Rutgers Post-Game Quotes
2004 Syracuse Football
Syracuse vs. Rutgers
October 2, 2004 - Carrier Dome – Syracuse, N.Y.
Rutgers Post-Game Quotes
Head Coach Greg Schiano
“The kids showed a lot of heart, a lot of determination … the coaches, the whole program did. We just didn’t do the fundamental things we needed to do to win a game like this. Defensively, we did not tackle. A lot of that credit goes to Syracuse. We’re better tacklers than we showed. Offensively, you’ve got to protect the passer. We got a lot of yards passing, but we got hit a lot. We’ve got to be able to run the football with more efficiency. We run 92 plays with pretty good time of possession and they go 3-for-11 on third down. Those don’t add up, other than the fact that we didn’t tackle well. We’re playing at times good football, but if you tackle the way we tackled today, you don’t win. That’s end of conversation.”
Schiano on what the thinking was when his team was up 31-27 with the ball with less than four minutes to go:
“A field goal would have put us up by seven. The thinking was we have a field goal, but this game is going back and forth. They have all their timeouts. We want to run the offense. We want to milk the clock, but we wanted to run the offense because we really felt we needed to score. If not, make sure we came away with a field goal. Obviously, we did neither.”
Schiano on Syracuse’s pass to Andre Fontenette that set up the game-winning touchdown:
“You can’t turn this into, and I don’t think anybody will, a one-play deep ball. I mean if we made half the tackles we missed, this game never comes down to a deep ball, but again, we’re not executing the way we need to in that situation. We’ve got to be smarter than we were and just keep pounding away. We’ll get there.”
Schiano on Brian Leonard’s absence:
“I don’t think it’s just Leonard’s absence. Leonard goes down, but Shawn Tucker didn’t even make the trip. And then Marcus Daniels goes down, so then Bake (Chris Baker) is our only X. He and Jerry are the only guys left. So all of a sudden, all that depth is gone. We’re playing with a true freshman at tackle for a better part of the game because Sameeh McDonald goes down, so there was a lot that offensively. I think we really did pretty well with all the people we were missing.”
Schiano’s general thoughts on the contest:
“What a great BIG EAST game that was. You go up. You go down. There were so many lead changes and momentum shifts.”
Rutgers QB Ryan Hart:
“I felt very comfortable out there today. With the bye week, I had watched lots of film on them. I had worked on running my mental clock to get rid of the ball quickly, and our offensive line did a great job.”
On the series after the Reyes fumble in the 4th quarter
“We took a shot at it on second down, but Syracuse made a great call there and played good defense. I wasn’t going to try to force it in there in that situation.”
“We came in wanting to throw the ball more. They were running two deep and there were things open underneath. We were definitely look for Clark (Harris) down there in the red zone. He gives us such a good height matchup.”
DE Piana Lukabu:
“I’m disappointed we didn’t make the plays we needed to and wrap up on our tackles, but you have to give Syracuse credit. They have two great running backs and they executed a great game plan.”
RB Justice Hairston:
“Anytime you have two turnovers from and individual, it hurts your chances to win the game. This is a team game, but this one is on my shoulders.”
WR Tres Moses:
“It was frustrating – we couldn’t make the plays at the end to finish it. We were really confident. There were openings in the middle underneath, and we kept going with what was successful.”
