Post-Game Quotes
10/22/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 22, 2005
Recap | Final Stats | Notes
MSU head coach John L. Smith:
Opening Statement...
"I don't have a lot to say other than you have to congratulate those guys. They played harder than we did; they played much better than we did. They executed their offense. They had a lot of answers for what we were trying to do, and we didn't have many answers for what they were doing. We have to hit the field tomorrow, and work on playing harder, playing better, coaching harder, coaching better and come up with some answers. It started off decently, but we've got to hit the field and get better. You get knocked down, but it's time to get up. We want to send our seniors off as winners, which is our goal every year, and we can still make it to a bowl game, so we've got to concentrate on that."
On Drew Stanton today...
"It wasn't Drew's best day, but he'll bounce back and learn from today's effort and he'll get better. He's had a lot of good days, but everybody has a bad day every once in a while. He tried to do too much, with too little, but that's his competitive nature and I respect that and try to nurture it. He's going to have to have some days like this to learn how to deal with these things, but you don't want to take his competitive attitude away from him."
On Brett Basanez... "He's a great player, and has been. He's matured in this offense, he's been with it for the past few years, and knows what to do with it; they know what to do with it. I'm sure he's like a coach on the field for those guys."
On getting the team back to a winning attitude...
"You kick them in the butt, and if they're competitive at all, which they are, they're going to bounce back. Those that bounce back are going to play, and those that don't bounce back, won't."
On keeping Drew in the game...
"(I wanted) to try and get some positives and to get the score up. We didn't want his last series to end as a negative deal, we wanted a positive for him as well as those other guys, and it did. Then we got him out of there."
