Post Game Quotes

Northern Colorado at Sacramento State

November 15, 2008

Head Coach Scott Downing

How was your team able to bounce back after the two big plays in the beginning of the game?

"I give credit to the kids themselves and the defensive coaches, they stayed positive. Certainly those two big plays were technique errors by us. We knew they were going to go deep, we knew they had the capability to go deep we worked on it all week in practice. It's the same thing we've talked about all year, we've got to step up and make plays and we didn't make the play right there. I thought we bounced back and played very, very hard the remainder of the game."

On rushing game:

"I thought our offensive line played very, very well," said Downing.  "I thought they handled them (Sacramento State) up front, I thought we exerted our strength on them and I thought our running backs ran very hard."

Pulled within five points in third, what was the emotion at that point?

"They were very, very excited. Obviously we came out at halftime and told them, literally we gave them 21 points because of the two big plays that were one play drives and certainly we threw an interception for a touchdown so we felt like at halftime we had an opportunity to take control of the game even though we were behind. Getting up there within five we thought we'd go for two and make it a one possession game, we just didn't get it done, but give our kids credit they played hard."

Late in the fourth did you feel the game was out of reach?

"I don't think they ever really thought that, we made some mistakes, but you can't have a punt snap dropped. We had a great surprise on-side kick by Michael York that gave us a lot of momentum, we were given a chance to get back in the game. Even though we hurt ourselves with some untimely turnovers and hurt ourselves with some big plays in the passing game. It just goes to show you you've got to step up and make a play. We just didn't do it right there at that point in time."