ASU Head Coach Todd Graham
Opening Statement
“You have to give them credit. They busted the one run there. Defensively, we’re getting to the downs we want to, but then we’re giving up third and 20 and third and 15. We have to play better and coach better. That was a very poor effort. With special teams, I’ve never experienced that. We gave up a kick-off return for a touchdown. We shanked two punts out-of-bounds. 10 yard punts killed us. We probably gave up 13 points – at least – on special teams. That was very uncharacteristic because we’ve been very good on special teams. We got (Michael) Sleep-Dalton who punts with both feet. Obviously, that was a disaster tonight. We just have to do better. We beat ourselves. We have to give them credit, but when you turn the football over, get holding penalties and get sacked, I thought the whole time we would come back and win. Our guys showed heart, but it didn’t count on the score board. We have to do better than that.”
On the run game
“Kalen (Ballage) got dinged up, so he wasn’t available. We have got to run the ball better than that. We had no running game. We had to rely on the big play. We gave up too many negatives. Right now, we are not playing very well. We didn’t play very well on offense and we played atrocious on special teams. At times, we showed heart on defense, but we just gave up too many conversions on third down and long.”
On missing tackles
“Didn’t tackle. Just didn’t tackle. Tried to grab, but got a facemask because of that. They had 270, 280 yards rushing I think and I think 90 of them were on one play.”
On dedicating the game to the late Frank Kush
“That’s what’s on my mind. Obviously, I talked about him (Frank Kush) before, last night and today. I know our guys knew him and knew what he was about. We did a poor job of going out and representing and honoring him tonight because we played pretty poorly.”
On coaching as a whole
“As coaches we have to do a better job. That’s the bottom line. We’re responsible. We have to coach better, we’ve got to play better, everyone’s got to be better. They’re a very good football team but we’re going to play a lot better football teams than them. It’s discouraging to make all those mistakes. We beat ourselves by making mental mistake after mental mistake. We gave up one long run there. They’re going to break runs but your safety has to be there. They kind of buried up in there and inexperience and things like that…we got that corrected. I thought they battled and did some things but then we kept turning the football over and shanking the ball. We haven’t done that. Special teams field position killed us. When you’re playing a running team like that…our guys have heart and battled but we just have to do a better job.”
ASU Redshirt Junior Quarterback Manny Wilkins
On converting on fourth down to score
“I was ready to go win the football game. I thought we had a real opportunity. I feel like I did a bad job of managing the game late and I didn't give us a good opportunity. We had one fourth down that I threw the ball too high to N'Keal (Harry) that if I could've put it on his body and we could've scored then we would have taken the lead. I thought that if we would have had the opportunity to get up on them… they're not a team that plays well from behind just based off the offense that they run so if would have been able to get up on them then it would have been a different ball game. So I have to be able to put more points on the board and that lies on my hands.”
On establishing an identity as an offense
“We just take it week by week. We game plan. We go out there with certain cases where we're in certain formations based off the personnel that they have. It's just about going out there and executing the game plan, and that's not what we did tonight.”
On getting ready for Texas Tech
“The season isn't over. That's a 'your season's over' question. We just go to the next game and play ball. That's what we're here to do. Sometimes you're going to lose a game. It's going to happen, so you just have to go to the next game and that's it.”
On the touchdown connection with Frank Darby
“It was really cool to see him get that opportunity to make a play. At first I thought they were going to call offensive pass interference so I got a little frustrated but he made a hell of a play, kept his eye on the ball, kept his head over his shoulder and that’s what you want as a quarterback, just a guy to go get the ball.”
On what he thinks of Frank Darby’s future
“He is a guy, and it showed tonight when his number was called. He put his head down, went out there and made a play, made a couple plays. I’m proud of him, we just need to go to work to get everybody on board. Whoever has bruises, we need to get them back healthy and go out there to play the next game”
On SDSU running the ball
“They were loading the box so we were just taking shots on the field. We had a couple that we got and a couple that we just didn’t come down with. At the end of the day, that was a damn good football team that we competed with tonight. SDSU is very well coached, very disciplined and they execute their game plans. It’s about going to the next week now and our focus is Texas Tech. It’s a long season and not a lot of teams go perfect so I am proud of the way that we fought. It is just time to bounce back.”
