Fresno State Athletics
Fresno State-New Mexico Quotes Page
Fresno State vs. New Mexico
Oct. 14, 2017
Head Coach Jeff Tedford
On tonight’s offense and defense…
“It was a team effort. There are still places where we can improve. I was really proud of the defense, that is a hard job to do. To stop that group and shut them out is a big deal. I was really proud of our staff and the team in the preparation for tonight by buying in and working so hard during the week. They played really hard and ran the football and tackled really well. They came up with some key turnovers, too. I am really proud of the defense. Offensively, it seemed like we kept getting stuck and we have got to find a way to get out of there. New Mexico has a good defense, and they have done a great job all year. We can continue to improve, and we are going to get back to work.”
On handling the triple-option…
“When you play a triple-option, you have to make sure you take away the diveback, the quarterback and the pitchman, and I think our guys did an excellent job. When they get you in space, it is important that you tackle well and I think our guys did a good job of that. Not only was there one guy there, but there were numerous guys there to wrap him up.”
On Marcus McMaryion taking control of the offense…
“There is still work to do there. He threw some nice long balls, but hopefully we can continue to improve and come up with those 50/50 balls that we need to make plays on. He didn’t turn the football over, which is always key. He ran the offense well for the most part. Like I say every week, he is continuing to improve and that is the goal for the whole team as well as him.”
On being 3-0 in Mountain West play…
“It is great. It is awesome to see the players excited and happy, that is what it is all about. It is validation that the hard work, trust and energy that they have put into this is paying off. Again, we will enjoy this one and then we will move on to next week to travel to San Diego and have to play a tough team down there. We will enjoy this for a little bit and then get back to work tomorrow.”
On Malik Forrester’s ejection…
“We were warning the refs that things were getting chippy in there. I told our team at halftime to not retaliate with things. As I looked at it, it was more of a ‘protect yourself’ type of thing. It is unfortunate that he did retaliate a little bit, and he will learn from that. He was getting mauled by a couple of guys and that was a natural reaction for him. We have to be better than that, we can’t stoop to that level.”
On Ronnie Rivers’ injury…
“He hurt his elbow. We will see how it looks tomorrow. We will probably get an MRI on it and see how it looks. We x-rayed it and there was nothing broken, but it could be some ligaments or something like that in there. We will run more tests tomorrow and see what happens. He put his arm on the ground and rolled into his arm. Very similar to if you plant your foot and roll into your knee. The extent of it, I don’t really know how severe it is, but we will take it day by day.”
On coming back to a homecoming game at Fresno State…
“It has been a long time, I don’t know if I ever have actually. Once I was gone, I don’t think I was ever able to come back because I was always playing or coaching. I am always happy to see people come back. I hope we can continue to do well on the field so that they appreciate what the players are doing and come to show their support. The players deserve it. We didn’t do many festivities for Homecoming, but I told the players that people would be here to see them and to just focus on what they needed to get done. I am really happy that it came out the way that it did.”
On this being a statement win…
“It really doesn’t matter. We will continue to grind. We have a goal and that goal is not finished yet. So far, it is nice to be undefeated in league but we still have some tough teams on our schedule. We still have to prepare and play our best every single week. That is the way our players work and that is the way we coach them and the way we will continue to coach them. They can get confidence from this but we keep them pretty grounded. What gets it done is taking care of the details and taking care of the small things. The big things will take care of themselves if we just continue to practice hard, take care of the football, cause turnovers, tackle well and all of the things that go into a football game. I think we only had two penalties tonight, which is great. We had one turnover, so that is a little bit better there. Third downs, we still need to improve on third downs. There is a lot of room for improvement for us.”
On Forrester for next week…
“Well he got ejected, so he probably will be out for next game which is unfortunate. It is a learning experience for sure. Everybody learns from that. I feel bad for him, but we can’t do that. It is unacceptable and we don’t play that way. Again, it was getting pretty chippy in there but we have to be better than that.”
On the offense’s physicality…
“The offensive line was playing pretty well. New Mexico is a tough team to run the ball against because they stack the box. We took some shots early to get over the top of them because they had nine guys at the line of scrimmage. We hit a couple of big balls on them and then they started going with a single-high defense. We still need to run the ball and we need to run the ball better. It is not because our offensive line isn’t playing physical enough, that is a good team. New Mexico does a good job, they are top three or four in the conference in rushing defense, they are very aggressive and they are a good team and we knew that going in to this game. I thought we made some big plays when we needed to in the first half that allowed us to be able to run the ball.”
