Maryland Player Quotes

Story Links

Wide Receiver Torrey Smith

On the win:
“It’s a game that everyone wanted; it’s a personal game, one that everyone wanted to redeem all of our losses from last year. And obviously being a rivalry game, Coach [Friedgen] wanted it bad, and so did we.”

On the different defenses UVa played tonight:
“He was trying to play us man-to-man on the outside, so we had to challenge our receivers. Nine times out of 10 we take our chances, and go one-on-one.”

On the team’s turnaround this year:
“I mean, no one prepares to lose. We knew coming into the season we had to work our hardest to change what happened last year. Last year we thought we were going to win every week, and when we started to lose, we never gave up. So I guess we didn’t surprise anyone but y’all.”

On the difference between last year and this year:
“We’re a little bit more mature, a little but hungrier, and we understand what it takes to win. Everyone put a lot of work into it in the offseason, so we’re finally seeing some results. But our main change is confidence. Danny [O’Brien] did a great job today, hitting a bunch of our receivers. Everyone caught the ball, and he does a good job spreading it around. We all have great chemistry with one another, so we are starting to get it on.”

On the Maryland-Virginia rivalry:
“Oh yeah. This is definitely a rivalry. You can feel it: the pressure, the tension. It’s a tough rivalry, you know it is going to be physical; you know you’ll hear some trash talking, and have some light pushing. But at the end of the day we all respect each other. Coach [Friedgen] wanted this game bad, and we wanted it badly as well. We haven’t won out here in a while, and we wanted to come out and win.”

Quarterback Danny O’Brien
On preparation for the game:
“We thought they were going to do one of two things – either press up on us like Miami did, or play off us. They pressed up on us a good amount. We took advantage of it and we did what we knew and what we practiced. Our receivers are great.”

On bouncing back from last week’s loss:
“Our team all year had bounced back great from losses, which has been big. Every time we lose a game, we don’t get down. Having said that, even when we win games, we’re going to enjoy this. Tomorrow it becomes Florida State, which is a big one for us. It’s what you want at home late in the season, so we’re looking forward to next week.”

On his own performance:
“I think I did well, I think I executed better. I think I was more prepared this week. I didn’t want what happened last week; there were just one or two plays where you don’t really know what to do. It didn’t happen again, because I had made a conscious decision to prepare harder than last week.”