University of Richmond Athletics
No. 4 Richmond Survives No. 9 Elon, 16-13: Postgame Quotes
Nov. 28, 2009
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Richmond Head Coach Mike London
Opening Statement:
"That was a very good college football game, and I'm so proud of our team, once again finding a way to win at the end. We won so many games like that -- it's a mark of a really good team, a championship caliber team. Elon played fantastic. The quarterback and wide receiver -- they're as good as anyone around in college football and they're playmakers. It was a physical game, a back and forth game. In the end it just came to who was going to make the plays."
On difficulty of scoring TDs in the red zone:
"They did a good job of bringing constant pressure. When you get down there, half the battle plan was to make sure you knock people back and try not to take yourself out of field goal range and you don't want to take sacks or throw interceptions."
On winning while not playing at best:
"At this point, win ugly or win pretty, people get down because they don't win by enough. You win by one point or 21 points, that's a great win. It's a great accomplishment and I refuse to let people get on me that you're doing this, you're doing that, you have to play better. Yeah, we have to play better, but now there's eight teams in the country now that have a chance to keep playing and we're one of them. We're going to look to improve, to get ready, because Appalachian State, they are a tremendous team. We're going to savor the wins and try to do things that give us a chance to win next week. Right now we're going to celebrate the moment."
Senior QB Eric Ward
On Elon's defense:
"It was a great defense we played against and they had great coverage down the field, and just had to take what they gave us."
Senior NG Parker Miles
"They're a great offense, one of the best offenses in the country obviously, and we just tighten up as we get down to it. No matter what, you want to hold to them to field goals if they have to get points, so we don't ever want to give up a touchdown."
On blocking the field goal:
"It was coming down to our field goal block team and we take a lot of pride in our field goal block team. I just jumped up, put my hand up, and got it."
Junior LB Patrick Weldon
On his career performance at App. State last season:
"It's one of those things when you play a linebacker position, usually in zone coverage, you read the quarterback's eyes, you try to get in a window where you can make a play on the ball. I was fortunate enough to make a couple plays, but one thing we need to focus on this week in practice is to make sure we can knock down a little bit more balls."
Elon Head Coach Pete Lembo
Opening Statement:
"I'd like to congratulate Richmond on the win, and a very well played game. It was a very physical game which we anticipated going in it would be against a team that worked their way through the CAA and won ten games this year.
The game developing:
"The game pretty much played out the way we thought it would going in. We knew it was going to be a physical test. Our goal was to try to keep it close and be in position late in the game to make a few plays and it played out that way, but unfortunately, we couldn't convert; missed those field goals to potentially send it to overtime, so it's a tough way to lose. To Richmond's credit, it seems like they won a bunch of games like this in the last year or two, so I think our players gave tremendous effort, our defense played the majority of this game without two starters, and soon after that we lost one of our better special teams players. They did everything they could, so I've got to find a way to help them win this game, so I told them in the locker room this game's on me. We're going to work our butts off to try and get back to this point next year and hopefully find a way to do it."
On the field goal try 1:30 left:
"We took our three shots and at that point it was a chip shot. By the time you kick the field goal and kick it off, they're only going to have maybe fifty seconds, so it was a really good chance to keep them out of field goal range and just continue to play in overtime. You could argue we had the momentum from the latter part of the third quarter right through the fourth quarter. That's the million-dollar decision, if you go for it and make it, and you kick the field goal and you miss it, so that was the decision we all felt good about as a staff, and felt good about going into overtime."
Senior WR Terrell Hudgins
"We fought, we were down 13-3, we kept fighting. You know coach said he takes the blame for it, but they put us in the right situation. We failed to make plays at certain times. It was a great game though; it got really exciting in the fourth quarter and just didn't pull it out."
Junior QB Scott Riddle
On the game plan:
"We didn't start off too good in the first half. Richmond came out with a good game plan and forced us to not do some things we normally do on offense. We ran our stuff and Terrell [Hudgins] came alive in the second half."
On the loss:
"It's the last time I get to play with some of my best friends, and I really enjoyed the time I spent."
Redshirt Freshman LB Dale Riley
On dealing with injuries:
"We always want to have everyone on the team healthy, but we always prepare everyone else for these kinds of situation. It's no time to hang heads. It's the playoffs and you don't want to go home, so we have to step up and do what we have to do."