Oct. 3, 2009

Recap | Final Stats | Notes | Photo Gallery

Miami Head Coach Michael Haywood

On the game as a whole:

"Well one of the things going into the game that we wanted to take was time of possession. I think we did a really good job of that, it was 40:51 to 19:09. We wanted to make sure we moved the ball down the field methodically with the short passing game. The reason we were doing it with the short passing game was because they have this coverage where they are dropping eight people out and only rushing three while occasionally rushing four. So it was real hard to throw the ball down the field when they were playing such soft coverage."

On the passing game: "We made some mistakes in the passing game that really showed up down on the goal line. We turned the ball over going into score, which was really unfortunate. We have to make sure that we either throw the ball away or that we run it in and try and get a score. They had a good coverage call and they did a nice job."

On the running game: "We've got to do a better job running the football. We didn't run the football as well as we should have today. But I do think we're getting better at running the football."

On the defense: "I think we did a pretty good job. The defense was put in some bad positions, especially on the fake punt. I think the guys are playing hard and competing, they are getting better, but not playing well enough to play winning football at this time."

Freshman quarterback Zac Dysert

On the interception:

"Bruton was kind of open in the back. I didn't want to force it, I was just going to kind of lob it and see if he could have make a play, but I didn't get my feet set very well and my foot slipped out from under me so it went to right to (the defender)."

On Cincinnati's defense:

"I don't know if they did anything that contained me real well, but I wasn't getting away from them. I probably stayed in the pocket to long. They were big and pretty strong so once they got me I wasn't getting away from them."

Senior running back Andre Bratton

On returning from injury:

"It definitely feels good to help my teammates out. I feel like I am getting to where I want to be as far as my body, I felt good today. Just being out on the field with the team battling for the bell, it's a great feeling. It's my senior year, I have to give my all regardless of how I am feeling."

Sophomore safety Anthony Kokal

On the mindset facing Cincinnati:

"We knew it was going to be a tough task. We had a good game plan and I think a lot of the time we executed it pretty well. We knew it was going to be the toughest offense we faced so far. I think a lot of things we did good, and there were some things we'll go back and look at tomorrow."

Cincinnati Sophomore Linebacker JK Schaffer

On the interception in end zone:

"We absolutely had to come up with a stop. There wasn't any other choice. I think the quarterback slipped a little bit and he threw it right to me."

Cincinnati Senior Quarterback Tony Pike

On the gameplan:

"We stuck with our game plan and we were able to run the ball a little bit. We feel like we can run the ball against anybody, but it depends on what they give us. Today they were doubling on Mardy (Gilyard) so they were giving us the numbers game where we could run the ball. They were putting 4 on 3 to our trips side and overloading the boundary side, so we had to establish the run."

Cincinnati Head Coach Brian Kelly

On the game:

"I told our guys I'm pleased with the win, 37-13 over a Miami team that played real hard. Our kids played hard as well. I was pleased today with the effort we gave, but I was also not pleased with a lot of things. When you look at the game of football, you just try to keep winning. Today was not our 'A' game, not to take anything away from Miami because they played very well today. In particular, we had a 3rd and 26 that resulted in one of the scores, and we had a corner blitz where our kid didn't make a play and both of those resulted in touchdowns. But you know, in a rivalry game, you're going to get a team's best shot and Miami gave it to us."

On the interception in end zone:

"JK had seen that route a couple times. We're playing with some young guys, they'll miss a few plays but they'll come back and make some big ones too."

On the running game:

"We only had 19 minutes of possession so if we hadn't been able to run the ball, we really would have struggled."

On play of the defensive line:

"The defensive line played very well today. We had some sacks early and it kind of got our whole line going up front. Zac Dysert is very elusive, a very nice quarterback, but our big pressure and sacks that we didn't get last week kind of showed up today."

On stopping the run:

"Thirty yards rushing on 35 carries is pretty good run defense. I thought physically we could handle them, which we did. They had to take the stuff underneath so they were patient, they had possession 41 minutes to our 19, but we took the run away and forced them to throw the ball."