Temple University Athletics
TEMPLE FOOTBALL POST-GAME QUOTES VS. SYRACUSE
10.12.02 | Football
"First of all, it's great to win. It's a big win for our program. We haven't beaten Syracuse in 16 years. We've beaten now everybody in the BIG EAST since I've been here, except for Miami. I think that's important. I said that in establishing the program that we needed to do that. I'm very proud of our players for doing it."
"I felt all week long we could win the game. I even told the people at the pep rally Thursday I thought we'd win. That's because I knew we were playing as good of football as this program has played in a long, long time. We didn't have the results to show for it, with the 1-4 record. At the same time, I could see some things. I knew we were healthy. I knew we were rested. I believed in our players, and I believed they could get the job done. They did."
"I told our players to come to the game today expecting to win. I'm not shocked. It's a very happy win for our program -- a satisfying win, but not anything like five years ago when we beat Virginia Tech. That was a miracle. This was not a miracle. This was a good football team playing another good football team."
On Temple's 14 penalties:
"We almost hurt ourselves. Penalties killed us. We gave them the opportunity to almost tie the game at the end. They killed us on a touchdown earlier in the first half. I'll have to look at the film. We had a touchdown called back and we had 500 yards of total offense. We were lucky at the end, but I don't think it was a lucky win. I think we deserved the win. We were very fortunate on the extra-point, but I believe that we played hard enough to win. We still have to cut down on our mistakes. The illegal procedures on the offensive line, the holding -- all I know is Danny Klecko ends up a play with no helmet on his head without a penalty and we get a bunch of holding penalties. I look forward to looking at the film. I really, really have issues with that, but we will look at the film and be sure."
On Syracuse's final drive:
"We were in the same situation in 1998. Virginia Tech was tenth in the country and they were driving down, exactly the same way. We've been there before. Luckily we held on. You're just trying to play hard, you're just trying to hold on and make a play. All we needed was one sack, one tipped ball, an interception, just one play is all you need to win the game. Thank goodness they had to have a touchdown and not a field goal, so you feel a little more comfort there. Give their quarterback credit. He took them down the field."
On what this victory means to Temple football:
"I was ecstatic when that ball hit the goalpost, don't get me wrong. I think I jumped higher than I did when we won the national championship at North Alabama, and I'm a lot older. It's a huge win. I told our players in the dressing win, this cannot, at the end of the season, just be that we beat Syracuse and hadn't beat them in 16 years. It's can't be that it makes our record so-and-so. This has got to be a game that makes a difference in our program. We've got to take this game and build on it. We've got to go to Connecticut next week. Connecticut's a very improved football team. We've got to work and we've got to win another game and then win another game... We want to have a winning season. I would love, at the end of the year, that this game be the one that makes that happen. I can't predict that. We've got to play next week."
"We beat a class program in Syracuse. That's a program that's got everything in the world. We fight a lot of things. They've got everything in the world, and we know that. We've known that for five years against just about everybody in our conference. Our kids overcome odds. They're tough. They have a lot of character."
On Syracuse's 1-5 start to the season:
"I realize Syracuse had a hard game last week against Pitt. Two weeks ago, they went into triple overtime in Auburn. I've been there; I know what that's like. They're going to catch a lot of problems. It's probably worse because they got beat by Temple. But that isn't the case. We are a decent football team, and I think they've got a decent football team, too."
On Syracuse's Jamel Riddle:
"We did everything in the world in our punt game not to punt the ball to him. We had quarterbacks punting. We had the offense on the field when we were punting. We tried everything we could think of to keep him from having a punt return on us. I think it worked, except for Mike (Frost)'s one bad kick. I think he averaged 39 yards in the first half. The bottom line is, we do all that in the kicking game not to let him catch the ball, and then we let them raise up and throw it to him on defense. I was a little irritated about that."
On Temple quarterback Mike McGann's performance:
"I thought it was shaky in the first half and outstanding in the first half. I don't know the difference. I didn't have a chance to really sit down and talk to him. I just congratulated him. I thought he played a tremendous second half. In the first half, even the balls that he threw accurately didn't look like his normal tight spirals. I don't know what the difference was."
Syracuse Coach Paul Pasqualoni:
On the loss to Temple:
"It's very heart-breaking. Certainly, that's putting it mildly. Special teams has been really good for us this year, and the kicking game today kind of hurt us a little bit."
On the final extra-point attempt:
"I didn't see a bad hold. I didn't see a bad snap. I'd like to see it on film. I didn't see it on the replay. I would suspect it was his plant foot, because that's what it usually is. But I won't know that until I watch the film."
On Syracuse's defensive effort:
"Temple is in the spread system of offense, which is a pretty effective offense. Obviously, we gave up a couple of big plays. 500 yards of offense is a lot of offense, but we probably gave up 170 of it on two plays. Through the first half, I thought we played well on defense. I thought we battled very, very hard. I thought we covered a lot of things. I thought we were good in the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, we gave up a couple of plays. You're not going to stop every play for no gain, that's for certain. It's just unfortunate we gave up the couple plays we gave up, because in the end, it's not going to be many, it's going to be few. I thought overall the effort on defense -- the kids gave great effort today."
On Syracuse's kicking game:
"You drive the ball, you move the ball, you go down there, you've got to get something out of it. So that's always going to hurt -- that certainly is always going to hurt. The first goal, obviously, is to score a touchdown. If you can't score a touchdown, you want to score a kick to score. That's the goal. We come up empty too many times."
On Temple's football team:
"I like Tanardo (Sharps). I think he's a very, very good back. He was hurting a little bit in the first half. I thought he'd come out and play with a lot of courage in the second half. I think you've got to give him a lot of credit. He had a big play, no question. I think Mike McGann hung in there. He threw the ball and made a couple of plays. As we said coming in, we like Tanardo, we liked Mike, we liked the group of wide receivers. They have a nice unit."
On Syracuse's 1-5 start to the season:
"You never imagine when you start the season, when you set the kinds of goals that we do, that you're going to start off 1-5. Do you ever imagine you would come here and get beat? Yeah, every year I come here I imagine it. We've had some really great battles here with Temple. In my mind, there's always the risk that you get can beat, regardless of who you play. We had the feeling that we had to play well to win. They're a good team."
"You have to depend on the character of the kids, the program and the staff. It's very difficult, obviously. We come back and get ready to go to play West Virginia. That's a team that has almost the same offense (as Temple). A spread offense, people everywhere. So we've got to get ready for that."
"It's been tough. We've played very good people. The ball has not necessarily bounced our way. It certainly didn't bounce our way today, that's for sure. But you've got to give credit to Temple. They made some plays. We had a chance to make some plays on both sides of the ball, and we didn't make them."
On whether he considered a two-point conversion after the final touchdown:
"We considered it. The way things have been going, I just felt I wanted to get into overtime."
