Fresno State Athletics
Fresno State vs. Rice -- Game Quotes
10/25/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 25, 2003
Rice head coach Ken Hatfield
General thoughts on the game
"They made our field goal. We missed ours. That's part of it. All our guys played extremely hard. We came in here, and it was supposed to be a cakewalk, with everything I've read. It was supposed to be an easy victory. I don't think it was quite so easy."
On going for it on fourth down
"On fourth down, go figure. Our starting tackle that we'd been running behind the whole day goes down [on the previous play]. And we had to put a new kid in there on the play. And he just didn't hear the ball and didn't block down as well."
"I think we had a good play on for what we had and what we'd been doing. And there was 1:50 to go. So I didn't feel like a field goal was going to be enough. I think they had time to move the ball down the field late in the game. I felt like that was our best chance to win the game - to go for it and get a first down. Then we could have eaten all the clock up until the last play of the game like they did."
"Had we made the first, we would have run the clock down to one second to go. We would have kicked the ball on the last play of the game, and at the worst we would have had overtime."
On how tough the loss is
"We had plenty of chances to win the game. It hurts. I told the team afterward, 'You came to Rice to learn how to play at a championship level. And you don't have a lot of opportunities for greatness.' And when you are involved in close games, on the road, those are opportunities for greatness."
Rice fullback Robbie Beck
On how hard the loss is for Rice
"This is a very hard loss for us. It was a big conference game. It meant a lot for our confidence and the WAC championship. We believe in each, and we believed we could win this game. To do so well and to fall short, it really hurts."
On the fourth down play
"I'm not sure what happened. They did a great job on that play."
On the decision to go for it on fourth down
"They hadn't stopped us all day. We just missed two field goals. That's our mentality - on fourth down, we want to go for it always. I'm a guy, with the game on the line, I want the ball. And I didn't get it done on that play."
On how well the offense played today
"I feel like the offense woke up today. We hadn't played our best the past few weeks. And today...we hit on all cylinders. I think we played great, and it hurts to come up short in this one."
Rice quarterback Kyle Herm
On how tough the loss was
"It's really tough. We felt like we beat them up and down the field the whole game. It's tough to swallow."
On the decision to go for it on fourth down
"We'd been having some trouble with our kicking game. We missed those two field goals from really close. There's no reason we can't get six inches. I think it was the right call. Everybody on the sideline wanted to go."
On how big the loss is for Rice
"This would have been big. It was a season-turner. We were 1-1 in the conference coming in. [If] we win this game, we're on the right path. Now we just have to get our heads up, and start playing for pride next week."
Fresno State head coach Pat Hill
"That was a hell of a football game. I'm not much into style points. All I'm concerned about is the 'W'. I give a lot of credit to Rice. We got their best shot tonight. It says a lot for our program because we seem to get great effort from the team we play. Rice had their offense rolling tonight and when they get rolling they are tough to slow down."
"Like I said, this was a Game Seven. We have another Game Seven next week. We are going to be like that the rest of the season. We has some guys really step up. Duncan Reid made a huge catch. He hasn't been totally healthy all season but he came up big tonight."
On Brett Visintainer
"We have great confidence in Brett. He turned his ankle pretty bad in practice night and we had to some out this morning to see what he could do. We knew we needed to have the ball in the middle of the field because the torque on his ankle was painful He booted all three straight and true."
"We have a big game next week at SMU. I'm not concerned about the records of our opponents. I'm concerned about getting our team better. I know SMU will be ready to play when we get to Dallas next week."
"I'm really proud of our team. I liked our effort. We always give a great effort. We never quit and I had no doubts we wouldn't win that game."
