Fresno State Athletics
Fresno State vs. Oregon State Game Quotes
9/6/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 5, 2003
Fresno State Head Coach Pat Hill
General comments on the game
"I don't care about the stats or the numbers or who got what. All I care is about the final score. That was as good a performance by a Bulldog team as I have ever seen. Those guys played their hearts out against a very good Oregon State team. This was a big win for us. That was a very physical game. A very physical game. Oregon State is a heck of a football team. They are big and fast and physical. I'm very happy with the win and this team's performance. I can't think of better performance under tough circumstances. TO have this win on national television against a good team is great for our program and the people of the Valley."
On QB Jeff Grady
"We made some really big plays when we had to. I have to give a lot of credit to Jeff Grady. The guy is hurting and he hung in there and made some big plays."
On the game-winning field goal
"That would have been good from 57 yards. He hit is straight and true. All of our special teams were good tonight. We blocked a big kick and that was a big difference. Mike Lingua continues to punt well. Our special teams have played very well through the first two games."
On receiver Bernard Berrian
"He was still not at 100 percent. He was not the same guy tonight. He lost eight pounds this week and was a little weak. He'll be better next week."
Senior Quarterback Jeff Grady
"This was a good game for us. We have not had a lot of luck this year, so getting a win is very important. We can gain some confidence from this and get better. The offense was much better than it was last week and I think we will keep getting better. I'm alright but I'm sure I will be pretty stiff and sore in about 20 minutes."
Oregon State Head Coach Mike Riley
On the decision to go for it on 4th-and-1 in the fourth quarter
"Everybody wants to go for it on fourth down. In retrospect, it was probably not a good decision. Steven [Jackson] had gotten a little tired, but we thought we could get back in there and push the ball in."
"I didn't think of [having another kick blocked]. We thought we would score a touchdown. But we controlled the field position for about three drives after that."
On the turnovers and penalties
"I thought we made a lot of mistakes tonight. There's no doubt about it. In the first half, there was enough stuff that ended up putting us behind like we were. But we fought back hard, and there were a lot of great individual efforts."
"I cringed at the number of penalties. That's something we can't do. We hurt ourselves. This has got to be a tremendously valuable lesson that hits you right between the eyes."
On Anderson's interceptions
"I thought he had a couple in the first half that were bad decisions. Then one went through one of our guy's arms. And then after that, he settled down and made some more plays."
"But I never thought about taking him out."
General comments
"We did some things tonight that were good. Our punt team did a good job of covering those guys. Berrian is a great returner, and we covered him. Certain areas played very well, and even though it was ugly, in the second half we did battle."
On Oregon State's second-to-last possession, which led to Fresno State's game-winning field goal
"They way they were playing the run on first down, we felt like we needed to do something to try and win the game. One more first down, and we were in field goal position. We knew what they were doing defensively, and we knew it was going to be difficult to run. We had about 75 percent success with the screen up to that point, and that's what we had called. And that's normally a pretty safe play. Normally. But nothing was normal tonight."
Oregon State RB Steven Jackson
General thoughts
"It's very disappointing. It's pretty bad and tough to take. Especially coming in the last seconds, it's a tough one to take."
"I just think Fresno State was really prepared for us. It was a tremendous job by their coaching staff to prepare for us. They showed up and we didn't."
"Like I said, they stepped up when they needed to. They played great defense, and great goal line defense."
On if this is his toughest loss at Oregon State
"Yeah, this is really tough. It's worse than Arizona State last year. This is the worst one."