ASU Senior Defensive Lineman Tashon Smallwood
On regrouping defensively to get ready for Texas Tech
“We know that they're an air-raid team. They go fast. We played them last year so we kind of have some things figured out, but we know they're going to pass the ball so we have to have a good pass rush and take that pressure off the secondary. We just have to execute.”
SDSU Head Coach Rocky Long
On Rashaad Penny’s performance
“You’re just seeing what we knew all along, that we think he’s one of the best running backs in the country. He had a great year last year too, he just didn’t carry it as much because the guy in front of him was setting the all-time NCAA record for rushing. So what you’re seeing… you’re just seeing more of him. The kick return, he has a great feel for that. Plus the kick-off return team did an unbelievable job of blocking for him and then he just out ran them.”
On having the lead and calling plays knowing ASU was going to throw the ball
“It didn’t help much. They were going to air it out anyway because they can’t run it. It is not because they don’t have players, it is the style of offense they run. It is very difficult for a spread offense to consistently run the ball. They had some wildcat stuff that worked really well because now you have an extra blocker. Take the quarterback out there and put him out there at wide receiver and you end up with an extra blocker and now you have a two-back field set. Can run the ball better with two running backs in the back field. That is just a difference in schemes and a lot people running the spread now. We are one of the few that don’t and the spread is very difficult to stop. Probably more difficult to stop that we run on offense.”
On the defensive backs’ performance
“I was a little disappointed that we had all those offside penalties on the defensive line and disappointed on how we played on four or five of the deep throws.”
On Rashaad’s speed
“He has great football speed. I am not trying to be a smart ass up here. A 40 time means nothing in football. It is how you carry your pads, how fast you are with pads on. He is very fast when he has pads on and a ball in his hand. He is very fast. There are few people that can catch it. So football-speed wise, he is really fast. We don’t time him in 40s because I don’t want to know. They either play fast or don’t play fast. You have a guy that can run 4:03 and people are wondering why I don’t put him on the field to play. A guy that goes 4:08 and don’t put him on the field because he ran 4:08, but is the best player on the team. So we don’t time 40s.”
On the touchdown after the timeout on third and long
“Some of it is by design, but as always players win and players lose. Coaches can lose a game for you by not giving the players a proper chance to play well, by giving them a lousy scheme compared to who they are playing against. Most coaches at this level don’t do that. They give them a pretty good scheme. Players win and lose. Players won tonight. We probably have that in our scheme and they executed it. There were other things that went really good and didn’t go for any yards. But on the board it works every time.”
On what this win means
“It means we are 2-0. It doesn’t make any difference who we play. It might to you guys. It doesn’t make any difference to us.”
On the offensive line
“They were better than they were last week. We have young guys in our offensive line that are very talented. They are big, strong and very athletic, but they are very young in technique work and they make assignment errors. They are lucky that they have a running back as good as Rashaad Penny behind them because there were several times not blocking and Rashaad ran right by them.”
SDSU Senior Running Back Rashaad Penny
On the overall game
"It was a team effort, in all three phases of the team. Offense, defense, special teams. Our coach gives us the plays and we go out there and execute. We broke [ASU] down… we did what were supposed to do tonight. I kind of said it was like the Mayweather v. McGregor fight. Mayweather was waiting until McGregor tired out, and they finally cracked him. We did that tonight. It’s exciting."
On his TDs and if they surprised him at all
"I just go out there and play football. I just go out there and help my team win games. Whatever happens, happens. That’s my slogan. I get the plays because of the guys that were blocking for me. I'm so excited, I don't know what to say."
On their team confidence
"The confidence level went up. Just because we’re in the Mountain West I feel like everyone else has an advantage over us. Tonight we proved it with our young team and we definitely stepped up. I’m so excited for these young guys. We knew it was going to be a big crowd. We came out and we played."
On specifics of his quote that ASU hasn't seen a team like SDSU
"Ground and pound. Pound them. I don't know when the last time they saw Stanford was, but they do the same thing. They really didn't get pounded last time like they did tonight but they did a heck of a job. They stayed in the game and they stayed composed on defensive but our offensive line came through when we needed them."
