Kennesaw State University Athletics

Gardner-Webb at Kennesaw State
Post-Game Quotes
Oct. 17, 2015
Fifth Third Bank Stadium

Head Coach Brian Bohannon

Opening statements:
“Shoot great man, what a great win. Holy cow, I’m just going to get going. I’m going to say this; first of all, I couldn’t be more happy of our football team.  You’re talking about a young football team, playing the first conference game, playing the team that just  upset the number 15 team in the country, defending big south champion and our kids go, fight tooth and nail. It wasn’t pretty all the time, it wasn’t perfect. But man, you talk about find a way to win when your backs against the wall, I just can’t say enough good things about the way our kids responded.”

“I mean we’ve had two games like this at home and we found a way, somehow, someway to make a play. Defensively, I mean shoot they had like 66 yards I think after three quarters. Man it was pretty much shut down central.  Offensively, we held the ball for about 38 minutes , we just count put it in the end zone when we needed to and I think if we could of done that a few times we were going to be forming an offense, we were going to be done with this. But we just couldn’t stick it in, and we couldn’t complete some pass plays that we’ve done in the past.”

“All of that aside, we won a game.  And for a young program, this is huge.  It’s huge, at home in the first conference game to find a way to win. And like I said, I couldn’t be more proud of our team, our coaches, Coach Newberry on defense, Coach Chesnut, both of those staffs, everybody involved. We found a way to win.“

On the intent of running the clock to give the defense rest:
“There was no intent of anything; we were facing the front seven that was just, I mean it was men against boys. When you have to grind out some short yardage plays and move the chains a little bit, we struggled with that a little bit and we couldn’t get off schedule. In the first half, you got two false starts, you got a blocking below the waist, and you get set back and we just struggle over coming that if we can’t get a pass play or one of our guys outside. You know, we struggle with that a little bit at times that we didn’t throw the ball as good as we have maybe a week ago.  You know, just as far as pitching and catching, we threw it; we just didn’t pitch and catch as well.  I mean we go right in before half and Sumpter as good of a player as he is, we had him on the post route. I mean we had some stuff, we just didn’t do it. The intent really wasn’t really to go in to, let’s go win the time possession. The intent was to try to go in a score every time we got the ball. Whatever they gave us, we would work off of that. Now I knew that if we could get ahead two scores in the second half, we were going to wear the clock out because I knew that our defense could stop it. And down there, you know, we are trying to decide what to do, do you go for it; you know what I mean, half a yard. Let’s go put this thing away. So we called a timeout to get exactly what we wanted done and then we did a poor job and mismanaged the 25 second clock and got back out and had to waste another one. Then we jumped off sides and part of that was on us, part of that was on me. We mismanaged that second one, the first one we tries to make sure we had the right one in. Fortunately we made a field goal and it was pretty big. But yeah, the intent wasn’t really to go in and possess the ball, it just turned out that way. “
 
On the difference between the defense in the first three quarters and the final quarter:
“I think, you know, sometimes you get in that mode a little bit and they just find a way to make some plays , I don’t think that it was anything different than what they were doing. They found a way, and to hit that one pass. I forget who it was, there was one guy in front, he kind of fell, the all just kind of landed right in between down there about the five or six yard line. And their quarterback is a good player, he finds a way to scramble around and make some plays. And that’s what he did last Saturday when they won. I don’t think it was necessarily anything different, it was just a little different situation, it’s more of a one minute situation and they just made a few plays to get down there.“

On the sense of urgency when the score was 9 to 7:
Yeah, I mean we were trying, guys I can promise you that we were trying every way we could to get that ball down into the end zone. The field goals really weren’t our mind set.  We were trying to get the ball in the end zone because you felt like if you could get up two scores, you felt like you were in pretty good shape to go. It’s kind of where it was almost like the Shorter game a little bit where you’re trying to decide what, you going to go for it, kick a field go, you know what I mean. Because we are down there a good bit, we just couldn’t, but luckily we made enough field goals to win.”

