Postgame Quotes: Wisconsin at Rutgers
November 02, 2014 | Football
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POSTGAME QUOTES
Wisconsin 37, Rutgers 0
High Point Solutions Stadium – Piscataway, N.J.
Nov. 1, 2014
HEAD COACH Gary Andersen
Opening statement: “Obviously a Big Ten road victory, this was big for us. For us to come in this environment and be able to walk out of here with a ‘W’, I’m very proud of the young men of the program. It’ll be a great plane ride home. All three phases affected the game in a very positive way, which was great to see - offense, defense, special teams. The special teams play by AJ Jordan on the blocked punt was a tremendous play and schemed up by the coaches and executed very well. That kind of flipped the game and gave us an opportunity to get the first points up there and keep moving forward. It was a great, great team victory. I’m proud of these kids.”
On the A.J. Jordan blocked punt giving Wisconsin momentum: “Yeah, no question. Those are momentum plays. It was definite boost. It flipped the field position. It was going back and forth. Maybe a first down here, a first down there and a punt on both sides for both teams. We were able to flip the field position drastically with a big play. I think we got the ball at 1st and 10 on the 20 yard line going in instead of inside our own 20. It was a big momentum boost and it changed the game.”
On getting the shutout: “It was great for the defense. The first team guys, the guys that had been in there playing the whole game, turned around and wanted to get that shutout. They were able to get it and the young guys answered the bell. It’s big in the growth of the youth for them to walk out in that moment, in that situation and be able to deliver and get off the field. Not just once, but a couple of times. It was great to see. It’s very rewarding as a defense to get a shutout. Last week (vs. Maryland), they didn’t get that, but they did this week. It’s always fun to play when you are at that high of level, which doesn’t happen very often.”
On the offense’s success on having a defense play well: “Playing great defense is very important. Playing great defense is also complimented by a lot of different things and not just on the defensive side of the football. It’s the kicking game. It’s the offense and how they are handling the ball. It’s the field position battle that you play. I get a lot of comments, and in a joking manner, I would say most of the time from the offensive guys saying ‘coach, why is play great defense first on the plan to win.’ It’s on there, there’s no real order to it. In playing great defense, I think out team knows there’s more to it. This defense has played lights out for the last couple of the weeks. The fundamentals that are taking place is great to see. We’ll keep going forward. I’m proud of our men and I’m proud of our team. They allowed the defense to play great defense. Again, a lot goes into it.
On Rutgers QB Gary Nova struggles and affecting the game: “The calls were very similar throughout the game. When we got into that situation, third down calls were a good mix. I thought (Coach) Dave (Aranda) did a tremendous job on the backend kids. There were some drop eight in there, we were bringing five, sometimes six. Sometimes there was rushing four with different angles. There was some cover two in there. Whatever quarterback was in the game, we would not have changed unless we needed to and we didn’t need to on this particular today.”
On the wind: “The wind, I don’t know how it looked up in the stands or looked like on TV, but the wind was a definite factor in throwing the ball for all the quarterbacks involved and obviously punting it. You saw the one kickoff. When we kicked deep into the wind and I thought it was going to land on about the 1- or 2-yard line and it dropped down on the 15- or 20-yard line. The wind was a factor. The Rugby kicks are what we wanted to do heading into the wind. I thought Bart (Houston) handled them and did a very good job. Drew (Meyer) came in, and his last one was a very good kick. It rolled down there nicely.
On the performance of running back Corey Clement: “I expect Corey to play well every week. He has continually grown as a running back and it was great for him to come home and have a homecoming and play like this. It’s something he’ll remember the rest of his life – going home, playing in a game and playing the way he did.”
On improvement of special teams: “I think in the bye week, we didn’t spend any more time practicing on it. We spent a lot of time on special teams. We played very, very well lately. I couldn’t put my exact finger on it to and say we did this to change it up to play on special teams. I give all the credit to the young men that are making the plays.”
On the blocked punt: “That was Coach (Bill) Busch and Coach (Jeff) Genyk. They get all the credit when it comes to the scheming on that. Bill’s in charge of that team every week and he has an opportunity to put together a couple of blocks for those kids. They executed it well in practice. It thought it was a great opportunity to call it and thought he would take a shot at it and it definitely worked. Then AJ (Jordan) executed it well. He came through and put his hand on the ball, which it’s one thing to drop a blocked punt or a punt that you’re trying to block and it’s another thing to put your hand on the football. It’s a very difficult thing to do. AJ executed it well. It’s great to see AJ make a play like that for this team.
