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SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 18, 2017Christian ChapmanRonley LakalakaRashaad PennySan Diego, California Nevada - 23, SDSU - 42 Q. A night that you probably will remember for your entire life? RASHAAD PENNY: I mean, it don't feel real. You've got all these amazing guys around you every day and then amazing coaches telling you that you can do certain things and you finally just have to believe in it, and that's what I did tonight. I believe in it. I believe in myself. I believe in these guys. When you do things like this, it just feels so real because you don't know what's going on. I feel like when I'm running the ball, I'm about to get tackled, but I don't know, it's amazing. But I think these guys and the coaches and this staff, everybody that believes in me, just led me to do this. Q. The kick and the punt, did you see it open up? - at what point did you think you have a chance? RASHAAD PENNY: When you have amazing -- when you have a bye week, and then you get to practice special teams; and we've been struggling in kickoff return area, so we've been practicing kickoff returns for a long time. So I mean, that bye week gave us justice (ph with the punt return -- when I heard I was up for punt return, I was like, man, I think I can do something with it, and then I got it. Amazing blocking, and then you've got to beat the wedge, and all the guys (ph) are the wedge, so I think that should be pretty easy for a skill guy. Q. When did you know you were going to go out for punt return? RASHAAD PENNY: I found out in the bye week towards the end. I was already catching punts in practice every day. I just was waiting on a shot. I mean, Quest is an amazing, amazing punt returner just getting us yards, but it's like, they wanted a home run hitter. I was like, I think it was honestly -- I don't know what was going on. They put me back there and I don't know, I just looked at it like it was a kickoff return. Q. You broke Marshall Faulk's record -- what's it like to have your name mentioned in company like that? RASHAAD PENNY: Marshall Faulk, you can't say much about it. It's a blessing, but then again, it's these guys. Can't do nothing without Chapman handing me the ball or the wedge guys blocking for me or the offensive line. I thank God. I think they should be more excited than me. I'm just taking it slowly. It's just the opportunities that I get and I'm going to take advantage of it. I just want to help this team win and just contribute and do everything I have to do. Q. What was the feeling like getting the punt return, getting guys right in your face when you catch it, put your head down -- RASHAAD PENNY: I was told all week that I'm bigger than these guys and they don't want to tackle me. I was like, I'm not going to go in and fair catch a ball anymore. That's the mindset I had at punt return. I mean, I'm not about to fair catch anything. They done a good job blocking, and then I just see the hole open up. I mean, when you see something like that, you just take it as a kickoff return on a run play. Q. From your perspective, what was it like? CHRISTIAN CHAPMAN: It's amazing to be part of. His name is going to be etched in history. I feel everybody everybody on this team feels they were a part of it. We take pride in it. It's just as much us as it is him. We know for the rest of our lives that he broke those records, but we were all part of it. We were all there to see it. It's a good feeling all around. Q. How did that steady you guys? It was a little uneven early on in the game. CHRISTIAN CHAPMAN: I feel like as we were going and making adjustments, seeing what they were doing, we're not sure how they were going it come out. We adjusted right and I think the game plan from there on just kind of clicked. The run game got going and the passing was looking good and we had our one-on-one matchups and we just took advantage of those. As the game went on, we just kept pounding the ball and he broke a big one. Q. Fresno State winning earlier today, is that something you talked about as a team before today's game? CHRISTIAN CHAPMAN: Yeah, we were all watching closely. That game, it had great impact on our game and our season. It's difficult. We really want to go to the championship. Every year we want to go to the championship, and that happened. But there's still ballgames to play. We have got to finish this thing off right. We're trying to finish in the double digits this year. So we've got to finish. We've got New Mexico next week and we've got to beat them and hopefully get a good Bowl game. But I mean, getting ten wins in a season is still a great season. The championship's not there, but there's still some things out there we want to get and we're going to keep pushing towards it. Q. Can you speak to the emotion of the game, too? RONLEY LAKALAKA: Yeah, just we've struggled defensively on the pass and just really, we didn't come in emotionally ready or mentally ready. And so going against the No. 1 offense in the conference, we have got to come ready to play because they want a piece of us because we're the champs these past few years. Just being there for our guys and our DBs, just making sure that we stop the pass and the run, actually, really helped us today. Q. How much does it juice this defense to watch Rashaad do what he's doing on offense? RONLEY LAKALAKA: It really helps a lot actually because he puts punt on the board and it puts less pressure off of us. So just going in there with more confidence actually; Rashaad gave us more confidence because the score is the way it is. So he really gets us juiced up, yeah. Q. Were you blown away by how continues to run away from people? All the carries he had, all he did on that last run, guys trying to run him down, he's got that little extra. Is it amazing to watch how easy it looks sometimes for him? CHRISTIAN CHAPMAN: Yeah, he's got that "It" factor. You know, you see him do it week-in, week-out, and then he just continues to do it. You're just like, wow. He's just gifted; physical abilities, athletic ability is out the window, and I think he had his best game tonight. From the special teams and the offense -- I'm just glad he's on my team. He's a great player and he's going to go down in history here. Q. How do you as a defense adjust when there's so much throwing on the ball and kind of go away from the run game? RONLEY LAKALAKA: Just really getting a good pass rush with our D-Linemen and our linebackers. Getting the DBs help, because if we put pressure on the quarterback, it makes the quarterback throw it much quicker, and so it makes it a lot quicker reaction for the DBs. We just want to get the pressure off the DBs by getting a good pass rush. So going into the No. 1 offense in the conference, we knew what we were going against and so we just came in there and made adjustments. Q. You took a step to the sidelines when Ryan went in? CHRISTIAN CHAPMAN: That was actually a package we put in this week. Trying to do a little bit of option stuff, read option a little bit. Kind of got it in practice. Practicing well, a little thing to go in there with. This is a week with the bye week, you have to learn more things to try to do new things, and that was our goal in practice this week. That's what that was all about. Q. Talking earlier about watching the game earlier -- the championships are what you guys talked about the last few years, so what is the disappointment level of not reaching the Championship Game? RONLEY LAKALAKA: Of course it's going to be disappointing but at the same time, we just want to finish the season right. We want to go into double-digits. We want to win our ten games. We're looking forward to next week with New Mexico. But you know, it's mostly draining (ph) for us, of course, but we just have to go out there and play for our fans out here that come and watch us play. And so that's what we have to get back for. CHRISTIAN CHAPMAN: And our seniors, Senior Night, a lot of those boys came in with -- I did; so it means a lot to play with guys like Rashaad, like Micah, like all those boys. It's going to be a big day and I'm excited for it. Q. Seemed like tensions were running high. How was that going, the feeling between the two teams tonight? RONLEY LAKALAKA: We've just got to be emotionally ready for the game. We weren't emotionally ready for the game. We didn't know what we were going to expect from the other team because they are coming in with a losing record and they are going against us, and so we have to be mentally stronger and physically stronger. Q. During the pregame -- CHRISTIAN CHAPMAN: Yeah, that's football. We're talking, competing, we're making plays, they're making plays, going back and forth. But the thing we need to not do is getting unnecessary penalties that are killing drives. We need to stop that because I think we could have had more points on the board. We could play better if that wasn't not the case. We need to just stop that and play football with our play. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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