	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 8, 2018

Rocky Long

San Diego, California

Sacramento State - 14, San Diego State - 28

HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: You've got to give them a lot of credit. I thought coming in that they had a really good football team and they came in and played very, very well.

We struggled a lot on offense moving the ball, especially early on. Got a little bit of it going late in the game but we struggled on our offense to move the ball, which I did not anticipate.

On defense, I thought they had a couple great wide receivers, and the quarterback's pretty good, so I thought we'd give up some passing yardage. I didn't think we'd give up an 80-yarder, especially when the guy was double covered. For all those that want that double coverage, he was double covered with the corner and the safety, and he still caught an 80-yarder.

But on the positive note, if you look at history, there's a lot of FCS teams that have beat Division I teams in the past, even here.

So I give our kids credit for being tough enough and hanging in there long enough to find a way to win the game and that's the ultimate goal is to win, and guess what, we won.

Q. Can you talk about the penalties? You had eight penalties for 53 yards. How much, if any improvement, did you see from last week?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: How many did we have last week? I think that's about half. So we made improvement. I mean, I don't know, what did we have last week, 12? We had 12 and they declined one, so we had 12 penalties. So we're making improvement.

Q. What's the prognosis of Christian?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Doctor wouldn't tell me. Said that he doesn't know for sure. He's going to wait until he gets an MRI tomorrow, and after he reads the MRI, he'll know exactly what's up.

So he was positive. I mean, he didn't act like he was -- it's over, he's done. He didn't act like that. He says he's out for a couple weeks for sure, but I'm not sure what's wrong in there and we'll find out tomorrow when we get the MRI.

Q. Are you disappointed about the nature of the hit?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: No, not at all. I don't think it was on purpose. I don't think their kid was trying to hurt Christian. He got cut on a block and he was scrambling on all fours trying to make a play.

Now, that is a rule that you can't tackle quarterbacks down there by the knee, but I don't think he even thought about that. I think he was scrambling off a cut block trying to make a play and if I thought it was on purpose, I'd tell you. But it wasn't on purpose.

Q. How would you assess the two freshmen?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Well, I'm going to give our kids some credit. We didn't play very good. We're not a very good football team right now. We didn't play right now. And usually when you don't play very good and things are negative out there, and things are going wrong, there's a lot of teams in this world that give in and lose.

We didn't give in. We lost our starting quarterback and didn't give in. That's a pretty good sign for the kind of character that we have on our team. It's not a good sign on how we played because we haven't played very well. But there's a lot of football teams that would have been in that situation, where you're not playing very well and you lose your starting quarterback, that would have tanked it. I would say 50 percent of the teams in that situation would have tanked it, and our kids did not.

Q. What does it say about Ryan, doing the job that he did?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: I think all backup quarterbacks are -- they are trained that way, but I think that's also in their minds. I mean, he gets probably a third of the reps in practice, so he's preparing himself, all the time, to play.

You know and in fall camp, he got a lot of work and he got a lot of would work in scrimmages and stuff. I think he was ready to play. It's nice when a guy can come in and play pretty well, though, when he's called upon. That was pretty good.

Q. How good is it to have Juwan?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Well, I didn't realize until I saw the stats how many times he carried the ball. That's good. I mean, obviously he had a lot to do with us winning the game. Now, you can go negatively; I didn't think we blocked worth a darn up front. I didn't think the offensive line played very well. Either that or their defensive line played lights out.

Normally that means it's halfway in mean: Their defensive line played almost lights out and we didn't play real well on offense, in the offensive line, or he would have not -- he would have got those yards with fewer carries.

Q. What did you think of the passing game?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: I thought we threw and caught the ball pretty well, other than the one that bounced off Kahale's hands and they intercepted it. That should have been a 15- or 20-yard gain right there, too, because earlier in the game, he made some unbelievable good catches. That one bounced off and they scored right after that, too.

And those kinds of turnovers -- and I'm disappointed, we haven't had a turnover yet, I don't think. Our defense hasn't caused a turnover yet and turnovers are huge momentum shifts.

And so you see a guy out there open for a 15-yard gain and he'd probably get another ten after he caught it, and all of a sudden it bounces off his hands and they intercept it. That was kind of, you know, a little momentum swing right there.

Q. Was the passing fairly early a function of them stacking up on defense or had you guys kind of planned --
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: No, I think it was a reaction to the lack of productivity in the running game. You know, now we threw some balls on first down, too, because play-action pass helps you on first down, 1st and 10.

We had some guys open. Ryan did a nice job. Christian had one knocked down and slammed it to the ground, or that one would have been intercepted, too. No, some of the early throws on first down and second and four, those are just part of the game plan to back them off a little bit.

Q. If Christian is out for an extended period, how do things change with Ryan?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Ryan's a little faster. So when he scrambles, won't get caught as often, but it won't change the offense at all.

Q. Are you comfortable -- Christian has become so good at not making a mistake, are you comfortable with Ryan's decision --
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Well, what I saw tonight, I was until the one throw. I mean, he threw it to the defensive guy. The defensive guy was standing there. He threw it to him but other than that, I thought he made some really good decisions.

And you think that with reps and continued support from coaches, that sooner or later, he'll get better at that. He'll see those guys more often and not throw it to the other team.

Q. How quickly can a team rally around a quarterback?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Pretty quickly. They did it tonight. That's just the way the game is. We all feel sorry for Christian because he's a good guy and a good player and has won a lot of games for us. But when one guy goes down, someone else has to step up. Nobody's going to feel sorry for you now.

Q. Talk a little about their receiving core, big play out of some young guys.
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Well, I think the quarterbacks threw the ball well, too. I think they got open. I think the quarterbacks threw the ball well.

Now, there was three or four catches out there that were outstanding catches. I mean, Kahale made at least one, maybe two. Ethan made a couple outstanding catches, especially one right on the fourth and nine play. Now, I guess it was interference and we would have got the first down, anyway, but that was a pretty nice catch, and he made a couple nice catches, too.

Early in the game, which could have broke the game wide open, Fred Trevillion had a pass that was going to be about a 70-yard touchdown pass and dropped it. It's funny how the game goes. Momentum shifts like that. I mean, if he goes 70 yards for a touchdown, there's no telling what happens in that game.

But since he didn't and he dropped it, and then we had to punt the ball, all of a sudden they got a second life or a second breath. You complete that one and it might not be close. But the thing that we did is we didn't give in. There's a whole bunch of football teams in that situation would have given in.

Q. Just talk about the secondaries in terms of not giving up as many big plays.
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Other than the one that we had them double covered and the corner was getting beat and the safety that was supposed to be over the top fell down, other that that one? They played better.

Q. The 61-yard bomb from Thompson -- other than that, do you think you did a good job containing the receivers?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: I thought we did okay. Just okay. I didn't think we got enough pressure on the quarterback and I don't know why we got pressure at the end that we weren't getting earlier in the game. Maybe they got tired. Maybe they got tired or maybe we wore them out a little bit because the two or three sacks we got right at the end of the game, we were running those same defenses early in the game and we weren't getting them on the ground but we were getting them on the ground late. That's a good coaching point. Maybe we ought to rush that hard all the time.

Q. Going off what you said about the O-line, can you give the status of Gudino?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: He got hurt in practice. He hurt his ankle in practice. Missed the first three days of practice. Practiced on Thursday. He should be okay. He should be okay by Monday. He missed most of practice last week with a bad ankle. He twisted it and got stepped on.

Q. Hall came out in the fourth quarter.
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: He dislocated his wrist and the doctors say that they got to check him out to see how serious it is. I mean, they had to pop it back in, so I will guess it's pretty serious.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297