University of North Carolina Athletics
Postgame Quotes
November 22, 2008 | Football
Nov. 22, 2008
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North Carolina Head Coach Butch Davis
Opening Comments:
It is extraordinarily disappointed and frustrating to play as poorly as we played today. The things that we did today during the course of the game give you absolutely no chance to win the ball game. There will never be a football game ever played that you can lose a turnover ratio as dramatically poorly as we did today and still give yourselves a chance to win. Six turnovers - you can almost totally disregard any of the other stats. Once you get past the turnovers, there are other things that certainly contributed to today's loss - giving up big plays in the secondary, balls being thrown deep and not being contested, guys being open - all of those things contributed to the way that we played today. I thought that our defense initially got off to a decent start after being put in just some horrible field position and that they rallied early. Given the field position, we forced a field goal, forced another missed field goal where they got a delay of game and got another chance to kick the ball.
We felt like going into the locker room with the score 10-3, that as poorly as we played that we weren't out of the football. We had to do something to effectively change the game. We had to start to play better. Unfortunately we continued to turn the football over. If you do those things you are not going to win.
On the starting T.J. Yates:
The starting quarterback is always going to be judged on a body of work, how have they done not just in two and a half days of practice. T.J. was a 12-game starter for us last year and was off to a good start this season. When he did return to practice there was a time where we weren't absolutely sure health-wise when could he really go in - scramble, get hit, get sacked, get back up and continue to play. That really didn't happen until last week, even though against Georgia Tech we put him in at the end of the game when we were managing the game and getting the butterflies out of the situation. We gave him the start based on the things that T.J. has done. He's made good decisions with the football. That's how he got to be the starter in 2007. Does that change, you never know? As I told the quarterbacks, you are always going to be the victim of how you have played.
On next week's starter:
The quarterback that gives us the best chance to win that game. That's how we will look at it this week. Neither of the quarterbacks played particularly well today, but they also had some really good help in that performance today.
On whether he wished he had started Cameron Sexton:
You can't look in the rearview mirror. How do you know? We feel that both of those guys are pretty good quarterbacks. They have both had some pretty good success. Was T.J. nervous coming back for the first time? Conceivably, maybe so. That is one of the reasons with the score being 10-3 that we let him play, let him get back into it, and see if he is the guy.
On NC State's Russell Wilson:
He played very well but that didn't come as a surprise. Every coach on our staff and all of our defensive players watched all the film that he had played this year. Everybody realized that really, truly you really needed to do a great job, keep him in the pocket and that he has got a great arm. It's a complete problem for a defense when a quarterback can extend plays. Michael Vick was one of those types of guys, may not be the greatest thrower in the world, may not be the best operator but plays are never over.
North Carolina Players
QB T.J. Yates
"Nothing was going right, nothing was in rhythm and no body was in sync. We were making turnovers. We ran the ball pretty well we just got to do better on offense and as a whole as a team."
Talking about struggling: "Getting off to a horrible start. Fumbling on the first two possessions. Just not getting anything really going. We have to come out of the gates with some fire, with some passion and we just didn't have it today. No matter what happens we gotta keep fighting"
"Going into halftime we were only down by seven surprisingly given the amount of mistakes that we made and they gave us a chance to stay in the game and we came out second half and just didn't do anything. Even though we were playing that bad we still had a chance to win."
QB Cam Sexton:
"I'm in this thing for whatever's best for the team and I'm not being politically correct with you, I want to win first. Of course I'm upset about not starting. I'm a competitor, I want to be out there playing, I want to be out there with my teammates... I want to win and if I'm not playing I want my teammates to win. I love those guys and they have been there for me. I wanted T.J. to win. It's just a disappointing loss."
On not starting: "They just told me they felt that was best for the team."
On watching T.J. play: "I'm just trying to rally the team and be supportive for him. It's just hard to see your teammates not play well."
"We had a good week of practice in my perspective, we were ready to play as we always had been...we just didn't come out and play well."
TB Shaun Draughn
"I felt good with T.J. being back in. He knows offense just as Cam does. We came in at halftime and put an emphasis on finishing."
"Can't linger on a loss or a win. Just put it behind us and practice and get ready for Duke and finish off the season."
"You can't turnover the ball so many times and win a game."
DE E.J. Wilson
"We're going to have to find a way to regain it. We can't throw away everything that we have done this season, and end this season with three losses in a row. We just can't do that. We got to dig deep down inside...and we need to take this next 10-12 hours and do some real soul searching. And we need to ask the question is seven wins enough for this team and in my opinion no it's not."
NC State Head Coach Tom O'Brien
Opening Statement:
"Our kids really took the challenge today. I think it was a great effort on our part, especially to beat a team like North Carolina who has all those great athletes running around out there so well coached and everything. We have steadily gotten better, once we've gotten the little guys healthy and back on the field. We played really good against a great football team."
On controlling the line of scrimmage:
"We've gotten better week in and week out and once again, we held an opponent under 100 yards rushing, which I think is key. We probably had our best rush day of the year with 187 (yards). That's a heck of a day, so obviously our line, whether it be offense or defense, must have done something well out there today."
On the character of the team on this winning streak:
"We don't have a lot of seniors. I think Anthony Hill and Andre Brown have carried the load for the offensive guys, and I think Will Young and Nate [Irving] and some of those guys on defense have done a great job providing leadership for us. Obviously the turnovers early were huge for us and gave us field position. We missed a field goal, we missed one scoring opportunity, and then right before the half, I couldn't exactly see what happened but I think [Owen] Spencer probably had his hands on the ball in the endzone, which could have been another score. Our kids are into playing the way I like kids to play. They're playing hard and they just keep playing and they play physical and they're tough. The better we get, then the better a football team we're going to be."
On UNC's turnovers and not giving up turnovers:
"It's huge. I think they have one or two chances to get their hands on the ball. I think Russell [Williams] was hit one time, and I think they had a hand on it, and there was another tipped ball. Certainly, the offensive scheme, you have to give Dana Bible a lot of credit, coming up with a scheme that would be us or nobody. Our kids did a good job of getting our hands on the ball and catching them when we could. Anytime you get 6 turnovers to zero, you should win a football game, that's pretty standard.
Players Mentioned
