FS Head Coach Pat Hill
"First of all, Rutgers is a very good defensive team. They are physical and it was a tough game. I was not pleased with our level of effort and intensity in the first half and we had a chat about that at halftime. We were not playing Bulldog football. We played much more physical and aggressive in the second half."
"I'm happy for the win. That's all I care about is getting the "W". I'm not into stats or any of that stuff. We just needed to come here and win and now we can get on that plane and head home."
"We have a lot to work on, needless to say. We weren't has effective on third downs as we needed to be. We didn't turn the ball over, so that was good. We got a couple interceptions and that's always a good thing. We were able to take control of the line of scrimmage in the second half."
"Rutgers is a good, physical team. This was a tough game and a good win for the Bulldogs."
FS QB Tom Brandstater
"We were not in sync in the first half but played better in the second half. The line made some real good adjustments and really took over the game. Ryan Mathews had a great game. It's nice to be able to hand the ball with someone like him and watch him go."
"We need to get better, no doubt. We have some stuff we want to work on. You can say we won ugly but it was a win. It will get better."
RU Head Coach Greg Schiano
“Obviously it was a very disappointing game. We did not play as we are capable of playing today, and as a coach that starts with me. It’s my job to get everyone ready.”
On the Rutgers defense towards the end of the game:
“I don’t think the defense was tired, I just think they gave up some big plays. The defense is in great shape. At no point did I think they were gassed. They played a great game, but they gave up those three big plays. We have a stat that we keep, if we hold opponents to fewer than three plays of over 20 yards, we are very hard to beat. Today, we gave up more than three plays of 20 or more yards.”
On RU’s offense:
“The words I would use are out of sync. I thought we did some good things, but we couldn’t get into a good flow. It just didn’t seem to flow freely. I think the team, collectively, needs to take over games. We have some great players, but I didn’t think we played well enough as a team.”
On why the defense gave up big plays:
“We’ve done it very well, with these same guys. We just didn’t execute today. We had a bad day. We didn’t coach very well today. We didn’t do any of the things we needed to do to in the game.”
On the offense not getting on track:
“We never really got a flow going. Some games that happens and you’re able to fight through it. I thought we were fighting through it when we went down 10-0 and we battled back to 10-7. Things were looking good, and then the third and long in the third quarter turned the game for us.”
On coaches and players not being in sync:
“The one thing that I think is special about this program, with players and coaches, is that we are in this together. There is no “them-us” kind of thinking. If I screw up, I will tell them that I screwed up. If they screw up, I will tell them they screwed up. I won’t tell other people, that’s between us. I’m not concerned with this. We didn’t execute but we’ll get back on the field and work to get better. We had a lot of breakdowns which is a shame because we had a lot of good effort. Breakdowns are what cost you games. We did not get it done today, but we’ll work and get it better.”
On changing up the pace of RU’s offense through the course of the game:
“We jumped into the no-huddle attack in the second quarter, and had some success. Then we jumped into it again in the third quarter, but just the way the game was going we had to go back to the huddle. Then after we went down two scores, we needed to go to a hurry-up, no-huddle offense. So we did try to change it up a few times.”
Rutgers’ offense had chances to score:
“We let a lot of opportunities slip through our fingers today. I’ve been on teams and coached teams that let that many opportunities slip through their fingers, and it’s tough to overcome. Because the other team is thinking ‘I just took their best punches and it’s still 0-0.’ But I really believe that this football team will come and keep throwing it. I don’t think they will be fazed by today’s game. We had breakdowns today, so we need to eliminate the breakdowns and continue to work hard.”
On learning a tough lesson:
“It’s a shame that we had to learn a lesson the hard way. I’ve been here at the podium many times saying how thankful I was that we learned a lesson by winning ugly. I wish I could have said that today, but we didn’t, we lost ugly. But we’ll be back. We have nine days and 23 hours to get ready for North Carolina, and this football team will be back.”
RU QB Mike Teel
“Today was a very disappointing and frustrating day for all of us. We just couldn’t establish a rhythm with the running or the passing game. There were times we could move the ball down the field, but then had trouble executing.”
“Some things worked for us today, but we could never truly capitalize. It was hard to not take advantage of the scoring opportunities we had in the first half. We gave it our best shot, but the missed chances we had really hurt us in the end.”
RU WR Tiquan Underwood
“Unfortunately we didn’t play well as a whole. As a collective group, we made mistakes and just didn’t make the plays when we needed to. I know we felt ready to play. We prepared and felt great about going into today’s game. As you can imagine, it’s very frustrating for all of us when many things didn’t go our way.”
“All you can do is learn from a game like today, and correct the mistakes for our next game against North Carolina. We’ll go back to the drawing board and prepare. We have to come out and execute because you only have 12 games, and we need to take advantage of each and every game.”