On the wait of being the starting running back
“I feel like everyone knows what I can do as a feature back and tonight kind of proved it to a lot of people. Especially against a Pac-12, Power-5 team. I mean UC Davis was a great team but I feel like with this ASU game, it was probably a game where a lot of people took notice. I have been in this waiting game for three years and couldn’t wait to get my opportunity tonight as a featured back. I am thankful and grateful these coaches gave me the chance. I look up to DJ [Pumphrey]. I texted him last night for advice. Last week, he told me he needed a big game and ended up having a big game. So I told him, I need to have a big game. He just sent me advice and I love getting advice from him. All the running backs pump me up when things aren’t going right. They motivated me. I just got to give it up to my teammates tonight because they really pushed me.”
On the rushing game plan and if it included baiting ASU to the inside
“I mean definitely. With those guys coming up, pursuing the outside was open. Sometimes I get in trouble for trying to go to the outside all the time. You have to take what you can get and that’s something I got today. The offensive line was amazing just making holes for me. We played great as a team overall.”
On if he looked at himself on the video board on that first 95-yard run
“I always look at the video board. We always talk about how we get caught from behind. I always look at the video board, that’s just something we do. Once I saw no one was running after me, I kind of slowed down. It’s just exciting. I don’t even know what to say.”
On converting on the third and 21 drive and how it continued to change the game’s momentum
“I felt like they thought they had us on the ropes. We practice that play all the time and kind of knew it was coming. It’s crazy because the offensive coaches are masterminds. Our offensive coordinator said if that cornerback drops back and the free safety goes over the top of the middle, run it to the back side and nobody will be there. Chad [Woolsey] made a heck of a play just getting the ball to me. After that, it was all up to me and I felt like DJ [Pumphrey].”
On being synced with Chad Woolsey on that play
“Like I said we game planned all week everything we saw today. Hats off to everyone, to the coaching staff, to the players. It was a great win. I can’t wait to see where it goes.”
Opening Statement
“You have to give them credit. They busted the one run there. Defensively, we’re getting to the downs we want to, but then we’re giving up third and 20 and third and 15. We have to play better and coach better. That was a very poor effort. With special teams, I’ve never experienced that. We gave up a kick-off return for a touchdown. We shanked two punts out-of-bounds. 10 yard punts killed us. We probably gave up 13 points – at least – on special teams. That was very uncharacteristic because we’ve been very good on special teams. We got (Michael) Sleep-Dalton who punts with both feet. Obviously, that was a disaster tonight. We just have to do better. We beat ourselves. We have to give them credit, but when you turn the football over, get holding penalties and get sacked, I thought the whole time we would come back and win. Our guys showed heart, but it didn’t count on the score board. We have to do better than that.”
On the run game
“Kalen (Ballage) got dinged up, so he wasn’t available. We have got to run the ball better than that. We had no running game. We had to rely on the big play. We gave up too many negatives. Right now, we are not playing very well. We didn’t play very well on offense and we played atrocious on special teams. At times, we showed heart on defense, but we just gave up too many conversions on third down and long.”
On missing tackles
“Didn’t tackle. Just didn’t tackle. Tried to grab, but got a facemask because of that. They had 270, 280 yards rushing I think and I think 90 of them were on one play.”
On dedicating the game to the late Frank Kush
“That’s what’s on my mind. Obviously, I talked about him (Frank Kush) before, last night and today. I know our guys knew him and knew what he was about. We did a poor job of going out and representing and honoring him tonight because we played pretty poorly.”
On coaching as a whole
“As coaches we have to do a better job. That’s the bottom line. We’re responsible. We have to coach better, we’ve got to play better, everyone’s got to be better. They’re a very good football team but we’re going to play a lot better football teams than them. It’s discouraging to make all those mistakes. We beat ourselves by making mental mistake after mental mistake. We gave up one long run there. They’re going to break runs but your safety has to be there. They kind of buried up in there and inexperience and things like that…we got that corrected. I thought they battled and did some things but then we kept turning the football over and shanking the ball. We haven’t done that. Special teams field position killed us. When you’re playing a running team like that…our guys have heart and battled but we just have to do a better job.”