Marcus McMaryion, QB
On being undefeated in the Mountain West…….
“It’s good we are undefeated, but we’re just trying to go 1-0 every week. That’s the goal.”
On throwing the ball downfield…….
“I will keep preaching it every week. Those guys are just going out there and making plays and making my job 100 times easier. I just have to put the ball in the right spot and those guys will go make plays for me.”
On taking a step forward this week…….
“You’re going to have some good games like today and some that are mediocre where you kind of just manage the game like at San Jose State. You have to learn from it. I had a good game stats wise, but there’s definitely some things I’m beating myself up about that I wish I could have back. So I just have to learn and grow from each and every game.”
On being able to play a full game on offense…….
“That was kind of the challenge. The coaches came out in the second half and they were challenging us in the locker room to put together a full game. In the first half we always come out strong, so it’s good we were able to put up some points in the second half as well.”
On next week’s matchup against San Diego State…….
“We respect every team the same. San Diego State or whoever we’re playing, we’re going to respect the team but we’re not going to put any team on a pedestal and praise them like they’re something bigger than they are. We’re going to respect them. They’re a great football team, we’re a great football team, so we’re going to prepare the same like we do every week.”
On having the entire playbook at his disposal…….
“The coaches are really giving me the freedom to check any play that I want. If I don’t like what I see, I can check a pass, check a run. It’s nice for them to have complete trust in me and my ability to make a call out there if I see something I like.”
On the 57 yard run play…….
“It was just a great check from upstairs. They saw what they liked. We talked about it all week and Coach DeBoer made a great call. The guys executed well and I was able to go out there and make a play.”
On throwing the ball deep to KeeSean…….
“Guys are going to make plays for me. If I see 1-on-1 coverage, I trust my guys enough to give them a 50-50 ball. Nine times out of 10 I have faith in them that they’ll make the play for me.”
On the crowd at Bulldog Stadium…….
“As long as we keep winning, hopefully the fans will keep rolling in. Like I said, we’re going to take it one week at a time. We went 1-0 this week and we want to go 1-0 next week. Hopefully, rolling in and we can fill this thing up and get it rocking.”
Mike Bell, S
On what he liked more, fumble recovery or interception…
“I don’t know, I could have returned both of them for more yards, but I would say the interception. I haven’t had an interception since pop warner.”
On how good the team is playing right now…
“I think we’re playing wonderful. I think we’re playing a sound defense. On defense and offense we are doing our job. On defense, everybody knows their assignments and is focused on their assignments. I have to give it to the offense because they are playing lights out right now, my quarterback is playing lights out right now. I like what we’re doing on the field. I like that we’re connecting on all cylinders right now.”
On keeping the shutout when New Mexico had 4th and goal. . .
“I wanted it bad, I haven’t had a donut in a while. When we were on the goal line, we were going to see what our team was made of and it showed. It also showed how much it meant to us to keep it zero and get the shutout.”
On getting their second shutout of the season…
“I think it was meant to happen, we put in a lot of work during the off season. We worked a lot with the training staff and with the coaching staff, they did a wonderful job getting us prepared for this season. We knew that coming into this season that we were going to be a problem for our opponents’ offense, and I think we’re doing great right now.”
On if their goals are changing because of how well the season is going so far…
“No, we’ve had the same goals all year. We want to win the Mountain West with academic excellence, that has been our goal since Coach Tedford’s first day. He has been preaching that and throughout the whole season, so it’s pretty much the same goals.”
On the defense improving...
“I think we just have a lot of trust in each other right now. Our team trusts each other a lot more and is meshing a lot more than we ever have. I think we are playing for one another right now, we love each other out there and we know we have each other’s back.”
“We are running to the ball wonderfully, everybody knows their assignments. No one tries to step in anyone else’s lane, so I think that’s the main reason why we have been doing so good on defense right now.”
On coming in thinking there was going to be a shutout...
“Anytime you face an option team they are going to break a couple, but we limited them. once we got to half time it kind of felt like we can do this and when we got to the fourth quarter and we saw the fourth down and three that’s when I knew if we did this it was going to be a good game and that is what ended up happening.”
On fun in locker room right now...
“We are having a ball right now. I love all the guys that we have in the locker room right I love all the staff everybody has been doing a great job , it’s a fun atmosphere right now, it’s a lot more lively up here now.”
On what it meant to him to have such a good game…
“I come into every game looking to have a great game it’s just playing at homecoming in front of a bigger stage and doing it in front of more people and alumni so it was pretty cool.”
