Fresno State Athletics
Fresno State-Air Force Postgame Quotes
Interim Head Coach Tim Skipper
On the game…
“I felt like we did a good job of maximizing possessions on offense in the first half, putting the ball in the end zone. On defense, we were bend not break on the long drives. Those long drives are typical of an Air Force offense. We were battling. In the second half, we couldn’t move the ball consistently like we were on offense. On defense, we didn’t stop the dive so they got those short yardage situations which is what they want and were able to convert most of those. If you’re not able to stop the dive, then their whole offense opens up. They knocked us off the ball and kept getting yards on contact. When you can’t stop the dive, it’s going to be a long night.”
“We had the lead after the first half, but you have to win the second half against these guys. We were only 45 minutes into the game at the two minute warning. It was a fast half because there was so much short yardage and we didn’t stop them. You knew it was going to be a see-saw battle like that. In the second half, they did a good job of maximizing the possessions by getting touchdowns and field goals and then they stopped us on offense and that was the difference in the game.”
On the defense’s performance…
“It comes back to the dive. As simple as that is, it’s how you stop an option offense. They knocked us off the ball so you have to give them credit. Then when we were on the ball, they were still knocking us back. You have to win in the trenches every game, but especially when you’re playing an offense like this.”
“You have to win short yardage to be able to get your defense off the field. If you’re able to stop the dive then it becomes more of a speed option game, and that’s what you want to get to and we never got to that.”
On the early success on offense…
“In the first half we were able to throw the ball, I thought Mikey was seeing the coverages pretty well. The receivers were making plays, like we thought we could. We thought we’d be able to get to the perimeter on them and throw some shots, and we did. It slowed down in the second half for whatever reason. They started giving us more pressure and mixed up their coverages more than they did in the first half. They were able to slow us down just enough so that we weren’t able to maximize possessions then their offense hauled the ball.”
The message to the fans…
We didn’t do what we needed to do tonight, but we are going to get better during the bye week and come out and battle against a Colorado State team that’s a good team in Valley Children’s Stadium. We’ll be ready to play. It’s senior night, so we have to send those guys off on the right note. We’ll be ready to play.”