Lane Kiffin Quotes
Syracuse Football
Syracuse vs. USC
Saturday, September 8, 2012
MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, N.J.
USC Head Coach Lane Kiffin quotes
Opening Statement:
“First off, a lot of praise to those guys. I talked about it all week with our local guys - this is a good team that we were coming to play today and it’s not an easy situation to come play in. That’s why NFL teams look at their schedule at the beginning of the year and don’t want to count their East Coast trips. Give those guys a lot of credit for playing really hard after losing a tough game last week. And also credit our players. I thought they did a really good job for a game that is not real easy to play. First off the East Coast, the two days, NFL stadium, not much attendance, lower than I think people thought, so there wasn’t a whole lot of energy and then the delay - so a lot of reasons why they could’ve not performed well. I thought they did really well especially the third quarter and the end of the second quarter and the third quarter, I thought our guys really started to play well. As we talked about yesterday, we were going to need to run the ball. They were going to come to play on defense. We had 250 yards rushing, even though I know two of those runs came from Robert and Marqise, that’s part of our run game. If they are going to take that away, pull their ends in all day, and you want to try and stop their outside zones, you run a couple reverses, so a lot of credit to our offensive line.”
On dealing with the delay:
“I thought whoever manages this stadium did a great job. They informed me and we told our players this was probably going to happen before the game. Somewhere in the third or fourth quarter, it was going to be shut down probably. We thought probably the fourth quarter, but it came a little bit earlier and we were going to shut it down. We knew what we were going to do. We were going to come in and they get the pads off and we were going to go to dry shirts because of the temperature difference. We didn’t really let our guys sit around. We really coached our guys schematically and not with a lot of energy, not a lot of wasted energy. So it was good. I thought our coaches did a really good job. Our players really responded; a lot of energy coming out. They did a really good job coming out of the locker room there to start the third quarter. Basically just sat around, we did out third downs and red zones and call sheet and got the offense ready.
On how the delay helped the offense:
“Well I think it did help. I know it helped myself. When our offensive staff has that much time, it’s almost like the game is over, we’re going to play a new game. We could really dissect what happened in that first half and really break it down. Like I said, reorder all of our stuff and we met with our offense and kind of reinstalled everything that was going to come, so I think that helped our guys.
On Matt Barkley not throwing downfield as much today:
Tried once and he threw it to the other team. We wanted to make sure we were in a game. We tried to get some momentum in the game. And if you come into an environment like it was today, just kind of weird, on the road and a team that it’s their Super Bowl and throw everything at you, I thought it was more critical that we were getting completions as it happened. And trying to run the ball, instead of all of a sudden throwing it downfield and turnovers happen or sacks cause fumbles. They do a really good job with their third down stuff. Run multiple three man fronts and we keep it running just to keep them in their shoes. They’re a really well coached team and that’s really why that was.
On Robert Woods talent:
I think that’s why you recruit, why we spend so much time. Why these guys went 9-2. They make the plays look good. Robert really stepped it up today. He was banged up as you probably saw out there. He really did a really good job. I thought I was going to have to take him out at one point and 9 (Marqise Lee) was going to have to take over, but those guys did a great job and Matt on his birthday throws six more touchdowns.
On this game helping in a future BCS game:
I’m sure that’s a good question but that’s so far from what we’re thinking about, you know a bowl game or any of that stuff. We’ve got so much work to do, you saw it today where we’ve got to improve. So we’re not even - that’s so far down the road. We’ve got to go back and get ready for our first conference game, against a team that’s beat us the last couple times.
On the defense’s performance:
That was the number one passing team in the country coming in. We played really good for a half. That’s kind of, for whatever reason, walking off the field I felt like for some reason when we don’t do really well on offense, or defense, over the years here has played really well. And then all of a sudden we get going on offense and all of a sudden we don’t play as well as defense, so if we’re going to be a really good team, we’ve got to play together on both sides of the ball all the time. Instead of how the first half was where we played great on defense, but not that well on offense. Then it kind of flopped in the second half.
