.
“Throughout the game he did a really nice job of checking the ball down. He didn’t push the ball into any coverages that he shouldn’t have. He checked it down when he should. He did a heck of a job tonight. Really. The way he ran the ball, as always, and the way he threw it.”
On the production of the running backs
“Again you’re talking two weeks in a row that we’ve had our starting five back up front with some reps under their belt. So I think they are doing a better job. With Marquise being able to run, that’s going to open up some things for the running backs also. But those kids ran hard tonight. They did a nice job as a unit, as the three of them.”
On TJ Logan
“He stepped up. He really did. It wasn’t as much about, `Let me try to make you miss,’ as it was `I’m going to try and punish you when you tackle me.’ And that was nice to see that mentality out of him.”
On the significance of the game
“It was huge. It was huge. We needed this more than anything right now. You guys know what we’ve been doing and what we’ve been going through. I told you their guts were ripped out last week the way they played because they played hard and had a chance to win the game against the No. 5 team in the country at that time. They needed this. Because they haven’t waivered in the way they practice, their attitudes – they’ve kept believing. That’s not easy to do. That’s not easy to do when the coaches keep preaching the same thing over and over and over. And everyone on the outside is saying, `Nah, you ought to be doing this,’ or `You ought to be doing that,’ or `You ought to be playing this guy or that guy,’ and all they do is stay focused and kept believing in what we’ve been preaching and what we’re teaching. Hopefully that’s why we won the game today.”