On what was going through Bohannon’s head on the pass to Sumpter:
Actually, Coach Chesnut made the call and did a great job. Because actually the corner, if you watch the beginning, he fired in the back field and then turned around and took off after Sumpter. And the safety just kind of hung and reacted late. You all have watched us, we’ve got to be able to hit some plays in the pass game or get the ball in the perimeter. We couldn’t really get the ball in the perimeter today. And that is a credit to their defense, we tried in every way that we could, but you know getting the ball pitched, getting the ball to Darnel Holland and Jay Bowen, and those guys that have hit a bunch of big plays for us, we couldn’t get it out there today. We tried every way that we could, drawing up stuff along the way. I thought they were pretty good on defense. So it was a big pass play, I would have like it if we could have taken it in and scored, but it was a big play in the game, a really big play.”

On how the two defensive backs did in the game:
In think that they both did fine, I knew that going in to this thing to be honest with you, we weren’t going to make a determination on anything today because I knew what they were facing. i don’t know how many snaps both played, I would venture to say that it was close to even. Jake may have played a few more.  We will continue to play both of them. I knew going into this, we made the move to give us the best chance, but I think we knew it was going to be tough sledding inside with those guys. They’re a good football team. They’re front 7 to everything and then some, as you’ve seen, that presents some problems for us.

On the pressure the defense has with such a close score:
Yeah, I think that there’s some pressure, but think that our kids just go play. I think that’s the resiliency you have in this football team. They line up and go play and do what they do. I don’t know how much our kids feel the pressure, I know I do and I’m sure all the other coaches do. Our kids know the situation and they’re aware of it but we have put some pressure on them and the defense has done a nice job. They made plays when they had to make them.  As a football team, we are going to have to use very available resource as we go down this stretch to find ways to compete and give ourselves a chance to win ball games,  Its going to be a lot of this from here on out to be honest with you.

On the importance of getting the first conference win:
It’s a big deal. We talked a lot about it, I’ve tried to keep the kids quiet about it the last two or three weeks because they like to get ahead of themselves sometimes. It’s a big deal. It’s a big deal for our program.  When you talk about laying the foundation, you talk about stuff you can build on. We won the first conference game, the first conference game ever. You know what I mean? It a big deal, there aren’t two ways about it.  We are playing some men out there guys, I don’t know if you all noticed, there were some juniors and seniors out there that were some big guys that played a little more football than our guys have. And for our guys to go compete like they did, you couldn’t ask for much more. 


Player Quotes

Trey White
Trey, there were only seven, eight guys in the box. Talk about what you saw and how you evaluate your performance against what they showed you defensively?
“Yeah, you know, we came in knowing what they were going to present us. They changed a couple of things up, but I thought our game playing going into this game was great. This was one of those games that we had to grind it out and we really had to kind of show this was our coming out party, it felt like. We put a couple drives together; we didn’t punch it in the end zone, but we did enough to win and I am just so proud to be a part of this team. Our defense played one heck of a game, special team obviously got us some points, but I thought our O Line played their tails off and I am just proud to be a part of it.”

How important was the time of possession? (Trey had the ball close to 40 minutes while Gardner-Web had it for 20)
“Well as coach says, ‘it’s worked for 20 years.’ (Room laughs). Look, hey, we just followed the game plan; we executed a lot better today than some games past. I felt like this was a lot more of a team win. Obviously the defense stepped up big time, but special teams and offense played well. Hey, that’s part of this offense, time possessions are a huge thing and I don’t know the yards either, but I bet we had the total offense was probably more too. Yeah, time possession is huge.”

