POSTGAME QUOTES | USC USC Vs. Texas LA Memorial Coliseum ! Los Angeles, Calif
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USC SPORTS INFORMATION OFFICE • HERITAGE HALL• LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90089-0601 TELEPHONE: (213) 740-8480 • FAX: (213) 740-7584 • WEB: USCTROJANS.COM POSTGAME QUOTES | USC USC vs. Texas LA Memorial Coliseum ! Los Angeles, Calif. Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017 HEAD COACH CLAY HELTON Opening Statement “Glory to God and bunch of great kids who just refused to quit tonight or give up and just kept on fighting. Credit to coach Herman, I have respect for him and Texas. I’m so glad we caught them early in the season because that team is going to be really, really good. They’re doing some great things and that team will continue to grow. They’ll be a pain in the butt next year when we play them again. A great coach and great squad we played tonight. Credit to our defense, I think for about three and a half quarters played phenomenal, helped us when the offense was struggling keeping us in the game and keeping us ahead. they down the stretch by Sam (Darnold) and Deontay (Burnett), I don’t think I’ll ever forget in my life, the best 2m in drive I’ve ever been associated with. Having to go that far in that little of time, you hope for perfect execution and that’s what you got. The guys were poised, guys that had practice that situation a million times, they knew exactly what to do. So proud of them that when the lights were the brightest they executed. Again, the young man there doesn’t play like a freshman. He was asked to do a job not once but twice. Once to send us overtime and then the second time to end the game. What an unbelievable job by Chase (McGrath).” On how a game like this gets you ready for the road: “Having done it for a long time, I always feel like you’re going to have one of these games when you’re trying to win a championship, where you have to dig down deep and find a way to win. Credit this team, whether it was coming up with a big play before the half, a two-minute situation, that doesn’t happen all the time to be able to go that far with no timeouts, and then defensively to find a way to get the ball out and put us in a situation to kick a field goal. That’s what great teams do, they’re going to have one of these games and they find a way to win. I’m proud of our kids and proud of our coaches for staying poised and keeping fighting.” On missed opportunities early: “It started for me over the summer. This was one of the most fearful games on the schedule because I knew the personnel and Coach Herman. He is fearless, whether it’s a fake punt or a trick play, he’s an attacking and aggressive type of coach. I thought we were poor in the red zone tonight. I always trust our kids in the red zone, and we just didn’t convert. If there was one glaring negative in this it was our red zone efficiency.” On Helton’s aggressiveness as a coach: “I told myself, going into the game, and I guessed wrong. Looking at a Texas team that scores 48 points per game and we’re sitting at 45 points a game. I thought it would be a high-scoring affair and I didn’t think field goals would be good enough.” On when he realized it was going to be one of “those games”: “I started feeling it in the second quarter when we missed a couple red zone chances and it was a tight ball game. I had a gut feeling going in that it would be a 60 min fight. That team is going to be a very, very good team by the end of the season. That staff is too good. Credit to our kids to keep fighting.” On if this game stands on its own after the 2006 meeting: “We knew it was important to our fan base, but it was 12 years ago. To a lot of these kids they were just 6 years old. It was more important for us, for our season. You talked about starting fast in the month of September, and now we look up — 1-0 this week we’re 3-0 and we put ourselves a lot better off than where we started last season. Now the challenge is getting ready to go on the road. I’m proud of where we are right now. There’s going to be days like this. You have to fight to win games.” On what to improve on for next week: “It’s such a team game and you show up and offensively we’re struggling and defense was lights out for three and a half quarters, it was phenomenal football by them. Both teams really stopped the run. They came to stop the run. Credit to Sam (Ehlinger), the amount of times he created and kept plays alive, a great competitor for Texas. And credit to our Sam who found way to win a ballgame that wasn’t always pretty.” USC SPORTS INFORMATION OFFICE • HERITAGE HALL• LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90089-0601 TELEPHONE: (213) 740-8480 • FAX: (213) 740-7584 • WEB: USCTROJANS.COM On how exhausting this game was: “I thought this was going to be as mentally tough a game as it was physical coming off a physical Stanford win and an emotional game like this. Credit to our kids, they were mentally tough, they fought their way through and found a way to win a really important ball game for our season.” SAM DARNOLD, QB On how big this win is: “It’s a win. I don’t know where it ranks. It’s good to get a great win against such a great Texas team. We gave it all we had and they gave it all they had. It was a great win for our guys. We learned a lot of things about our offense — good things we got to figure out and learn from them.” On the mindset going into the last drive: “Just trying to get first down after first down, that was my mindset. I knew they’d play conservative as a defense, so I knew I’d be able to find the holes and have some time doing it and if they did bring pressure then they’d be that much more open. Credit to our O-line in that situation for playing great ball. It’s just such a great win for our team and for our offense it showed a lot.” On his growth and confidence under pressure: “Just being comfortable in those situations because we practice it so much. That’s where it stems from. Every situation you could possibly think of, we’ve practiced that. It’s awesome when you practice it so much and then you go out and execute it. It’s a good feeling.” CHASE McGRATH, PK On which kick gave him the most nerves: “Really they didn’t kick in that much on either of them. They were both the same kick to me. I treat every kick the same.” On the reaction to his winning kick: “I just remember just getting swarmed by everyone on the team. It’s such a brotherhood here. I came here a couple months ago and already feel like a part of the team tonight and they feel like brothers to me.” UCHENNA NWOSU, OLB On what he saw from the Texas quarterback tonight: “He’s a great QB, he’s a great player, very athletic. The calm that he had, able to play under pressure and get his team going and not affected by things. It’s like what you see in Sam, being able to make a play and look to the sideline, get the next play and continue on, not paying attention to the crowd. He’s a very good athlete and total respect to him.” On what he said to the defense when the offense was struggling: “We just communicated that we’re all in brotherhood, we’re all in this together. Anything the offense does we feed off of. We knew we couldn’t let them down. We practiced hard all week. We just had to play for each other.” Texas Quotes Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Sept. 16, 2017 Texas Coach Tom Herman “Pretty heartBreaking loss to play with that much passion, energy and commitment and love for the guy next to you. It’s amazing how many mistakes you can overcome with attitude and with effort. We made our fair share. We turned it over 4 times and had issues with the snap and a couple costly calls. There were Big time momentum swings But our guys kept fighting. There are no moral victories in college footBall. They don’t put a loss in parentheses (yea they played really hard). It doesn’t happen. You lost. But if we can’t hold our head high and learn from all of the good that came from this game, to go into the No. 4 team in country and Be up By 3 with 30 seconds left, after everything that happened poorly, to Be in a position to win, I think that says a lot aBout how far we’ve grown up as a team in the last two weeks. We wanted to win.