Postgame Reaction: Football Beats Duke
Al Golden Postgame Press Conference
Nov. 24, 2012
Miami 52, Duke 45
On the win:
“We’ve given up a lot. We gave up a bowl game last year. We’vegiven up a bowl game this year, now we’ve given up a postgame in Charlotte, achampionship game in Charlotte. We’ve given up three games in the postseason toright the ship and [we’re] really grateful to the team and the seniors. I’m notsurprised it was this type of game. I just told the team, it was such anemotional week. If you think about the range of emotions on Sunday … Monday …Tuesday … Wednesday and then when [Duke] came storming back and just the waythey did it … you know with a 99-yard play. I felt like, ‘Oh man, now we got respond.Do we have enough in us in the tank to respond?’ And then Herb [Waters] cameback with a big play. I’m proud of them. As I said in the beginning of theyear, it wasn’t going to be perfect. We were picked to finish fifth in the league.We didn’t have anybody on the preseason all-conference team. We didn’t havemany starters coming back. We had the toughest schedule, too. We started 10freshmen this year and played 21, and we just finished tied for the Coastallead. And [we’ve] got a whole slew of guys coming back. I’m excited. Can’t waitto go back on the road and sign a real good class to compliment last year’s classand move this thing forward.
“It wasn’t perfect. We’re nowhere near good enough right now- getting off the field and taking the ball away and sacks and that kind ofthing. I know that. We all know that. We got to eliminate some of the errors.We get in a game like this and we’re putting out fires constantly. The guys, wejust got to learn and grow up and we will. Again we played a lot of guys thatjust got to keep growing up and keep improving.”
On Duke Johnson:
“He’s a special young man. He works hard and he wants theball in his hands at the end of the game. With the entire offensive line comingback and the tight ends coming back and the full back coming back and thequarterback’s coming back and the receivers coming back … I think he’s going tobenefit from that greatly. The whole supporting cast is coming back and we’regoing to add to it and get ourselves better. Duke’s a special young man.”
On what he said to the seniors:
“Just how grateful we are. What a huge sacrifice when youthink about it. They didn’t ask for it. They led us all week. This was tough.Don’t diminish for a second how hard it is to get the guys motivated andfocused after … entering the Duke week we thought, ‘We win we’re in Charlotte,’and then that got pulled. We needed that senior leadership and the seniors did.I thought they represented the program and the university with class -incredible amount of integrity. [They] didn’t displace anything on anybodyelse. [They] didn’t point the finger, years past or anything. It’s a credit tothem that we won today because emotionally we didn’t have much in the tank.”
On using trick plays:
“When you have a quarterback and a veteran offensive lineyou can do that. We became very veteran as the year went on on the offensiveline. The same thing at the quarterback position. We’re getting to the pointwhere those two plays … we wanted to go for the jugular on 4th-and-1. Obviouslywe all thought it was a touchdown and disappointed it wasn’t. You go for itthere because you think, even if you don’t get it you’re going to get the ballback at midfield. Or even if they do change the field it’s going to take fiveminutes. Instead it takes 10 seconds. That’s a backbreaker there. With the windI thought for sure Jake [Wieclaw] could end the game there. I think we were upby 14, so to make it 17. And we went for the win twice and it didn’t work out.It’s just one of those deals. We’re not good enough to put anybody away yet. Again,I’m just encouraged about moving the program forward.”
RB Duke Johnson, QB Stephen Morris, RB Mike James
OC Jedd Fisch
TE Clive Walford, LB Jimmy Gaines, LB Denzel Perryman
