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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Postgame Quotes - Texas A&M
10/24/2015 | Football
Recap | Final Stats | Notes
Ole Miss Football Postgame Quotes
Ole Miss vs. Texas A&M
Vaught-Hemingway Stadium - Oxford, Miss.
Oct. 24 2015
Ole Miss Head Coach Hugh Freeze
Opening Statement…
"I'm extremely proud of our kids and coaches. During adversity in life you find out a lot about people, everyone, you find out who is really who. That is what we challenged our kids with this week. We said if you play out of love and passion for 60 minutes, then that will be good enough at the end of the day for us. We can look each other in the eyes and know we did it the way we were supposed to do it. Luckily the scoreboard validated that tonight, sometimes it doesn't, but tonight it did. I'm extremely proud of our coaches and our kids. They had a good game plan, special teams were really good. They had some good cats that I think we handled very well. We defended the run really well. We did not finish it as clean as we liked to. Chad had some big plays and some he could improve on. We just have to coach him better. Just extremely happy for our fans and our team."
On Laremy Tunsil's game and how he helped defend Miles Garrett…
"I haven't watched the film, and during the game I can't tell what exactly happens on every play. However, that was a great matchup of two quality players that are two of the best in the country, and he handled it very well. I can't tell exactly, but having him back and having everyone in their regular spot that we planned on having them at the start of the year helped our offense rush the ball against a defense that hasn't given up much this season except their previous game. I believe part of that being because of Laremy's return."
On the difference maker in the secondary's performance compared to last week…
"The preparation was a bit different. Your back's against the wall and you have the hear all the noise. There are people that criticize fairly or unfairly, and you have to handle that and go and fight. I think we practiced differently, maybe it was their focus, maybe we coached them better, but it's a combination of them all."
Ole Miss Student-Athletes
#10, C.J. Johnson, LB
On the game …
"One of the main things we tried to go back to this week was just having fun. We wanted to make sure everyone was having fun and playing loose. We also wanted to make sure we pay attention to detail. It goes to show that when we play with that kind of emotion and energy how good we are."
On playing fast…
"We also try to do that, even in conditioning. The last few weeks we haven't been playing as sharp as we had been as far as intensity and emotion. This week we wanted to get back to the basics of Ole Miss football. Play fast, play physical, play through the whistle, and play with passion, energy and love for your teammates.
On what caused recent performances…
"It was a combination of a lot of different things. A lot of people don't talk about how big of a grind it is to go through a long stretch like this. I don't know how many teams in the country play 10 straight games before a bye week. We got in the middle of the grind and the focus was lagging a little bit. Once everyone realized what we had at stake tonight showed we had to raise the bar a little bit."
#17 Evan Engram, TE
On his touchdown…
"We work on that play a lot. Just settling in the grass, and Chad zipped it in there and I just brought it in."
On breaking school record for receiving yards by a TE…
"It is a blessing and all glory goes to God, 100%. The people he has put me around in this great community is truly a blessing and an honor. So much talent especially at the TE spot has come through this university and I hope they approve of me taking the reins and holding the record."
On his role after the Memphis loss…
"It was tough to be honest. I was really shaken after last week, and it is important for me to set the tone every day. We have great leaders on the team and the coaching staff does a great job of getting us pumped. It is just holding my team accountable to being consistent, 100% effort on every play, every drill, every period, and every day. We have to win each and every day and we did that this week. I need to make sure my guys do not get comfortable at all, and we have to keep playing for each other. Forget what the media says, and it is a one game season each week."
Texas A&M Head Coach Kevin Sumlin
On the game…
"We couldn't move the ball, turnovers, penalties, we couldn't get off the field fast enough on defense in the first half. We did get opportunities we had at midfield or short field, but we weren't able to stay on the field and move the football."
On what needs to change…
"Its not just one position, its every position when you got things like this. We have to get our best people on the field, playing at a high level eliminating critical mistakes. Thirteen penalties, that's ridiculous. We will adjust that this week in practice."
On Armani Watts…
"Armani has been very solid this year. You look at all three of those safeties, Armani, Justin Evans, and Donovan Wilson have made play after play after play. Putting them up at the line of scrimmage, getting them deep, they have been very active, but Armani certainly showed up tonight."
Texas A&M Student-Athletes
#56, Mike Matthews, OL
On offensive struggles …
"It was not clicking. It was a bad performance on our part. We take full responsibility on that, the offensive line. We needed to get it started. We did not come out with our best game and the scoreboard shows that."
On team expectations …
"We always come out expecting to show our best game. Especially coming off of a loss in last week's game. We were confident in our game plan. It just did not go our way."
#95, Julien Obioha , DL
On the game and how the defense looked…
"We lost by a lot of points, so you could say a lot of things went wrong. I feel that we matched them up front. I feel we matched them in physicality. I think that is all we can ask our defensive line to do."
On what was said at halftime …
"I was just reiterating to the team that it was a two-possession game. I was also reiterating the fact that we came here in 2012 and 2013 and we were down by a lot in the fourth quarter and somehow pulled out the game. I was telling them we had plenty of time. It was only a two-possession game. Let's make something happen."