Juju Hughes, S
On the 4th and 3 stop for the shutout…
“We wanted it. We work hard, the coaches coach us hard. It was a big deal to us. We wanted to get off the field. We don’t like to give anything up. They were in the red zone a lot tonight and we have a thing where we want to go over 50 percent in the red zone. That was our one trip down there, so if we give that up, it’s 100 percent for them. It meant a lot to us.”
On holding two teams to zero points……..
“It’s a big deal and you see the culture change. This team is hungry and this team wants to play. This team wants to win. We all play for each other and play together. I feel like everybody can see that right now.”
On the defense’s overall performance…….
“We’re playing for each other. It’s all heart out there right now. We love to fly around and play this game. You see everybody go just a little harder for each other. We all want to win and we are all going to play to win for each other.”
On what homecoming means to him, coming from the Valley…….
“It’s special. Everybody gets to come back, come out and support. It’s a big deal for the school and the alumni. That’s the biggest part is the alumni coming back. They want to see Bulldog football how it was. I feel like that we showed them that we’re back and here to play.”
On the former players coming out tonight……
“It’s a respect thing. There’s a lot of good teams that have played here in the past. So to have guys come back here and be here for the game, you want to step up and show them that Bulldog football is the same it’s always been. It’s a big deal for us.”
On defending the triple option……..
“It was about discipline. You have to do your part and everyone has their part in the option defense. You just have to perform your role, stay consistent and run to the ball.”
On how the offense creating a big lead affects the defense…..
“It’s a momentum builder for us. It helps us out and gets us excited. We get to see the offense do well. We play against those guys every single day. So seeing them play well give us more energy and gets us more excited. We want to go out there and stop the other team’s offense.”
On if a shutout was possible coming into the game…….
“It’s always a mindset and a goal. Every week you play to win the game. You want to give the other team zero points. There’s always the thought there. I didn’t even notice it until the fourth quarter. When they started to cross midfield a lot, it started to cross my mind.”
On how the defensive scheme is giving opposing offenses problems…….
“Along with the scheme, it’s our guys too. We have a lot of guys that love football and love each other. Everybody wants to play for each other out there. We like to mix it up with the scheme and we do a lot of different things. It’s always a question mark as to what we are going to do against opposing offenses.”
On if the secret’s out on Fresno State…….
“I feel like people aren’t going to doubt us as much. People know we’re here, we’re hungry, we want to play and we want to win. We’re going to play for each other and people know we’re going to play hard and fight until the end.”
Jamire Jordan, WR
On his performance tonight…
“I had a decent day, I had a couple that I want to take back but I mean you can’t catch them all.”
On the team as a whole…
“I believe in the guys that are out on the field. I have total faith in the guys on the offense and the defense I know these guys are going to give everything they got for me and I do the same for them.”
On the emotions of the game…
“For me, I’m always excited. I see the lights, I see the fans and I’m ready to go out there and give it all for my teammates.”
New Mexico Head Coach Bob Davie
On the game…
“They had a 75-yard catch, 70-yard catch and they had a 52-yards on a third and long. They started the game with big plays, really big plays. In the second half, we went for one and its make it and they capitalized on that for another touchdown. We caved a little bit after they started running up the score. We just couldn’t get our offense going throughout the entire game. They ran 4-3-hip cover 4 tonight. We’ve seen a lot of 4-3-hip cover 4s this year, but Fresno State was really quick and we couldn’t run it. Overall, we gave up big plays on defense and couldn’t run the ball on offense.”
On playing two quarterbacks…
“We came into the game knowing both quarterbacks were going to play tonight. It was made obvious pretty early that we were going to have to throw the ball. We fell behind trying to run, so it became a passing game for us. I could of put Lamar Jordan back in or tried Coltin Gerhart, but we were getting worked. This wasn’t a game we were going to come back and win.”
On moving past this game…
“We are going to have to take of each other to move past this, that’s the only way to do it. We need to come back in tomorrow and work. We have Colorado State next week, and in my opinion they are the most talented team. Although, it is hard for me to say that after tonight’s game. This game was the first time in a long time that we’ve got beaten this badly. We didn’t see this coming. It was tough night all the way around, and we give them credit.”
Blaise Fountain, OL
“We win as a team, we lose as a team. This was a learning experience. We need to get in there tomorrow to watch this tape and get back to practice. We will move past this and get focused on Colorado State.”
Jake Rothschiller, S
On the game…
“I feel like we beat ourselves tonight. We need to come together as a team now. We knew they had good playmakers, and tonight they showed what they were capable of doing. We need to come together after this loss and get ready for Colorado State.”