Syracuse vs. USC
Saturday, September 8, 2012
MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, N.J.
USC Head Coach Lane Kiffin quotes
Opening Statement:
“First off, a lot of praise to those guys. I talked about it all week with our local guys - this is a good team that we were coming to play today and it’s not an easy situation to come play in. That’s why NFL teams look at their schedule at the beginning of the year and don’t want to count their East Coast trips. Give those guys a lot of credit for playing really hard after losing a tough game last week. And also credit our players. I thought they did a really good job for a game that is not real easy to play. First off the East Coast, the two days, NFL stadium, not much attendance, lower than I think people thought, so there wasn’t a whole lot of energy and then the delay - so a lot of reasons why they could’ve not performed well. I thought they did really well especially the third quarter and the end of the second quarter and the third quarter, I thought our guys really started to play well. As we talked about yesterday, we were going to need to run the ball. They were going to come to play on defense. We had 250 yards rushing, even though I know two of those runs came from Robert and Marqise, that’s part of our run game. If they are going to take that away, pull their ends in all day, and you want to try and stop their outside zones, you run a couple reverses, so a lot of credit to our offensive line.”
On dealing with the delay:
“I thought whoever manages this stadium did a great job. They informed me and we told our players this was probably going to happen before the game. Somewhere in the third or fourth quarter, it was going to be shut down probably. We thought probably the fourth quarter, but it came a little bit earlier and we were going to shut it down. We knew what we were going to do. We were going to come in and they get the pads off and we were going to go to dry shirts because of the temperature difference. We didn’t really let our guys sit around. We really coached our guys schematically and not with a lot of energy, not a lot of wasted energy. So it was good. I thought our coaches did a really good job. Our players really responded; a lot of energy coming out. They did a really good job coming out of the locker room there to start the third quarter. Basically just sat around, we did out third downs and red zones and call sheet and got the offense ready.
On how the delay helped the offense:
“Well I think it did help. I know it helped myself. When our offensive staff has that much time, it’s almost like the game is over, we’re going to play a new game. We could really dissect what happened in that first half and really break it down. Like I said, reorder all of our stuff and we met with our offense and kind of reinstalled everything that was going to come, so I think that helped our guys.
On Matt Barkley not throwing downfield as much today:
Tried once and he threw it to the other team. We wanted to make sure we were in a game. We tried to get some momentum in the game. And if you come into an environment like it was today, just kind of weird, on the road and a team that it’s their Super Bowl and throw everything at you, I thought it was more critical that we were getting completions as it happened. And trying to run the ball, instead of all of a sudden throwing it downfield and turnovers happen or sacks cause fumbles. They do a really good job with their third down stuff. Run multiple three man fronts and we keep it running just to keep them in their shoes. They’re a really well coached team and that’s really why that was.
On Robert Woods talent:
I think that’s why you recruit, why we spend so much time. Why these guys went 9-2. They make the plays look good. Robert really stepped it up today. He was banged up as you probably saw out there. He really did a really good job. I thought I was going to have to take him out at one point and 9 (Marqise Lee) was going to have to take over, but those guys did a great job and Matt on his birthday throws six more touchdowns.
On this game helping in a future BCS game:
I’m sure that’s a good question but that’s so far from what we’re thinking about, you know a bowl game or any of that stuff. We’ve got so much work to do, you saw it today where we’ve got to improve. So we’re not even - that’s so far down the road. We’ve got to go back and get ready for our first conference game, against a team that’s beat us the last couple times.
On the defense’s performance:
That was the number one passing team in the country coming in. We played really good for a half. That’s kind of, for whatever reason, walking off the field I felt like for some reason when we don’t do really well on offense, or defense, over the years here has played really well. And then all of a sudden we get going on offense and all of a sudden we don’t play as well as defense, so if we’re going to be a really good team, we’ve got to play together on both sides of the ball all the time. Instead of how the first half was where we played great on defense, but not that well on offense. Then it kind of flopped in the second half.
