Syracuse Student-Athlete Quotes
2005 Syracuse Football
Syracuse vs. Cincinnati – October 29, 2005
Carrier Dome – Syracuse, N.Y.
Syracuse Student-Athlete Quotes
Running Back Damien Rhodes
On this loss…
“This one is going to hurt. It’s going to be a hard one to swallow. But we are going to keep trying. We still have three games left. We are going to fight for all three, but this one is definitely going to hurt.”
On the quarterbacks’ play…
“Both quarterbacks played great. Joe came in and started us off great. We got a little spark from him. Then Perry came in and did a great job too. I take my hat off to both of them. They both did a great job today.”
On where the team goes from here…
“We just have to get ready for the next game. Our team isn’t going to give up. A lot of teams would have given up by now, but we are going to keep fighting and try to get things right in these last three games.”
On Cincinnati’s defense…
“They played a great game. They were very physical. We have to do a better job executing. Their defense was doing a great job. Our line was going good, but when they put an extra guy in the box we just can’t block them all. So they did a good job, but we did well too.”
On the last drive of the game…
“Perry threw a great ball and Tim tried to make a great play, but he got hit. It happens. It represents our season – the ball just hasn’t been bouncing our way. But we didn’t give up. The team kept fighting. We did that all year. No matter the score, we are going to keep fighting.”
On Joe Fields’ fumble…
“It was a big play, but football is filled with big plays throughout the whole game. If we are feeling adversity, we have to go back out there and do our jobs for the fans.”
On the screen pass that went for 70 yards…
“Coach Robinson was talking about that all week, so we knew we were going to get one. The line did a great job of making their blocks and getting up the field. For a lineman to get up the field and make a block on a defensive back is a very hard job, so they really made that play. And then Perry did a good job at getting it off.”
Wide Receiver Rice Moss
On Cincinnati’s Secondary…
“I wouldn’t say we got around their secondary pretty much every time we wanted to, but we were getting open. The line played better today. Everyone played better as a whole offensive today.”
On the last drive…
“We had a lot of confidence because we are never going to stop until the end of the game. We are going to go 60 minutes. In the beginning of the game we had a lot of momentum, especially after our first third down conversion then our fourth down conversion. We just figured we were going to go in to score. We had our fans with us too, so that helped.”
Quarterback Joe Fields
On the 40 yard pass to wide receiver Tim Lane…
“The coaches called a play action because we knew they were going to be biting down on the goal line. Luckily it worked out. You hear that play call and you just basically want to take care of that ball. You have one shot and if that shot wasn’t there I was going to throw it in the stands. I knew it was money because Tim and I were connecting on that pass all week.”
On the 50 yard pass to wide receiver Rice Moss…
“It was a broken play. He had an out cut on him initially, but I went to the back, the back fell down I just got out of the pocket. I guess he was on the same page as me because he just went out deep and I put the ball where he could come down with it.”
On his own performance…
“I always knew I could play ball. I guess I can run too. Coaches and everybody always knew I could run the ball. It’s the media who only thought I could run.”
On his fumble in the fourth quarter…
“We had a sprint left on them and it ended up being a broken play. They did a great job defending the play. I got ready to get my hips around to throw it out of bounds, and he got a good hit on me so the ball came out. Once the ball came loose I was just trying to go get it to either try to let the defense have a chance to stop them or to recover it myself. It’s amazing, that one fumble really did hurt us.”
On his thumb injury…
“It was a spasm. It happened a couple of plays before I came out of the game. My thumb and index finger kept snapping out. The last two passes I threw, I couldn’t really grip it. I didn’t want to put the team in a bad situation, so I told coach to take me out for a minute to see if it would go away. I was OK to go back in, but Coach thought that Perry could win it for us. So I tried to root him on and hope for the best.”
On his first start…
“You want to start and do well, but most importantly you want to win. There is no accomplishment on me starting if we lose. I feel good and I feel like I played OK, but that one fumble really did cost us the game.”
On calling time outs…
“A couple of times we had the calls mixed up so we had to take a time out. I think the most important thing was getting the right play call. Every time we came out of a timeout, we came out with a good play, so I think the timeouts were well used.”
On the loss…
“This hurts, especially when you are at home and the fans are great for us. They were rooting us on, so we wanted to win it for them and the team. This loss is a big let down.”
Wide Receiver Tim Lane
On the 40 yard pass from Joe Fields…
“We knew they were expecting us to run there, so we called a play action pass. We were hoping to fool the safety and get past him. They ended up blitzing the corner so I ended up being one-on-one with the safety and I got by him. Joe then made a good throw. Once I got past him I looked back and saw the ball. I just told myself I can’t drop this one because it was a perfect throw. If I dropped that one I would have sat myself out the rest of the game. He threw it perfectly to get us out of the endzone. I was very excited when that play was called. We worked on it in practice and I had a feeling it was going to work.”