ASU Redshirt Junior Quarterback Manny Wilkins
On converting on fourth down to score
“I was ready to go win the football game. I thought we had a real opportunity. I feel like I did a bad job of managing the game late and I didn't give us a good opportunity. We had one fourth down that I threw the ball too high to N'Keal (Harry) that if I could've put it on his body and we could've scored then we would have taken the lead. I thought that if we would have had the opportunity to get up on them… they're not a team that plays well from behind just based off the offense that they run so if would have been able to get up on them then it would have been a different ball game. So I have to be able to put more points on the board and that lies on my hands.”
On establishing an identity as an offense
“We just take it week by week. We game plan. We go out there with certain cases where we're in certain formations based off the personnel that they have. It's just about going out there and executing the game plan, and that's not what we did tonight.”
On getting ready for Texas Tech
“The season isn't over. That's a 'your season's over' question. We just go to the next game and play ball. That's what we're here to do. Sometimes you're going to lose a game. It's going to happen, so you just have to go to the next game and that's it.”
On the touchdown connection with Frank Darby
“It was really cool to see him get that opportunity to make a play. At first I thought they were going to call offensive pass interference so I got a little frustrated but he made a hell of a play, kept his eye on the ball, kept his head over his shoulder and that’s what you want as a quarterback, just a guy to go get the ball.”
On what he thinks of Frank Darby’s future
“He is a guy, and it showed tonight when his number was called. He put his head down, went out there and made a play, made a couple plays. I’m proud of him, we just need to go to work to get everybody on board. Whoever has bruises, we need to get them back healthy and go out there to play the next game”
On SDSU running the ball
“They were loading the box so we were just taking shots on the field. We had a couple that we got and a couple that we just didn’t come down with. At the end of the day, that was a damn good football team that we competed with tonight. SDSU is very well coached, very disciplined and they execute their game plans. It’s about going to the next week now and our focus is Texas Tech. It’s a long season and not a lot of teams go perfect so I am proud of the way that we fought. It is just time to bounce back.”
ASU Senior Defensive Lineman Tashon Smallwood
On regrouping defensively to get ready for Texas Tech
“We know that they're an air-raid team. They go fast. We played them last year so we kind of have some things figured out, but we know they're going to pass the ball so we have to have a good pass rush and take that pressure off the secondary. We just have to execute.”
SDSU Head Coach Rocky Long
On Rashaad Penny’s performance
“You’re just seeing what we knew all along, that we think he’s one of the best running backs in the country. He had a great year last year too, he just didn’t carry it as much because the guy in front of him was setting the all-time NCAA record for rushing. So what you’re seeing… you’re just seeing more of him. The kick return, he has a great feel for that. Plus the kick-off return team did an unbelievable job of blocking for him and then he just out ran them.”
On having the lead and calling plays knowing ASU was going to throw the ball
“It didn’t help much. They were going to air it out anyway because they can’t run it. It is not because they don’t have players, it is the style of offense they run. It is very difficult for a spread offense to consistently run the ball. They had some wildcat stuff that worked really well because now you have an extra blocker. Take the quarterback out there and put him out there at wide receiver and you end up with an extra blocker and now you have a two-back field set. Can run the ball better with two running backs in the back field. That is just a difference in schemes and a lot people running the spread now. We are one of the few that don’t and the spread is very difficult to stop. Probably more difficult to stop that we run on offense.”
On the defensive backs’ performance
“I was a little disappointed that we had all those offside penalties on the defensive line and disappointed on how we played on four or five of the deep throws.”
On Rashaad’s speed
“He has great football speed. I am not trying to be a smart ass up here. A 40 time means nothing in football. It is how you carry your pads, how fast you are with pads on. He is very fast when he has pads on and a ball in his hand. He is very fast. There are few people that can catch it. So football-speed wise, he is really fast. We don’t time him in 40s because I don’t want to know. They either play fast or don’t play fast. You have a guy that can run 4:03 and people are wondering why I don’t put him on the field to play. A guy that goes 4:08 and don’t put him on the field because he ran 4:08, but is the best player on the team. So we don’t time 40s.”
