Colorado Head Coach Dan Hawkins
On Offense
“We’d put a snap on the ground, we wouldn’t make the right play, and we would throw an interception. It just wasn’t working tonight.”
General
“This was a chance for a chance for us to play a big program, and we obviously believe we can go in and beat anybody. It’s just that tonight, they made the plays. We have a chance now to be 2-2 and we’ll try to take it up a notch.
“I thought our guys did a great job pass protection wise, probably better than expected. They didn’t really do anything differently than what we thought they would do. They’re big, they’re athletic, they’re fast, and they put themselves in a position to make plays.”
“They got the reverse on us, and they hit us with a drive that they took to the house, but other than that you take those plays away and we’re in great shape. They got a couple of field goals that we didn’t do a good job on, when our offense would go three-and-out, and then give them good field position.
“You have to run the football to win consistently, and we didn’t do that. You also can’t drop back and throw the ball 65 times. But they’re a good team. Their defensive line is probably the best we’ve seen so far.”
On freshman WR Josh Smith
“Josh came back and did some really god things, and [senior tailback] Hugh [Charles] adds another dimension to the offense, so we’ll just try to get everybody ready for next week.”
Colorado Athletic Director Mike Bohn
On The Crowd
“In a word, terrific. Or electric. We salute the student passion and their efforts to bring a great environment to the game, and it’s a big part of building success and tradition. The blackout was a success, and not only the students but seemingly everyone answered the call to be in their seat by the time Ralphie took the field.”
Florida State
General
“It was a good football game.
On Playing In The Altitude
“I couldn’t tell the difference personally. I really don’t think it affected us. I didn’t see it affect anyone on our sidelines.”
On Pass Defense
“We’re still not breaking on the ball very well. We’re still standing there and letting them catch it instead of breaking on the ball. We have to get better. We’ve got two weeks to get better, if we don’t we’re going to get killed next week.”
On Offensive Performance
“I didn’t think we were sharp. I didn’t think our blocking was sharp at all.”
On
“I was surprised. I was surprised at all the Seminoles that were here. Seems like the further away we play the better they show up.”
On Defensive Performance
“They just played real well. (
On Winning Back to Back Games
“Every win is important to us because we’re trying to climb back.”
On Not Getting the Shutout Tonight
“You’d always like to have one, its good for the morale of the defense. I wish we could have got it but they deserved to get their touchdown. They just kept coming back.”
Colorado
QB Cody Hawkins
GENERAL—“It’s tough to win a football game when you don’t put any points on the board and we didn’t put any on the board until it was too late. We had some opportunities early and we just shot ourselves in the foot.”
ON OFFENSIVE EXECUTION—“We definitely didn’t execute perfectly, but then again we expect that if we execute every play perfectly it will go for a touchdown. Coach Hawkins said that we need to be more steely eyed and that’s true, but I thought our offensive line played their best game tonight. I’m proud of every guy because we got hit in the mouth and we didn’t back down. We all got back up.”
ON PERSONAL PROGRESSION—“I think I am starting to feel the pocket better and am improving as a quarterback. With that said I have to take care of the ball better and I put a lot of the blame for tonight’s offensive performance directly on my shoulders. It’s my job to make sure everyone knows what they’re doing and where they are supposed to be.”
ON GETTING WR JOSH SMITH BACK—“It was great getting Josh out on the field tonight, and every guy on our team is here because they have the potential to make plays. Josh is just eye candy for a quarterback, and he goes out and plays like he is capable of, always at 110 percent. I’m proud of him for how he came to play tonight after missing the last few weeks.”
WR Josh Smith
GENERAL—“Florida State is a very talented team and it is great to get to play them because we are gearing up for the Big 12 Conference, and playing competition like this is why I came to Colorado.”
ON FSU CORNERBACKS—“I have to admit that their corners had good speed, but I don’t think they were any faster than I am. I really respect them as players because they made me work hard on every play. Thankfully I was able to make some plays out there, especially that long catch in the second half. I don’t really pay attention to which corner is on me on a particular play because I have to go and make a play regardless.”
ON LATE OFFENSIVE SUCCESS—“I think that it shows that we can do it, we can go out there and play with anyone. We just need to come back tomorrow and all of next week and get better. We need to get after it and start playing how we did at the end of the game from the opening kickoff.”
DT George Hypolite
ON DEFENSIVE PERFORMANCE—“As a defense we did play well today, but we are a team that strives for perfection. We talk about that in practice and try for it everyday. If we can stop the few plays that they had on us tonight, maybe it is a different game. I have to tip my hat to
ON PRESSURING THE QB—“We knew that they had a young offensive line and we wanted to attack them. (Drew) Weatherford is a great quarterback, if you give him time he will pick you apart and we knew that. We tried to pressure him all night and when we did we had success defensively.”
