2008 POSTGAME NOTES GAME 6
Kentucky at Mississippi State MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY Saturday, Noveber 1, 2008 Davis Wade Stadium at Scott Field FOOTBALL Starkville, Miss.
Attendance: 40,168
TEAM
• Today’s captains were Dominic Douglas, K.J. Wright, and Craig Jenkins. • With the loss, Mississippi State fell to 15-21 all-time against Kentucky. • MSU leads Kentucky 9-6 all-time in games played in Starkville. • Jasper O’Quinn’s fi rst-quarter sack was the Bulldog’s 13th sack of the season, and the fi rst by a Mississippi State cornerback since Kevin Dockery recorded one against Florida in 2005. • Mississippi State’s fourth-quarter PAT miss was its fi rst unsuccessful PAT since missing one against UAB in 2007.
INDIVIDUAL
• Jasper O’Quinn recorded his fi rst career sack on the Bulldog’s fi rst defensive play of the game. • Tyson Lee’s fi rst-quarter 29-yard strike to Brandon McRae was the longest touchdown pass of his career. • Lee’s 261 yards through the air were the most by a MSU quarterback since Wesley Carroll threw for 421 last season against Arkansas. • Brandon McRae’s fi rst-quarter touchdown reception was the third of his career. • Arceto’s Clark’s 19-yard fi rst-quarter rush was the longest of his career. He also had two receptions which were the fi rst catches of his career. • Blake McAdams’ fi rst-quarter punt of 72 yards was the longest of the season and the second longest of his career (73 vs. Auburn, 9/15/07). The punt tied the tenth longest punt in State’s history. • Kyle Love recorded his second sack of the season in the fi rst quarter. • With his fi fth and sixth catches of the season, Brandon Henderson hauled in a 25-yard pass from Tyson Lee and a 20-yard reception for the two longest catch of his career. • Arnil Stallworth recorded a career high in receptions and reception yards with eight and 71 respectively. He also recorded his fi rst career receiving touchdown. • Dominic Douglas posted a career day with 15 tackles, a career high, as well has recording his fi rst career interception. • On the last play of the third quarter, Cortez McCraney forced his fi rst career fumble and then recovered the ball for his third career recovery. • Tyson Lee’s 261 yards passing and two touchdown passes were both career highs.
CAREER UPDATES
• Blake McAdams punted six times for 276 yards and now sits in third place all-time in SEC history with 267 career punts. McAdams also moved into third place on the SEC charts in punting yardage as he now has 10,528 career punting yards. Mississippi State Head Coach Sylvester Croom Mississippi State vs. Kentucky November 1, 2008
Opening Comments… “First I would like to congratulate Coach (Rich) Brooks and Kentucky on today. Basically, they found a way to win and we didn’t, and that is the bottom line.”
On the missed extra point… “I will have to look at it on film. From where I stood I could not see what exactly had happened. I knew they were going to try and get a push and get that high jumper in there. You are suppose to give that one second delay before you hit the snapper and that was my question that I had to the official. But, we knew we had to get the ball up and we did not do a good job of that.”
On missed opportunities… “A missed extra point and a missed field goal in close ballgame like we were just a part of are unacceptable.”
On the offensive play… “We were moving the ball well. Had a few missed opportunities but we still played well. We had Aubrey (Bell) opened early in the game and I am not sure if Tyson (Lee) saw him. I thought Brandon Henderson played an excellent game, he actually played hurt. He has really grown up this year and I have been very pleased with his performance of late. Henderson and (Arnil) Stallworth are two guys that have made a lot of improvement over the year and helped us out tremendously.”
On Anthony Dixon’s performance… “I thought he played well for the carries he had. He ran hard and ran down hill. He went up against an excellent defensive front and they were keying in on him which opened up the pass for us today.”
On the defensive penalties in the second half… “Those were very tough to overcome. The one called on (Derek) Pegues was one that was debatable. I thought the ball was uncatchable from what I saw on the new jumbo-tron he gave him a little tug but the ball was thrown high. I am not disputing the call it is just a different opinion.”
On close losses… “When we look at the film in games like these, you can always find eight or 10 plays in which we make the play we win the ballgame. We can name a couple right now, we make the field goal we win the game. We make the extra point things change. We get off the field on the opening drive of the second half things are different. That is what close games are all about, making plays in critical moments, and we did not do that and they did.”
On Kentucky’s scoring drives… “The difference on those drives were they ran the ball on us. It was not anything they did passing and we had sound coverage throughout the day, they just decided they were going to run right at us on that drive and that is what is disappointing.”
