Postgame Quotes

Head Coach Bob Stoops

Opening statement:
"Always give credit to the opponent, Utah State. And I've said it all week, I know Gary Anderson and his reputation and everywhere he's been. And, obviously, from watching everything a year ago, we knew Utah State was a much different team than they had been a year before. And when you watch other years they are very competitive. They were last year with everybody and we knew their quarterback, (Diondre) Borel, was an excellent player and he proved that again tonight. I didn't feel we really played very well in a lot of areas. I thought we had a lot of, again, foolish penalties. We talked all month about that was the one area we were going to play smarter. Lack of execution and,I thought, on both parts of the ball, the area everybody was worried about coming into tonight was kicking, but we kicked the ball everywhere pretty well today. And, on both sides, of the ball I thought we were very inconsistent and not at all pleased with it in any way."

On Landry Jones:
"I didn't think Landry was very sharp. He looked hurried and rushed a little bit. And for a guy that has played as many games as he did a year ago, he didn't look like he was in his comfort zone at all."

On the defense:
"All those guys played a year ago and they're not freshmen. So they've been around and have seen a lot. I didn't think we did a very good job of containing them. Borel too. Too many times we allowed him to run around, we couldn't get to him and scrambled. And that makes it tough, too, when it allows a guy three or four extra seconds."

On DeMarco Murray:
"He's a tough, hard running guy and really handled it well. He cracked some good runs, and even some that weren't very big scenes he still, with as strong as he is he could get four or five. And I thought he played well."

On the offensive line:
"[The offensive line was] too inconsistent. You look at all the running yards, but still I thought there were too many plays where we don't get anything or negative yards. I thougth some of it was even in the protection and some of it was Landry. I'm sure he'll see that and learn from it, too."

On the past compared with tonight's performance:
"Those other years don't matter. I don't much care about them right now. So in the end it's what do we have and what are we going to do to make improvements in the coming week."

On the 800th win:
"The 800th win here at Oklahoma is pretty special because, if you look back through the years, and our championships span decades. Starting way back with Benny Owen and after the war with Bud Wilkinson and the dynasty really that he started with all the national championships, and of course Coach Switzer kept it going for a good number of years as well. Since 2000, we have had a pretty good run of wins. So we are just proud of the whole tradition and history here because of all decades that it encompases and all different players and coaches that it encompasses."

Junior WR Ryan Broyles

On the offense:
"I feel like this is the first game. I felt like we played a lot better than we did last year. I feel like as the year progresses, we started out with less mistakes and I feel like you end up even better off. I'm not looking at this situation being negative or Landry being off or anything, it's just something we got to work on when we get into filming"

On the win:
"I don't know why everyone was thinking it's so negative, I think it's pretty positive. We put up some points. I think it would have looked better if the defense shut them out, but I feel like the offense is sitting pretty well. It's the first game so we can definitely get better."

Sophomore QB Landry Jones

On the win:
"We didn't play as good as we wanted to play but we still got a win, so that's a positive. We could have learned all these things and lost a game. You're never as good as you think you are and you're never as bad as you think you are."

On the passing game:
"We still have to clean up some stuff. Some of those things showed up in practice this week and they showed up in games. We really got to go this week and practice with a purpose, practice with intentions, never take plays off and get on the same page."

Junior LB Travis Lewis

On the defense:
"Utah State had a good game plan. We didn't have any fight in us and, to put it in perspective, this is Utah State. We are going to have a much bigger challenge next week in Flordia State. I am hoping we can man up and put this one behind us."

How shocking was this to you:
"It's not shocking; it's frustrating. When you give 421 yards to any team, not just Utah State, as a defense, you know, that's not good. It's not playing up to par. The standards here at Oklahoma -- winning is not good enough. We are going to come in tomorrow and fix it, learn and take the coaching and move on as fast as we can."

Defensive mistakes:
"Everybody took their chance making mistakes tonight. It wasn't just one guy. It was the defense, collectively, and all those mistakes add up. At the end of the game we gave up 24 points and 421 yards, so, collectively, as a defense, no one played up to par."

On Utah State's Quarterback:
"(Borel) is a good quarterback. He used his legs and got out of some trouble. I will give it up to his receivers. When the ball was in the air, they went up and they had more fight than us than us today. So that's one big thing we need to change. We didn't overlook Utah State, we just didn't play up to Oklahoma standards."

Sophomore DT Stacy McGee

On his overall performance:
"It was just one bad day, but I felt like I had a pretty good game. I mean, technique-wise, I felt like I was sound and made a couple of good plays."

On Utah State's quarterback:
"We've got a lot to improve on. He is a good quarterback and we just couldn't keep him in the pocket. It wasn't anything we weren't prepared for. We just didn't come out and play a sound game like we should have."

Senior RB DeMarco Murray

On the first 39 yard run:
"I was clearly blocked, I wasn't touched by anybody. It was a power play and I got to the hole and got to the outside."

On the team:
"I believe we just have to be more focused. Utah State should have never been that close to us. We didn't help the defense out by going three-and-out a couple times in a row. Offensively, we should have put a lot more points out there. We're still young, we're still learning. We're not complaining or anything like that but we know we have to get better each and every week."

