Post-game quotes from Saturday’s victory over Indiana
The theme of Saturday’s post-game press conference was the defense’s strong play and a team-wide rebuilding of confidence.
Head coach John L. Smith liked the defensive effort
“We turned it up a little bit on the defensive side of the ball. We felt we could cover them for the most part - we knew there was a little bit of a miss-match with the (James) Hardy kid physically, but for the most part we thought we could lock up and we could challenge him a little bit more, and we could gamble a little bit more, which we did. We changed it up - but we tried to emphasize getting up the field, and getting some pressure on him, not allowing Blake (Powers) to just stand back and throw it at will. I like that kid.”
Wide receiver Terry Love spoke about the big hit he took just after catching a punt.
“I didn’t mind getting hit, I told everybody I was fine. Coach was just like hang in there, because he thought I was banged up.”
Quarterback Drew Stanton thought that the rivalry aspect of the game was key to the Spartans playing with some emotion
“It’s really nice to get back in the win column. It’s a rivalry game for us, so we came ready to play. I think we prepared real well this week and today we played with a lot of emotion.”
Cornerback Ashton Watson thinks that the win will help build the defense’s confidence, which was shattered last week in blowout loss to Northwestern.
“It feels good to get back on track after last week. We had a good game plan and just came out and played hard. They had a great receiver and I was on him. We were just trying to prevent big plays and I think we did a good job. Last week, we took a tough punch in the mouth. But this was a good win and a great confidence builder for us.”
Bandit SirDarean Adams, who intercepted a Blake Powers pass, says that the defense accomplished its goals.
“We didn’t give up. We took one play at a time. Before the game we said we wanted to reach all of our goals this game, which were don’t give up the big play, no long drives, and try to stop them on third down. Today I think we reached almost all of our goals.”