On the rushing game… “They piled the line of scrimmage which opened up our passing game. We had to adjust to how their defense was playing us, but when we did run the football we were effective to the most part. Mississippi State Player Quotes Mississippi State vs. Kentucky November 1, 2008
DB Jasper O’Quinn
On Kentucky changing quarterbacks often… “When Cobb was in, they tried to spread us out and get us in the open field so he can make plays. He’s a great playmaker. He’s a freshman, but he’s a great playmaker. So they wanted to spread us out and get him the ball and let him make plays. Hartline’s the thrower. Cobb makes plays with his feet, but when the other player (Hartline) is in, he likes to throw the ball down the field and get something going through the air. We knew when Cobb was in the game we had to be aware of the run and the throw. People sometimes overlook the fact he can throw the ball. It was tough with both of them. They did a great job.”
On the loss… “It was tough. But like coach said, we have to keep faith, keep fighting. It’s the sprit of the team. We’ve had ups and downs all year, bad things happen but we always seem to have faith in god and believe in each other and come out each week and fight. It seems like we’re going to be down, but we find a way to come back and fight.”
On leaving a win on the field… “We didn’t make the plays we needed to make. We had opportunities to make big plays and we just didn’t do it. All in all, it was a good effort, offense and defense.”
LB Dominic Douglas
On Randall Cobb’s performance… “He’s a freshmen. I give him credit. He’s a good quarterback. He’s got a lot of years of maturity. He’s a good player for them, and he came up with big plays for them.”
On the upcoming bye week… “We’re getting ready for the road contest at Alabama. The weekend off is going to be good for us. It will give us time to rest and get our bodies to top level where they need to be. They’re number one or number 2 in the nation, so we need this off week to get our bodies in a position to come out in two weeks and play top notch football.”
WR Brandon McRae
On the game… “I don’t know what it was. They had a good defensive plan and they executed very well. They stopped us, and I guess we didn’t do enough on offense.”
On moving the ball well but only coming up with 13 points… “I can’t really say. We just didn’t put enough points on the board.”
On the blocked extra point… “It hurts. It’s like a punch to the gut. It hurts really bad. We lost a lot of momentum. We just didn’t capitalize.”
On the early missed opportunities… “I have to look at the film and see what we did wrong. I can’t really pinpoint what it was.”
On the passing game… “I don’t know what Tyson did but he was throwing the ball real well today.” Kentucky Head Coach Rich Brooks Quotes Mississippi State vs. Kentucky November 1, 2008
Opening Comments… “The first half was a struggle for us offensively. I was proud of the way that the team came out in the third quarter and took charge of the game. It looked like we were in pretty good shape and then we turned the ball over a couple of times and let them come down and make plays. The kicking game came up big and it also bit us a little bit today. We blocked the extra point which was obviously huge and we got pretty good pressure on the field goal that they missed. Unfortunately we jumped offside’s when we had them in a punting situation and gave them that first down. I think that there were a lot of things that we can build off in this game. The one thing that I am very proud of from this team is the effort, guts, and the determination that it takes to find a way to win on the road in this league which is tough. I have got to give Mississippi State credit they did a good job of changing formations on us and giving us problems in coverage, getting some receivers open. I was pleased overall with our run defense and I was pleased with the way that we ran the ball in the second half.”
On becoming bowl-eligible… “Getting our sixth win doesn’t mean that we are necessarily in a bowl. In my mind the only way you assure yourself of that is winning seven, maybe eight, but getting that sixth win puts us closer to doing some better things and it’s always tough to win on the road but now we go home for two games in a row. So we need to improve on what we are doing, we made too many mistakes, but the good thing is we did enough to win the game.”
On Randall Cobb… “I thought he handled everything better but what made it easier is that we r ran the ball better. He got on the edge himself and the backs were able to get yards off of that read play which was huge for use. It is a lot better when you are in second and five, second and two, or second and one, than it is when you are second and 10. I was pleased with the way that the line and the backs responded. I thought Tony Dixon had a very good game and made some key runs for us and I was just pleased overall with the way that the offense responded for us in the third quarter.”
On his half-time talk… “I talked to them about how we had 30 minutes to take care of business and to do some things that hadn’t been done around here in about half of a century. We had 30 minutes to get back into this thing and take charge of it.” Kentucky Player Quotes Mississippi State vs. Kentucky November 1, 2008
DT Corey Peters
On being bowl eligible… “It’s terrific. I mean, we have three more games to play well if we want to go to a better bowl than we have in years past. We had to win this one to do that.“
On stopping Dixon’s running game… “I think that was one of our main focus this week. Our run defense keeps slipping each week and that was our main focus this week, stopping Mississippi State.”
TE Maurice Grinter
On being bowl eligible… “It feels real good. Now, all we have to do is go out and try to get to the best possible bowl.”
On playing Mississippi State… “I just came in with the mindset that we got to go out there and play football. Mississippi State is a tough football team and they always play hard on defense. We came out here knowing that we needed this win and that we have to play football.”
QB Mike Hartline
On the overall game… I didn’t think it was a bad game. Both offenses and defenses played well for the most part. We were stepping up on third down, but overall I thought it was a dog fight the whole game and in any SEC game it’s going to come down to the 4th quarter.
On which bowl game you would like to go to… Any place that is warm. I would love to go to Tampa or Georgia and play in either one of those bowl games.