GENERAL—“I am proud of our defense because last year we gave up a lot of touchdowns because guys were out of position or didn’t know where they were supposed to be. We didn’t do that today, we played really well for the majority of the game and
ON WHAT TO TAKE AWAY FROM TONIGHT’S GAME—“What we can take away from tonight’s game is that we can play with anybody in the country. We had our chances tonight and we gave the game away tonight. We need to play better because we can play better. We know this and when we play the way we are capable of playing, we can play with anyone.”
LB Jordon Dizon
ON TONIGHT’S GAME—“It was a crazy game, I thought we played well as a defense and it showed us that we can play with anyone. We have great coaches and now we know what we can do.”
ON THE DEFENSIVE PERFORMANCE—“I have to give our defensive line a ton of credit they played great tonight. George [Hypolite] played great and Brandon [Nicolas] had a very good game as well. They were consistently putting pressure on Weatherford and they came away with some sacks. Terrence [Wheatley] also played well for us, and helped contain their impressive wideouts.”
ON PLAYING SPECIAL TEAMS—“It’s all for the team, I do it for the Buffaloes. Whatever I can do to lead this team and help this team win I’ll do, no questions asked.”
CB Terrence Wheatley (At Halftime)
“The game is going okay. We just need to get the offense going a little more, and we’ll be all right. I thought we had a good first half defensively, they had a couple of big plays and the long touchdown run, but we’ve locked in on them on third down and I think have done a pretty good job of keeping their offense off the field for the most part. But it would be nice to also get a turnover and help set the offense up.”
Florida State
CB Tony Carter
ON DEFENSE WINNING THE GAME—“Obviously all the points come from the offense but defense wins games. Our defense essentially won the game tonight and our offense did what it needed to do to win.”
ON LEARNING FROM THIS GAME—“I think we can be one of the tougher defenses in the nation. We learned that we could almost make it the whole game without letting up. So next time out, I want to challenge our defense to shut the other team down for the full 60 minutes. We can win tough games on the road, Coach has told us this all week and we went out there and proved it. As a team we can still improve, we’ve got some more practicing to do, to work out the kinks in the offense and on defense we need to learn to clamp down for the entire game.”
ON ADJUSTING TO THE ALTITUDE—“It was not an issue. We heard more about the altitude from
RB Antone Smith
ON THE PLAY OF THE OFFENSE—“Everybody came into the game very excited and that energy clouded our head and we made mistakes early on. Our defense was outstanding and created opportunities for our offense.”
ON HIS PERFORMANCE—“I left a lot of yards on the field. I felt that if I could break some tackles here and there that I would’ve had a better day.
ON
ON THE OFFENSIVE LINE—“Our offensive line played decent tonight but some guys missed their blocks and that could’ve created bigger plays and more points.”
QB Drew Weatherford
ON RED ZONE OFFENSE—“I was surprised about our lack of focus in the red zone. We had a lot of stupid penalties and we shot ourselves in the foot a number of times.”
ON ADJUSTING TO ALTITUDE—“Altitude was a minor factor. Our offensive line was a little tired at the end but overall I think as a team we adjusted well. I think a bigger factor was our team relaxing and focusing too much on the shutout rather than just playing the game.”
ON WHAT THE TEAM CAN DO BETTER—“Although we did win, it was ugly. We need to play a lot better if we’re going to beat teams like
ON HIS TEAM’S VICTORY—“You can’t take a win from us but it was ugly. We need to play better in the future but right now this win feels good and we’ll go back into practice and learn from our mistakes. Nobody played to the best of their ability but I think this team has a lot of potential.”
LB Derek Nicholson
GENERAL – “We studied them. We got tips off their linemen and their backfield. We went out there and executed the game plan for three and a half quarters. We cannot slip up and give up points in that last quarter, that is stupid.”
ON NOT GETTING THE SHUTOUT – “It’s very disappointing. (
ON DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR MICKEY ANDREWS BEING IN THE BOOTH – “It is a little different but it is great to have him back, to have him around. He gave us a pep talk about what we can do better. Mickey’s our leader and just having him to be here and call our plays was great.”
DT Budd Thacker
ON NOT GETTING THE SHUTOUT – “I’m kind of upset about that. We need to finish. When there is three minutes in the game and (
ON PLAYING AT ALTITUDE – “I know there were some points in there where I needed a blow, but for the most part, we condition so much back home, it didn’t really affect us.”
LB Geno Hayes
ON NOT GETTING THE SHUTOUT – “You know I was upset at the point when they scored, but you cannot take it back, so it’s time to move on. A win is a win, and we won so it is time to move on.”
ON DT ANDRE FLUELLEN BEING HURT – “Andre (Fluellen) is a real big time player. So when he is out, you kind of notice.”
ON