On the touchdown after the timeout on third and long
“Some of it is by design, but as always players win and players lose. Coaches can lose a game for you by not giving the players a proper chance to play well, by giving them a lousy scheme compared to who they are playing against. Most coaches at this level don’t do that. They give them a pretty good scheme. Players win and lose. Players won tonight. We probably have that in our scheme and they executed it. There were other things that went really good and didn’t go for any yards. But on the board it works every time.”
On what this win means
“It means we are 2-0. It doesn’t make any difference who we play. It might to you guys. It doesn’t make any difference to us.”
On the offensive line
“They were better than they were last week. We have young guys in our offensive line that are very talented. They are big, strong and very athletic, but they are very young in technique work and they make assignment errors. They are lucky that they have a running back as good as Rashaad Penny behind them because there were several times not blocking and Rashaad ran right by them.”
SDSU Senior Running Back Rashaad Penny
On the overall game
"It was a team effort, in all three phases of the team. Offense, defense, special teams. Our coach gives us the plays and we go out there and execute. We broke [ASU] down… we did what were supposed to do tonight. I kind of said it was like the Mayweather v. McGregor fight. Mayweather was waiting until McGregor tired out, and they finally cracked him. We did that tonight. It’s exciting."
On his TDs and if they surprised him at all
"I just go out there and play football. I just go out there and help my team win games. Whatever happens, happens. That’s my slogan. I get the plays because of the guys that were blocking for me. I'm so excited, I don't know what to say."
On their team confidence
"The confidence level went up. Just because we’re in the Mountain West I feel like everyone else has an advantage over us. Tonight we proved it with our young team and we definitely stepped up. I’m so excited for these young guys. We knew it was going to be a big crowd. We came out and we played."
On specifics of his quote that ASU hasn't seen a team like SDSU
"Ground and pound. Pound them. I don't know when the last time they saw Stanford was, but they do the same thing. They really didn't get pounded last time like they did tonight but they did a heck of a job. They stayed in the game and they stayed composed on defensive but our offensive line came through when we needed them."
On the wait of being the starting running back
“I feel like everyone knows what I can do as a feature back and tonight kind of proved it to a lot of people. Especially against a Pac-12, Power-5 team. I mean UC Davis was a great team but I feel like with this ASU game, it was probably a game where a lot of people took notice. I have been in this waiting game for three years and couldn’t wait to get my opportunity tonight as a featured back. I am thankful and grateful these coaches gave me the chance. I look up to DJ [Pumphrey]. I texted him last night for advice. Last week, he told me he needed a big game and ended up having a big game. So I told him, I need to have a big game. He just sent me advice and I love getting advice from him. All the running backs pump me up when things aren’t going right. They motivated me. I just got to give it up to my teammates tonight because they really pushed me.”
On the rushing game plan and if it included baiting ASU to the inside
“I mean definitely. With those guys coming up, pursuing the outside was open. Sometimes I get in trouble for trying to go to the outside all the time. You have to take what you can get and that’s something I got today. The offensive line was amazing just making holes for me. We played great as a team overall.”
On if he looked at himself on the video board on that first 95-yard run
“I always look at the video board. We always talk about how we get caught from behind. I always look at the video board, that’s just something we do. Once I saw no one was running after me, I kind of slowed down. It’s just exciting. I don’t even know what to say.”
On converting on the third and 21 drive and how it continued to change the game’s momentum
“I felt like they thought they had us on the ropes. We practice that play all the time and kind of knew it was coming. It’s crazy because the offensive coaches are masterminds. Our offensive coordinator said if that cornerback drops back and the free safety goes over the top of the middle, run it to the back side and nobody will be there. Chad [Woolsey] made a heck of a play just getting the ball to me. After that, it was all up to me and I felt like DJ [Pumphrey].”
On being synced with Chad Woolsey on that play
“Like I said we game planned all week everything we saw today. Hats off to everyone, to the coaching staff, to the players. It was a great win. I can’t wait to see where it goes.”