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Southern Miss Head Coach Quotes
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Virginia vs. Southern Miss
Sept. 24, 2011
Southern Miss Head Coach Larry Fedora Quotes
Opening Statement:
“First of all it was a heck of a football game. It was a very physical football game. We knew it was going to be coming in here. We knew we were going to have to be the most physical team in order to be successful. Give those guys credit. They made a lot of plays. They kept picking up first downs. Defensively we had a hard time getting off of the field early in the game and early in the third quarter. We had three turnovers and three picks. It was big for us in the game. Offensively we didn’t capitalize on some of those. We have got to do that. We didn’t finish the drives. I thought they played well defensively. We couldn’t run the football. We were not successful running the football, and it is hard to win football games when you become one dimensional, and that’s what they forced us to be. Our team kept fighting and overcame the adversity that we had. I’m proud of the way they played on the road against a good opponent in the ACC.”
On what made Southern Miss go for the fake punt:
“It’s something we practiced and obviously it’s a calculated risk. I felt confident that our guys would execute it. It just so happened they gave us the look we wanted. It was either call it off or stay with it, and we stayed with it and picked up a first down.”
On possibly giving up the ball at midfield:
“My thought process was not to give them the ball at midfield and put our defense with their backs against the wall. We had done that two weeks ago and really put a lot of stress on our defense. I said, ‘what the heck let’s go right now.’ I knew it was risk, but I felt comfortable with our guys executing the play.”
On what the plans were defensively:
“It was getting more pressure and getting our guys to settle down. We weren’t anywhere close to any receivers. Every time they threw the ball, there was nobody even close. They were picking up runs. When we finally settled down and started playing defense the way we can play defense, we were fine. There were no major adjustments to make.”
On Southern Miss receivers:
“I was pleased. We knew it was going to be tough, but when those guys had to make plays, they made plays. We were like 10 of 21 on third downs. That’s huge. A lot of those were third and longs that we converted actually.”