Fresno State Athletics
Fresno State vs. Rice Game Quotes
11/3/2001 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 3, 2001
Rice quarterback Kyle Herm
On the start of the second half
"We were in it. It was 31-17 at halftime. We were going to get the ball. We envisioned coming out and scoring to make it 31-24. That'd be a one-score game. But we went three-and-out on the first series, and that didn't help us out. We came out with a little fire in us, but when you go three-and-out, that takes it out of you a little bit. They're defense stepped up, and their crowd got into it a lot."
General comments
"I'm not taking anything away from them. They are a good football team. But they are not 28 points better than us, I don't think. Give them a lot of credit. They just outplayed us. Tonight, they were 28 points better than us."
Rice head coach Ken Hatfield
General comments
"That's a good football team right there. Probably, for the first time they shook off [the losses] and started playing like they did the first three games. They came out and played good. I was really proud of the way we stayed in the ballgame, too, and give ourselves a chance. We believed we were going to win the game until the second half when they made those big plays. And we didn't move it the first series, they took it down and scored."
On the special teams
"They hurt us where we didn't want to get hurt, and that was in the kicking game."
On the start of the second half
The first five minutes of the second half set the tempo. From there, it was an uphill battle with everything we were trying to do."
Rice bandit Dan Dawson
General comments
"They have a very good offense, and we didn't play very well. When you put that together, you get what happened tonight."
Fresno State head coach Pat Hill
General comments
"Last week, we played very hard against a very good team. I thought we played very hard again today, and I thought we played well in all phases - offense, defense and special teams. We had much more consistency on offense. Defensively, we did a good job against the option. We were very focused. We were up and running. We are 7-2, and I'm looking forward to getting to work on Sunday."
"Offensively, we are a very good team. I give Rice a lot of credit. They are a very good team. We played hard. We have played hard all year. For us to shut down Rice to just one touchdown in the second half speaks well of our defense."
"We've been very good at defending the option since I've been at Fresno State. Last year, if you remember, against Air Force in the bowl game, they were throwing the ball against us. We did a good job against their option. It was a great team effort. Our kids really took it, took it meaning our challenge of guaranteeing going undefeated the rest of the way. They took that to heart. We have a lot of go-to guys on this team, and we made a lot of big plays."
