ASU head coach Todd Graham
Opening Remarks
Well, first of all, it was a great honor for us tonight to have the Tillman name on the back of our jersey. It was something that was very important to us to salute the men and women that fight and defend our freedom and for our country. It was something that was very important for us. That was an honor for us.
Our fans were incredible tonight. I know that was disappointing. That one hurt as bad as any one I've had since I've been here. I'll tell you what I appreciate. I appreciate at the end of that game that our students all up there in the stands cheered our guys as they come in the tunnel. I really appreciate that. We're going to go to work and get better. Really proud of our offense. Coach Norvell came out tonight and they played. I'm proud of our players. Our players played hard. We just did some things that are very uncharacteristic of our football team. We had I think 10 penalties. I think nine were recorded but we had 10, they declined one, and penalties that cost us. Undisciplined things. Punching somebody after the whistle. We've never gotten one penalty like that since I've been here. Ten penalties defensively. Very poorly prepared. We busted more coverages tonight than we had all year. Just a lot of undisciplined play. We win together, we lose together. But I was disappointed in our discipline on defense. At the end of the day that was the difference. We give up a kickoff return for a touchdown. That was critical. We miss a chip shot field goal. That was critical. Obviously we had a 54 and a 51. Those are ones you don't always expect to hit. We took care of the football for the most part. I mean, the one interception, we thought they had jumped off-sides, and evidently they didn't. Quarterback thought that they jumped off-sides and was taking a shot down the field. That was one turnover that we had. I thought we did a great job of taking care of the football. Obviously at the end there the turnover. Mike Norvell came out with that offense, put 742 yards on the board. 107 plays. Really proud of their effort. They deserved to win. Our guys fought hard, played hard. I want to congratulate Oregon. Man, that was a heck of a football game. But at the end of the day, we made too many mistakes to win.
On back & forth scoring and keeping the focus
Well, I mean, they have a lot of talent. We knew their return game was very, very talented. That hurt us big-time. Early in the game they've got a third-and-two. We haven't done that all year. Absolutely leave a guy completely uncovered on something we practice. That's our responsibility, my responsibility. So that was probably the most critical error in our tenure. You have to give them credit for a lot of that. They didn't do anything complicated, they just did it with some pretty good people. What killed us is we couldn't tackle. We had the quarterback dead to rights and couldn't get him down. I mean, you got them fourth and whatever it was, 12, 11, we got him dead to rights in the backfield. Guy scrambles around, bounces off of us, throws up a prayer. One guy comes off his man. Got to stay on your man, you know. So that was pretty disheartening. But you got to give them a lot of credit. They're a pretty explosive team, pretty good football team. Obviously three overtimes, there was never a point in the game I didn't think we were going to win. We get into overtime. They run a bubble and go. Don't cover it. That's our responsibility. A lot of the things were really self-inflicted defensively. But there wasn't anything that they did that we didn't work on. But they did it with really fast guys. Probably maybe the thing that wasn't very smart is I think we probably listened too much. So we decided we weren't going to blitz so much tonight. Tell you how that worked out. Lots of regrets in that game. But the biggest thing is the penalties, those type things. I mean, that is a reflection of our discipline. That can't happen. Hitting somebody out of bounds. Then y'all have to look at all the plays because we've never had that many in a game. So that was disappointing.
On refs touchdown call in 3OT
You know, I couldn't tell. They don't ever replay the thing. I can see it close enough. I thought the guy was out of bounds. But I don't know. They reviewed it, so evidently he wasn't. I don't know.
On Oregon quarterback Vernon Adams
I'll be real honest with you. We spent more time game planning for 21, 2, 5 and 6. I mean, really wasn't much he did. He's a scrambler. But, I mean, it's a head-scratcher when you got a straight shot on a guy and don't get him down. So evidently he's strong, I guess, slippery to tackle. But I don't know. That puzzled me a little bit. We tackled really poorly. We gave up two long runs tonight. Again, both those runs, one of them we blew the defensive call. We didn't get the defensive call. We were a little bit kind of trying to get the rhythm of the game, the tempo down. The other one we're playing base defense which we probably won't ever play again.
On play calling in 3OT
I'll tell you one thing, I can't fault anything that the offense did. 742 yards. Obviously we talk about overtime, the team that runs the ball in overtime wins. Yeah, I'm not going to second guess anything they did because they deserved to win. We played undisciplined. Gave up a big play on the kicking game that really hurt us. Other than that, the chip shot field goal hurt us. There's a whole bunch of plays that were the difference in the game. We didn't play very good defensively. Probably a lot of it had to do with their guys. They got pretty good guys.
On state of team being .500
I don't. Disappointed.
ASU quarterback Mike Bercovici
On the last two plays of the game
The play was simple, the play was called in and we executed it. As a quarterback I told myself to make sure the ball gets completed or thrown away. It’s on me at the end of the game putting the ball in jeopardy like that. I couldn’t say enough about what our offense and defense and special teams did tonight. Just the way we honored the last name on our jersey, I couldn’t be more proud of this football team.
