Post-Game Quotes

Northern Colorado at Portland State

November 22, 2008

Head Coach Scott Downing

On senior running back David Woods:

I thought our offensive line did a great job of blocking today. David (Woods) ran hard, he hit the holes, ran north and south, broke a lot of tackles and did a very good job. We were really excited to see him get loose like that, we came in with injuries and sickness with one experienced running back but I thought he did a good job of carrying the load today.

On defense:

We figured out early in the game we weren't going to be able to get to them with pressure. So we were just going to have to get to them with good zone drops, mix up three and four man rushes and drop eight or drop seven and I thought Coach Deti and the defensive staff did a great job of adjusting, got our guys to take a leave and get a great jump on the ball and they did a really, really good job.

On the season:

It's disappointing, because you feel like when you lose games like we have, going into the fourth quarter with the opportunity to win, or like today coming back and scoring in the end, it's a disappointment. It shows though we've come a long way. Our players are competing the entire game. I think we've got really good talent on this squad, we've got a lot of young guys coming back who have now played a lot and have high expectations both for themselves and for the team. We have to continue to look at what we did as an organization, whether it's the coaches, players or staff and grow from it. I'm very proud of this team, they did everything we asked them to do.

Senior linebacker Cristian Sarmento

On Portland State's final drive:

When we had them on that third down, it was crucial. I should have got a better pass rush, but I didn't. I didn't have a plan on what I wanted to do and if you don't have a plan on a pass rush, you usually are ineffective, so I put that on myself.

On holding their offense below season average:

We've got some great coaches and they made some halftime adjustments. We just kind of leveled out and gained confidence as the game went on. It showed in the second half score.

What did you guys accomplish this year?

I think we took a big step in just being competitive. I've been here for five years and this year, it didn't end anything like what we wanted, but we competed. If you didn't come to play, we were going to beat you, but in this conference we've got some great teams and they came to play.

Junior quarterback Bryan Waggener

On today's game:

I felt like defense would make a play and get us momentum and we'd (offense) would mess it up or vice versa. We didn't really click as offense and defense together, or work with the momentum in putting points on the board.

On today's strategy:

Just come out and get the win. Whatever's going to work. We always try to come out and get the run established. You have to run the ball to be a winning team so we're trying to do that and just try to throw the ball down the field.

On the good start:

We definitely came out and scored on those first two drives. It's just the way we wanted to come out. We started killing ourselves. We had those big penalties. I had that fumble, we just started having mistakes like that. Anytime you move backwards it's hard to make that up and go forward.

On the season:

We would have loved to win more games. Our record doesn't really represent the kind of football we played. We lost those close games and our record could be a lot different but we definitely made leaps and bounds compared to last season's team. We averaged a lot more yards on offense, gave up a lot less on defense, scored more touchdowns, so definitely made leaps and bounds we just didn't put it in the win column which is not so good.

On the last drive of the game:

I would have loved to get the ball back and had a chance to make something happen. That was the hardest part, just sitting there kind of helpless.