Michigan State University Athletics
Michigan State vs. Oregon: Nick Saban Quotes
9/2/1999 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 2, 1999
MICHIGAN STATE COACH NICK SABAN:
?This was a good win for our players. I was really pleased with the effort we put forth. We were physical, we played with a lot of toughness, and I think that was probably the difference. The first thing (Belotti) told me after the game was ?You really beat us up tonight.??
?We did a good job running the ball and we stopped the run on defense, but obviously we have a lot of things to improve on. Our pass defense wasn?t as good as it needs to be. They did a lot of things to confuse us with formations and empty backfields, shifting guys out wide and using different personnel. That limited what we did on defense because we were afraid of making mistakes and afraid of the mismatches we might get into. They kept us off balance in the first half with the screens, and I think we would have played a lot better on defense if we had been better on third down. We created 18 third down situations and gave up too many conversions. We played well in the red zone and kept them off the board in the first half, and that was key. We had some errors early in the kicking game and the penalties in the first half that stopped drives were a big factor in the game in terms of us not putting more points on the board and being in the position we were in at halftime.?
?We have a lot of things to work on, but the good news is that when you win a football game you accomplish a lot of things you think are important. They played hard and played with the kind of character and attitude you have been trying to get them to play with. They were more physical, more aggressive and played hard for 60 minutes. We got all that, and now we just need to clean up some of the penalties and other things that stopped us. We ran the ball much more effectively than we were ever able to last year, which is a real positive. If we can put that together with the passing game and the big plays down the field we can be a pretty effective offensive team. I wish we could have done that more today and it?s something we need to do more in the future.?
On Amp Campbell:
?We are so pleased and so proud of Amp in so many ways. First of all, he?s a great person. He?s overcome tremendous adversity to come back. He had to work extremely hard to accomplish what he needed to do academically in order to graduate. I don?t ever remember in 25 years of coaching any player ever working so hard so he could come back. There were a lot of people in the University community who helped Amp, and we?d like to thank them. I?ve never been lower as a coach than when Amp got hurt, and I?ve never been happier as a coach than when he graduated and got the opportunity to play again. When he picked up that fumble and ran for a touchdown, I thought that was the greatest thing that could have happened.?