On what he saw on the last play
It was man coverage, we had a play where it was a simple slant and a fade, and I decided to throw a slant and like I said before as a quarterback it was on me and you cant make that mistake. I think the second down we had a couple more lives ahead of us and its going to hurt but were moving on.
On next week’s game
We have Washington State next week and I’ll make sure that as a quarterback that I lead this football team and we have four games left to go win.
On the team’s attitude going forward
Our attitude doesn’t change. We have a football team composed by 120 guys that play with passion, character, discipline, toughness; everything that our head coach exemplifies. And as the three leaders and captains of this football team, we set the tone for the rest of our football team, so they can look to us as we keep our chins high, they keep their chins high. We have four more games to go out and dominate, and prove to the country that we are the type of team that we started out the season as. Wins and losses don’t define the type of team that we have. We’re a team. We deny ourselves every single day of walking this football facility. We take our hats off. We take our earrings off. That’s what Sun Devils do.
ASU running back/wide receiver D.J. Foster
Opening Statement
Our guys played their butts off, on offense and defense. We made plays and came up short, but our guys played their butts off. For four quarters and three over time, they played their absolute butts off. I’m so proud of my teammates, from coming off a loss last week to come out here and play like that and give everything they got. Im so proud of my teammates, their my brothers right next to me. I mean at the end of the day we know we left it all out on the field.
On how he felt being in the backfield and slot tonight
I felt good being in that old position; I played in the slot and the backfield. I thought we had a great rotation between Demario (Richard) and Kalen (Ballage). Those two guys played their butts off. Those are my little brothers and they ran their absolute butts off tonight. I’m proud of them. I thought we had a great game plan as an offense, great chemistry going. We moved the ball very well tonight.
ASU safety Jordan Simone
On not getting a stop at the end
Our guys played with an amazing passion tonight, all the snaps that we played, everyone just gave it their all. It sucks to come up short, but I wouldn’t trade anyone on this team for anybody else in the country. I love these guys and I'm proud to be a Sun Devil.
On how it feels to play that well, but not win
It’s really frustrating. Us, as a defense, we never want to give up anything like that -- too many critical errors and things that we can control. I always say, ‘We have to do what we’re coached to do at the end of the day.’ Sometimes we didn’t. I can’t say enough about how hard the offense played. They stepped up in a major way tonight and I’m proud of these guys right here and just have to move forward.
Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich
Opening Statement
It was awesome, college football, highs, lows, missed plays, calls go your way, calls don’t go your way and just battling. When we had a bunch of guys miss a lot of time that, we kind of knew what was going to happen coming into the game and then a bunch that happened during the course of the game. Couldn’t be prouder of the guys stepping up. We knew this was going to be a back and forth type of thing. We didn’t know it was going to be 61-55 back and forth, but just how they play defensively we knew that was going to happen, getting healthy offensively had some fire power back and just staying in it. The huge play was the kick off return Chuck had and I think there was a miscommunication on the long touchdown pass and he was a part of that. He kind of took that on himself and really energized himself and our team. We tried to get some run game going, they don’t let you do that a ton. The perimeter passing game is where things are somewhat available if you can get them our or lead the rush and try to make things happen that way.”
On the Sun Devils throwing the ball twice on first-and-goal
I think that the way we were lined up, you challenge that’s the way to the goal line and some goal line defenses with zero coverage type moments in the back end and they are saying they are going to throw on the young guys and try to end it that way. At that point you have four downs, and they are going to go with their best play. Had two on two coverage and we made two great plays on the ball and they are probably saying that their X is going to be our O on that one on one situation and proud of the O’s. Very proud of their toughness, guys coming in that haven’t played a ton of plays for us and still having the fortitude to see it through was huge. And Vernon making guys miss, and guys making plays on the ball and if they don’t having the guts to come back from it and make another play and the defense to end it.
On what the win means moving forward
Continued belief in what we are doing. The guys on the back end are growing up, hopefully we can get some of these guys back healthy to just rally the troops and just belief in what they are doing. We have so many guys that are trying to figure out everything still, winning a game like this on the road against a team that did as people said similar circumstances of just kind of gutted out.
Oregon quarterback Vernon Adams
On if he’d ever been through a game like that
Not in overtimes, but something like that. It was a great win. I was so happy.
On what he was thinking on his TD pass to send it into OT
I was just trying to scramble around, just trying to buy time and find someone open. When I was scrambling (one) way, everybody started going (the other) way, and the wind stayed over here. I saw him and just threw it. It was an awesome catch by him.
On if any of the direct snaps were to give him a breather
No, that’s just how it was. That was the gameplan.
On if the coverage was what made him scramble so much tonight
I don’t know. I think I need to do a better job getting the O-linemen in the right protection. I wasn’t turning the protection for the O-linemen, so one guy was coming free, so that was on me.