La Tech Head Coach Sonny Dykes Postgame Quotes
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Sept. 29, 2012
Virginia vs. Louisiana Tech
Sept. 29, 2012
Louisiana Tech Head Coach Sonny Dykes Quotes
Thoughts on game
“That was a crazy, hard-fought, tough football game. First of all I have to give Coach London and his staff credit. They did a really good job. We were going to have to take away the run coming in and throw the ball and they did a really good job scripting some plays. I thought Rocco played very well early. I think he started eight for nine and he shredded us pretty good. Again, I think that has a lot to do with their game plan. They had a great game plan. They did a really good job of giving him some throws to be successful. We knew coming in it was going to be a physical football game. They are a big, tough football team. We had some injuries early: Justin Ellis, one of our better DBs, went down early and Soloman Randle, our middle linebacker, went down early. We’ve had some pretty significant injuries to our linebackers in the last two weeks. I was really proud of Chip Hester. I thought he played well and really did a heck of a job filling in that middle linebacker spot. It was a crazy game. I saw everything that could have happened happen. Never say never. Returning a kick to the one-yard line and the team couldn’t score. The way the game ended I hate. You hate for two hard-fought teams to fight as hard as they did and have it end that way. It’s good to get a win. Virginia is a good football team and I think they played really well tonight and this is a great moment for our football program.”
On tension on the field
“No, nothing like that. Coach London was great and his staff was great. It’s just that the way it ended in the last two minutes with substitution infractions, you hate for that to happen. You hate to see a game end that way. We wanted to get into an open set and try to draw them offsides and they had their kick returner out and I can understand why. They assumed that we were going to punt the ball. At that point, I didn’t feel comfortable punting the ball as we were having ongoing discussions on whether to punt it or go for it. I pretty much knew we were going to go for it.”
On how Virginia outgained La Tech
“I’ve been on the other side of those games too and they are tough because Virginia probably outplayed us today. I think the difference was we did a better job taking care of the football and causing some turnovers. What I’m really proud of my players for is being able to weather that storm. Our kicker was good and we were down by only four at the half and we were able to weather that storm. We felt it was good to be down only by four at halftime. We were pretty fortunate today.”
On team’s mindset on the road
“I think honestly, it’s the biggest cliché in the world, but we just like going places and playing, just trying to win and not worrying about who we’re playing against or where we’re going as much as they are giving us a challenge as we play good football teams and we try to find a way to win. It was incredibly ugly tonight but I’d rather win ugly than lose pretty.”
On turning around game after trailing early
“That’s when we got the turnovers. They were huge and gave us a lot of momentum and created some big scores. That’s kind of the way we’ve played this year. If you look at us in the third quarter, we’ve been a very, very good third quarter football team and we’ve just tried to hold on to our rear ends in the fourth quarter. It’s kind of what’s happened to us against Houston. It happened a little bit against Rice. We haven’t been a great fourth quarter team but the good thing is we’ve made some good plays down the stretch and it’s got us a win.”