On the run game: “Rutgers is a very well coached defensive front. You can watch them on film and they cause you a lot of different looks. Their pre-snap looks are not always what you think. What you make think is going to happen doesn’t always happen. There’s a lot of moving parts to it, similar to our defense in a lot of degrees. They tackle well at the point at attack. You are going to miss some guys. You are not always going to have those guys slanting and moving in there, blocking up perfectly every single snap and bang down the field. That happened and there was some give and take. We felt if we could get to the second level we would have some opportunities to potentially have some big play Forutnatley for us that happened. I’m impressed with Rutgers’ ability to play a lot of defense and how the kids reacted.”
On inconsistency in the pass game: “It’s a concern for those quarterbacks. They want to hit those balls down the field. There’s no question about it and we’ll continue to work on it. We hit a couple of them a week ago. No one is going to work harder at it than Joel (Stave) and Tanner (McEvoy) and our recievers and all the kids involved.”
On opponents’ focus to stop the run: “It’s hard when everyone expects you to break big runs. It gets a little bit more difficult, when the whole team’s game plan against you is around one person. Our offensive line is going to attack the attack men. They will slip on assignments eventually and when they do, we know we are going to make them pay.”
On the blocked punt: “It is all about momentum. That was a big momentum swinger. We just fed off of that.”
On the momentum of this win: “It is always a positive when you win the ball game. We didn’t play a clean game today, honestly. Not clean at all offensive-wise, but it is good to not play well offensively and still come out victorious. We have a lot to clean up, but we are going to take this win and this momentum to move forward to next week.”
On what needs improvement: “We need to focus on being sharper and more decisive. We just have to go watch film and see what I can do better and what we can do better as an offense.”
On moving forward: “We have to come out stronger than we did today. There was a lot of back and forth and we can’t have that. We were allowing [Rutgers] to stick around when we knew it wasn’t supposed to be a close game. I am happy we all clicked together and became one beat out there. The scoreboard showed for it.”
On the early struggle: “You have to faith every time you come out here and play the game. Coach Anderson gave us some positive pointers as to teams that aren’t supposed to be up with us. The way we practice, the way we prepare, our mindset is that no team should be up with us in any game. My thumbs go up to Rutgers. They are a great opponent, but I believe we were sound out there and the results show for it.”
On his success: “I played the game that I play. I can only give credit to my o-line. They did a great job, especially on the 43-yard touchdown. I saw everything shift up front and it opened up in my eyes. I give them all the credit.”
On the defense: “Give it to the defense. They gave us great field position and that is all we can ask for.”
QB Joel Stave
On capitalizing on the work of the defense: “You like to repay them for what the great job that they are doing and the best way to do that is by scoring points and scoring touchdowns. It is our job as an offense that when they get off the field and give us the ball back, we have to make sure that we are making something out of it. The defense the past couple of weeks have played tremendous and they put us in great positions. We just have to make sure that we are continuing to capitalize on that opportunity.”
On the team continuing to improve: “I think we can be a very good team. I think we did a good job this week playing off the momentum the defense gave us. They put us in good spots time and I think we did a good job playing off of that. If we can continue getting the offense going in the red zone, we have to make sure we are coming away with touchdowns. I thought we did a good job sustaining the drive, moving the ball and coming away with points.”
ILB Derek Landisch
On the team’s overall performance: “I thought the team’s performance was good. Winning on the road is tough to do, so I am proud of how we came out defensively. I think we are starting to gain momentum. We always have room for improvement, but I am pretty happy with how we played.”
On stopping Rutgers: “I think we were well prepared. Credit Coach Anderson and the coaching staff on how they had us prepare. Everyone knew what they were doing, they weren’t trying to push and we executed out assignments. “
On blocking punts: “We take a time out and practice how to block the punt. The first thing in my mind is make sure I don’t rough the punter and make sure I get my hand and eyes on the ball.”
On the blocked punt: “Actually in the scheme of the punt block, I was supposed to be a man chipping off another guy, but he had blocked out and I had a free run to the punter and took advantage of it. “
On momentum from the blocked punt: “I feel it was a big spark in our offense and in our team as a whole. I was glad I was able to make the opportunity when I had the chance.”
OLB Vince Biegel
On the key to today’s victory: “We had a great game plan going into this weekend. We felt solid. We competed at a high level. The separation and execution really paid off for us to day in the victory.
On spark from the blocked punt: “We got a big time stop on defense and then having that blocked punt by A.J. Jordan was huge for us. It got our defense moving in the right direction. It gives our offense a start that they needed.”
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