On the dropped ball on the last play of the game…
“I knew I was going to get hit pretty quickly, so I tried to brace myself for the hit. It makes it easier if you can pick your legs up; then you have less of a chance of getting the ball knocked out. I knew I was close to the first down so I just wanted to catch the ball and take the hit. I wouldn’t say I miss-timed my jump, I just didn’t get my body in the right position where I was comfortable and I just didn’t catch it.”
Defensive End Ryan LaCasse
On tackling…
“That seems to be a tendency of our defense that we don’t really like too much. First half we don’t tackle too well, and then second half we are more settled into the game so guys start making better tackles.”
On Joe Fields’ fumble…
“It’s tough to watch that play. I wish we could have gotten him to the ground so the defense would have had a chance to stop him. But that didn’t happen so we just go out there and play the snaps that we get.”
On the lack of forcing turnovers…
“We were trying to strip the ball. They were throwing a lot of rhythm short passes. The quarterback wasn’t really chucking the ball down field, so there weren’t many opportunities for interceptions. Their running backs did a good job of hanging on to the ball but we were still going after them.”
Free Safety Anthony Smith
On the play of the defense…
“We just didn’t have a lot of energy in the first half. We just went in at half time, talked about it, and came out for the second half with a lot of energy.”
On the fake field goal…
“They ran a little different scheme than they showed on film. A couple of guys just didn’t fill the holes right, so they got a quick one on us.”
On Cincinnati’s offense…
“They were just making plays. We had good coverage and the quarterback was scrambling out. So we came out of coverage and he just got the ball in there.”
On Cincinnati’s running backs…
“They had about three or four rotating, so they had fresh guys in there. They were kind of big, so we had to get more than one person around the ball to tackle them.”
On the loss…
“We should have won. They have a good enough ball team where if you make enough mistakes, they can win. We didn’t execute in the first half, and they took advantage of it.”
On the call against him for roughing the kicker…
“I thought I was going to get it and I was close. My teammates told me I was only a couple of centimeters off. It happens.”
Linebacker Kelvin Smith
On the end of the game…
“It’s not all about Tim. It was just one play, but there were a lot of plays in that game that people should have made.”
On the play of the defense…
“I think it took us some time to really get solid and settle down. But for the most part I think we played a good game. We gave up a lot of yards. I think our problem was that we couldn’t get a big stop on first down. We played alright though.”
On Cincinnati’s offense…
“It seemed like they had every play in our book. They had guys pulling and the offensive line was really coming out and trying to get a hand on us. They had some good schemes but we just need to settle down and get ourselves together.”
Was today’s loss the defense’s fault?
“I wouldn’t blame any one side of the ball for today’s loss. Collectively we lost this game. Defense should have played better though. Our season isn’t really looking up right now so we are just playing and doing what we love.”
On Tanard Jackson leaving the game…
“That hurt me a lot because a lot of guys were going down. Even myself, I got hurt a little bit. Tanard is my motivational man. I needed him by my side. So that really hurt us a lot. We trusted Marcus Clayton could get in there and make some plays for us. So talent wise we were alright in the corner position.”
On the lack of forcing turnovers…
“We just couldn’t get it out today. It’s not like it’s something that’s really easy to do. People might take it for granted.”
On preparing for the rest of the season…
“I think everyone should just go home and get healthy. But we still have a lot of motivation. No matter what is going on we play defense and we need to go put that fire out.”
Cornerback Marcus Clayton
On playing so much today (for the injured Tanard Jackson):
“I knew this was coming cause I didn’t play that much. I played for the first time against Florida State, so I figured when I get in I knew they were going to come at me, so I figured I had to stay focused.”
On Cincinnati’s running game:
“I think that they were doing different types of stuff on film, and they switched it up a little in the game. We had to adjust to it, and it took us a little bit to handle what they were doing.”
On why the game got away for Syracuse…
“I don’t think the game really got away but the turnover on offense that sealed it to them. But I didn’t think the game was ever over.”
Wide Receiver Bruce Williams
On playing for the local school and what they tell the Syracuse natives with whom they talk:
“We are talking to people, Lavar (Lobdell) and I. We know a lot of people, we know a lot of the athletes. So we go down to the city, go into the schools, they call us and ask us about Syracuse. We tell them the truth. This is a great program, and we are going to win. We got a new look, new coaching staff and it’s a center of what we are going to be about soon.”
Running Back Curtis Brinkley
On being part of a losing team…
“It’s all about growing, you got to grow. And, eventually we are just going to be good. We’re good now, but we just took a couple of downfalls.”
On offense improvement…
“Yes, we improved, we had made a dramatic chance. Different people coming out and distributing stuff like that. I’m just waiting for my chance.”
Strong Safety Dowayne Davis
Strategy of defense after half time..
“We just didn’t come out with intensity that we normally do. We just had to pick it up in the second half. We just fell off a little slow and we just picked it up.”