Junior DB Jonathan Nelson

On his performance:
"Speaking for myself, I need a better week of preparation. A lot of guys can say that for themselves because there were a lot of guys who messed up key assignments. Individually, I need to have better technique and work on my eyes and things like that. We definitely need to pick it up for next week."

On the upcoming game against Florida State:
"We have to realize that this is business and we have to try to handle business."

R-Freshman LB Tom Wort

On getting back on the field:
"It was awesome. I loved every second of it, it was awesome. I love hitting people and playing the game. The personal foul -- the helment to helment on the quarterback -- was due to my lack of experience and almost maturity. I take responsibility for the two personal fouls and I won't let them happen again. I let my teammates down and I am not going to let that happen again."

The defense:
"We are not far away. We shut them down. It was just silly little mistakes that we need to work on. Just technique. When we play good, we play excellent. We just had some little slip ups. It's just little things. We are close; we aren't far away. Just need to fix it and until we fix that this is who we are. Come out everyday to practice with a chip on our shoulders and just not let this happen again."

Head Coach Gary Andersen

Opening statement:
"Its a great college football game as you look back at it. The first thing I would say is, this football team is hurt by this loss and we had an opportunity to come in here, and late in the fourth quarter we didn't make a couple plays, to win the game. On the flipside of that I will say they (Utah State) are a tough football team. Tthey played extremely hard against, obviously, a tremendous team in a tough environment to come into and I don't think they were phased by the environment, I don't think they were phased by the crowd. Sure, we made some mistakes. Both team made some mistakes throughout the game but the kids competed hard and we can learn from this and continue to look forward as a football team."

On Matt Austin's injury:
"I really don't know, I haven't even talked to the doctor's yet. We will have to evaluate that and see. The injury bug bites us again on a key player and it's a tough deal. It's always our goal as a team, whenever we have an injured player go down, to make sure we take care of that young man and not worry about ourselves, get him situated, in the mindset of recovery and put our arms around him and move on from there."

On Dontel Watkins and Xavier Martin stepping up:
"They did a tremendous job and to see those two JUCO kids come in and catch a football and make plays was great. That is what you bring a JUCO wide receiver in your program for is to come in and make plays. It was great to see them do that today and put themselves in position to become a better football players. They are going to be a big part of this football team as we move forward."

On Utah defense:
"The kids played hard. I think it is so important when you are in the huddle and you are working to call a defense that you look into a kid's eyes and look into their mind at where they sit. Their mentality was good. They were not phased even on the first drive when they went right down. They just kept fighting and that's something that we try to get them though with camp, to make them understand to just keep fighting. Two or three times they were put in some very difficult positions and I thought we applied decent pressure on the quarterback.

If you look at how many times Oklahoma's quarterback gets sacked in a year, its not many. I think we had three sacks and I don't remember one game that I watched last year, and I watched them all last year, do I remember the guy getting sacked last year. We did some good things there against a very good quarterback, a very good offensive line and I could go on and on."

Senior QB Diondre Borel

On the game:
"At the beginning of the game we felt like we should have put points up on the board. I got sacked on one play that probably took away three points, it was a third-and-long situation at the beginning of the game. The defense played good and when they stopped Oklahoma, offensively, we needed to put points on the board. We had the opportunity because we had a lot of opportunities and we just have to execute."

On the three offensive turnovers:
"The first interception, when they drove down and scored, he made a break on the ball and it was just a great play by him just sitting on it and it came down. It changed the game a little bit because it gave them a little bit of momentum in the beginning. It's one of those things you cant worry about. After that, we started to play harder when we were down."

On the play of the wide receivers:
"They stepped up and made big plays, you know I believe in everybody and whoever is out there to catch the ball. Those guys have a lot of speed. They're both downfield threats and they made big plays -- on the deep ball to Xavier (Martin) and the corner route to Dontel (Watkins)."

Junior LB Kyle Gallagher

On the game:
"We definitely thought we should have won. We made some mistakes and played slow at the beginning, especially the first drive. I thought we definitely played tough. They definitely had some guys that stepped up for them. One touchdown; one play.

On the defensive performance:
"We focused on our defensive line getting a lot of pressure this year and same with linebackers and it seemed to work out so far. I feel like the defensive line has improved so much and I'm able to roam free a lot more."

Sophomore WR Dontel Watkins

On the game:
"We came in and played our hearts out. From all summer coach told us dont put Oklahoma on a pedastal. We didnt put them on a pedastal. We respect them and we came out and played our hearts out. As we practiced all summer, we bled, we cried -- everything we did all summer. We're brothers and came out here fighting but we didn't win the battle."

On if this was a game they felt they should have won:
"I felt that we should have won. The spread coming out was 30 to nothing. They just didnt know who we were, just how hard we worked like Oklahoma did and we just came out on the bad end."

On turnovers that hurt Utah State:
"We had a couple of turnovers, some that we tried to stress, coaches tried to get rid of this year. We tried to limit turnovers and that would make us a way better team and we definitely have to get that down."

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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