Nov. 24, 2007
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SDSU-TCU Postgame Quotes
SAN DIEGO STATE HEAD COACH Chuck Long
General Comments:
"It was a tough day and a tough loss. I thought we had several really good individual performances, but it is a team game. Tomorrow, we are going to have to get on this film and get our mistakes corrected and move on to BYU.
On the final week of the season:
"I told our guys in the locker room that football time goes very, very fast. All of the sudden we are in the last week and our time together is very limited. We have to come back with a positive week and work hard at it, because before you know it we are going to be kicking off against BYU."
On TCU:
"Hats off to TCU. After we got them down, they hung in there and came back and fought to get back in the game and eventually won it. Congratulations to them. But we will tee it up again tomorrow and get it all corrected and move forward to the last game."
On what can be done to improve the defense:
"It is hard for me to say right now until we watch the tape tomorrow. I know we can correct some things. I know we have to get better at our tackling, just fundamental tackling. We are late in the year and we do our tackling drills so late our players have been banged up pretty good. We try to get healthy , yet get them drilled at the same time. It is a balance we have to try and work through.
"Our defense was playing so well for all of our conference games until the last two and I know that they are going to have enough pride to really work hard this week starting with our captain Ray Bass. Ray will get them going. Until we watch the film, I can't give you a full answer."
SDSU SAFETY Corey Boudreaux
On the team's defensive struggles the last two games:
"We've always been a high effort defense in practice and last week against Air Force it just didn't work out (in the game). We came back this week with the same intention to win. We came prepared tonight, but things just didn't work out."
On preparing this week for BYU:
"We still have a chance to leave our mark at home against BYU. We're not going to give up fighting right now. We've been fighting for 11 weeks and there is no reason to give up right now."
SDSU SAFETY Ray Bass
On tonight's loss:
"There isn't much I can say other than we need to make tackles. Today was one of those games we should have tackled better. Starting this week, we need to do what is needed to get better."
SDSU QUARTERBACK Kevin O'Connell
On moving forward from this loss:
"It's obviously not the best feeling in the world right now, but at the same time offensively we are doing a lot of things that will help us grow down the line. There are a lot of young guys playing right now and it's baptism under fire for them. Tonight was just one of those games. We'll come back and practice hard this week and give a really good effort next Saturday."
TCU HEAD COACH GARY PATTERSON
On TCU's comeback:
"I told the (players) that it wasn't pretty, but one thing I was really proud of was how our defense didn't lose their confidence. They fought back and good things happened. I told them that for the future something that we have to be able to do is fight back on the road. We hadn't done a very good job of it this year and historically we have been good on the road. I was really proud of the way our offense ran the football. Again, I keep talking about Joseph Turner being back. It has really made a difference with him being able to play. Andy (Dalton) threw an interception, but I thought that overall, he managed the game really well. "
On TCU's turnaround on defense:
"That was what our goal was. I told the (players) at halftime that I don't care about the yards. The bottom line is defensively, we have to hold (San Diego State) to one less. We were down by three and offensively, we needed to make something happen.
On how the defense responded to a slow start:
"We just weren't very good early on. We had a couple of bad things happen for us and we had to start zone blitzing. It seemed to me that we were a little bit confused, but then we started to play faster and we were able to force a couple of incomplete passes and get some stops. Every time we were able to do that, it gave us a little bit of confidence."