Post-Game Quotes
Sept. 18, 2009
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Miami Head Coach Randy Shannon
Opening statement…
“Big win for us tonight and for these kids at the University of Miami. We were 0-4 vs. Georgia Tech the last four years. Our guys came out and played hard and did what we asked of them. They stayed within the game and after we scored a couple early touchdowns, we kept pounding the football and it was just a team effort. We got to give those guys credit and the rushing yards we held them to. We still have a lot of things to improve on but that’s why you play games.”
On the effect of the first drive touchdown…
“We knew in this game that Georgia Tech likes to start fast on offense. So it was big to hold them to a field goal. We knew that our defense would make a couple corrections and be fine. And then our offense came out and made a bunch of big plays, some big throws and catches. That gave us a lot of excitement and we knew that each side could feed off each other.”
On Bosher’s missed field goals…
“We need to get better, we’re not a perfect football team. Those kicks could come in critical situations.”
On being called underrated…
“I don’t get into that sort of thing, we’re just going to play football and that’s it.”
On the rush defense improving from last year…
“We’re an older football team. These guys last year were either redshirt freshmen, sophomores or true freshmen. We also got Randy Phillips and Collin McCarthy back for this game.”
On what he learned tonight that he did not know after Florida State…
“This team knows the importance of going out and competing. The first thing was responding against Florida State after being nine points down. The next thing was challenging them to respond. They came out and responded the way they needed to, but it started in practice. We didn’t need to beg and plead for this team to stay focused. They were focused throughout the pregame for this game.”
On the poise of Miami QB Jacory Harris…
“He has confidence in this football team, the offensive line and receivers, and when you have confidence like he does, the sky is the limit. Without the offensive line doing what they did against a big pass rusher like [GT’s Derrick] Morgan, we wouldn’t have been successful.”
On first-year Miami offensive coordinator Mark Whipple…
“Mark Whipple thinks he can score 100 points every time we go out there. He’s done a great job of getting the offense to adopt his mentality. The offense believes that no matter what play is called, the play is going to work.”
On this game being this biggest win since ’02…
“Each game will be big from this game on. It was a big win for us.”
Miami QB Jacory Harris
On how significant losing the last four years to Georgia Tech was…
“It mattered the most to this team because it gave us fire and motivation to go out and beat this team. They came out with their tricky offense that most teams can’t stop, but our defense went out there and did a great job tonight. We had lost to Georgia Tech the last four years and it would’ve felt bad walking off the field and losing to Georgia Tech another year in a row.”
On making it look so easy…
“It’s not easy, you just have to have trust and have faith in everybody. As long as you have faith and trust that your receiver is going to run the right route, your o-line is going to protect, your running back is going to protect or catch the ball… We watch so much film throughout the week with Coach Whipple, he shows you that in a certain coverage, if this man drops here, this man is going to be open.”
On protection from the offensive line…
“Last game was the last time I had this good of protection.”
On what’s different about the offense…
“We are just having fun and executing like we were taught.”
On the touchdown to Jimmy Graham…
“He was my first read, but Georgia Tech may have blown their coverage and had the mike linebacker shaded to the left, nobody covering the tight end, with the safety dropped back 10 yards. So I was hoping Jimmy didn’t run his route, and he was on the same page so he didn’t. He just ran to the open spot on the field and scored a touchdown.”
On whether they opened up the playbook…
“I think we ran some of the things we were supposed to run last week. Last week we ran a lot of plays, but there were some repeats and some things we left out that we ran this week. Mark Whipple is a very creative man and has a lot in store for this season.”
On taking it game by game instead of thinking about the first four games all together…
“One thing I want to congratulate this team on is our ability to stay focused. There’s a lot of people in the community that are praising us now and they are hyping us up, but this team isn’t taking anything to the head. We are very humble we understand we have other teams at hand we have to beat. In order to stay undefeated you have to win the next game.”
Senior DB Randy Phillips
On the success of the defensive scheme…
“Well, [Miami defensive coordinator John] Lovett wasn’t here last year so, we put in the scheme this year and that’s what worked for us. There is a different mentality. A lot of people expect us to fold, but I don’t know what they are thinking. We are ready for anyone. We are embracing the schedule and we are ready for it.”
Georgia Tech Head Coach Paul Johnson
Opening statement…
“Well it was a tough game. We pretty much got beat in every facet of the game. We could neverget them off the field and the first chance, we missed some opportunities. We had some poorpenalties. I think we had the ball four times in the first half and three times in the second. To win agame like that, you better maximize. We didn’t.”
On the challenge of UM’s offense…
“We will go back and take a look at it, but I’m sure a large part of it is good play on their part andI’m sure we helped them some. We never really got any pressure on the quarterback. When yougive him that kind of time, those things are going to happen.”
On fatigue after three games in 12 days…
“I don’t know, I think they just beat us. I’m not going to blame it on fatigue.”
On Miami’s extra time to prepare…
“No. I don’t know. We played very poorly on offense. There was about four or five times there wasa ball pitched to the perimeter and there was one guy out there and we missed their guy everytime. It makes it hard to get anything going.”
On the play of Miami QB Jacory Harris…
“I thought he played a great game. He did what he needed to do. I guess really there wasn’t aturnover in the game.”
On figuring out the on-again off-again Georgia Tech offense…
“I think I can – one, we’re not as good as we like to be and two – you’re not going to score everytime you get the ball. We aren’t good enough to do that.”
On Miami’s offense…
“They made plays, we didn’t make any. They pretty much moved the ball at will. It didn’t matter ifit was first and 20 or first and whatever, they made the first down.”
Dave Wommack, GT Defensive Coordinator
On defensive schemes…
“We decided to go zone, zone blitz against them, and they were getting people open back behindour linebackers. We couldn’t pressure them in time with their max protection, when they were intwo backs.”
On the energy level…
“I really thought the kids coming in were energized, but we’ll go back, evaluate and watch thefilm.”
Morgan Burnett, GT Safety
On tackling errors…
“Basically we were just out there missing tackles. It was just bad all the way around.”
On taking something away from the game…
“We just got to go out there prepared for next week against North Carolina and learn from alesson like this. Give Miami a lot of credit; their guys did a great job today.”
On getting beat deep…
“If one person on defense makes a mistake, then it’s going to slip up and be a big mistake. We’vegot to clean up on making mistakes and play our assignments.”
Sean Bedford, GT Center
On pinpointing the problem…
“I think the problems we had tonight came down to not executing the little things. We had a lot oftimes where we had the play there, and we could have broken it if we had just had one little blockmade or one step in one direction. We just didn’t do that tonight.”
Elaborating on execution…“I think we – as an offense – should apologize to Yellow Jacket Nation, because we’ve beentalking all year about how much better we’re going to be as an offense, how we’re going toexecute and how you haven’t seen anything yet. We haven’t done that to this point.”
Josh Nesbitt, GT Quarterback
On performance…
“We didn’t play. They wanted it [more] than us.”
On lack of energy…
“We just didn’t show up. To be a champion, you have to show up.”