How much pressure was on you after they scored to go make some plays, move the ball down field and I guess get that field goal?
“I guess there was some pressure, but I mean we as an offense, especially coming out after the second half, that first drive, I think we went three and out. We made some dumb mistakes on those couple of plays. We kind of regrouped and said let’s just put a drive together and I don’t know how many plays that drive was that ended the third. (Al informs Trey it was 19 plays). That’s awesome; I think that kind of just shows you the grid of our guys. It makes it a lot easier on me when I got guys fighting for me and I’m fighting for them, so again, another total team win. Our defense stepped up huge!”

Dez Billingslea
Coach said earlier that it was men against boys in terms of size and experience. Did you guys feel that way when you guys were out there?
“Not really, at the end of the day it is just football. They put our pants on just like we put our pants on, they bleed how we bleed and they prepare just how we prepare. We feel like we prepare pretty good throughout the week, and this morning we talked about it in the meeting, it’s just another football game. Go out there and have fun, and just do what we’ve been doing these past couple of week; just playing hard, playing fast and the game turn out the way we want it to turn out. We didn’t get that men versus boys feel.”

Nick Perrotta
Nick, you’ve got two receptions on two passes. When are they going to move you to offense and second, were you where you were supposed to be on that goal line stand?
“Yeah, Coach Newberry made the same called towards the end of the game there a couple of times in a row that put me in a spot to just read the quarterback, drop kind of in the coverage. I guess I’ve been wearing the wrong jersey because like ETSU they kept throwing the ball to me. Just like at ETSU he threw it right to me and luckily Coach Newberry put us in the right call to be in the position to make a play.

What’s the pressure like when one mistake can lose the game at any point?
“I think it goes back to falling back on our practice habits and what we do throughout the week to prepare for a game and what we’ve done over the last year preparing for this season. Our coaches put us in all kinds of different pressure situations. Always at the end of practice, we have some kind of O versus D, game is on the line situation or third and seven or goal line. I think putting us in those situations day in and day out has given us a little bit of an edge to be kind of calm and collective in the moment to be able to play defense well.”

Were you supposed to drop it in coverage or were you suppose to just contain him from running up the middle or both?
“Well drop into coverage, it was about five yards deep.”

Where would you rank that versus the ETSU interception?
(Trey and Dez tell him to take that one and room laughs)
“As far as individual statistics, it’s not a huge part of why I play football. I do it for the comradery and the brotherhood we have here. To be able to help the team win today, and I felt like I didn’t play as best I could throughout the rest of the game, but to be able to make a play at the end and help the team get a win was definitely an exciting moment.”

Justin Sumpter
Justin can you go to that long pass late in the fourth quarter, the 30 something yarder from Trey and what you saw?
“We had been seeing that the post was open on them the whole game and they were double supporting on the pitch action, so coach, he drew up a play, non-post and I saw the guy shoot down and I tried to climb on top of him as soon as I could. Trey just put it in a great spot; we just connected on it and made a big play.”

Speaking of that confidence wise, how does it help you guys as this season has progressed that you actually won all of these first? First road game, first home game, first conference game and these close games? How does it help you guys so when you do get in these close situations you’ll perform the way you do?
“Total confidence booster, we keep having firsts come up and we aren’t really sure how we are going to respond and to be able to have it go our way each time has been huge for this program and hopefully continues to keep going our way.”

Trey White and Dez Billingslea
Coach talked about the significance of winning the first conference game ever for the university. Can you talk about what it feels like not just today but going forward in the rest of the schedule?

Dez : “As far as today, of course it is exciting and it’s something we can kind of build on, but as far as for the future, like I said you kind of just have to build on it and keep doing what we are doing now. We can’t change anything, we have to keep practicing the same and keep preparing the same, have the same mentality every game. It’s the first conference game, but it’s also just another football game. We won our first conference game, but we have to continue to win and that’s really all that matters at the end of the day is how you respond after your first conference game. Are we going to dwell on it and live in the past or next week are we going to go and have another good game and continue to build on and continue to do the same thing we are doing and not get complacent.”
Trey: “Win or lose going into this game, our mentality as a team is we have to just build, but it is a lot easier to build with a win.”