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SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 12, 2018

Rocky Long

San Diego, California

Air Force - 17, San Diego State - 21

HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: I'm ready if you are.

Q. Are you guys the lightning team?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: What a coincidence that is. Not only is it a lightning delay. It's the same teams playing, and it's not -- you know, it's not in Colorado. It's in San Diego. There's someone else in charge of that beside anybody around here.

Q. What went through your mind when they said get off the field?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: I mean, you don't ever want to do that. I was trying to figure out how many times it's happened to me as a coach. It's probably ten maybe. I've been coaching a long time. But it breaks up the whole rhythm of the game. I mean, completely breaks up the rhythm of the game. And I thought it was a great game, anyway, and it was going along just fine. So I think it kind of ruins the game, basically.

Q. But your team had nine penalties for 114 yards. How much do you think those penalties played a factor in tonight's game?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Oh, I think it had a lot to do with it. I mean, I think they had a couple penalties that really hurt them, too. If you have -- if you get a 15-yard penalty, no matter which team you are, it hurts. And I think they got -- they got 210-yarders or something right in a row, two holding penalties right in a row that really hurt them late in the game.

In my opinion, it hurt both teams the same.

Q. Last year after the lightning delay, you really took off when you returned to the field. How do you feel like you played?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: I thought both teams didn't seem as energetic from either team. It seemed like both teams were sick and tired of sitting in the locker room and wanted to go home. But I thought both teams played extremely hard. I don't think either team played extremely well, but I think both teams played really, really hard, and that's the way -- that's the kind of game you ought to get when you play an academy team.

Q. The blocked punt, that had to be pretty crucial.
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: It was crucial for us to win the game. They had a bit of a bad snap and the punter dropped it. That helped. But us picking it up scoring was a huge lift going in at half-time, and then our punter, late in the game, made a great catch on a bad snap and still got the punt off.

Any time there's a close game, there's all kinds of little things that go your way that decide who wins.

Q. A couple times you didn't have a punter back for a return. Was that because of concern for the punt --
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: No. Didn't want an inexperienced guy back there that would take the chance of catching it inside the ten or take the chance of dropping it. We've dropped a punt the last two weeks, and they are all freshmen.

So it was: Don't take a chance, even though it gave our offense some really bad field position at time; it's better than dropping a punt, because that's an emotional -- that's an emotional swing right there.

Q. Can you talk about how big Ryan was on third down in that final scoring drive that end the in the Houston touchdown?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Yeah, I thought our offense really struggled and except for the very first drive of the game, the rest of the game, they really struggled till right at the end. I think that the run he made when he scrambled, and I don't know how many yards he got, 20 or 30 yards, got us the first down and got us 20 or 30 yards. Put the momentum in our favor, but he still had to make a great play by scrambling and throwing it, and Kobe Smith made a great catch near the sidelines.

He made a couple big-time plays late in the game that helped us win it.

Q. Ryan talked about a game like this being won in January, and a lot of people say that, going back to before things even get going. How reflective is that of a game like the one you played tonight?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Well, I mean, he's bringing it up for this game, I don't know why this game's any different than any game. You develop as a football team and as a football player in the off-season.

Any time you win has a lot to do with how they handled themselves in the off-season and in spring practice.

I mean, I think we won in overtime the last time we were here, right. That had something to do with what they did in January, too. When we won at the end against Sacramento state and we beat Arizona State, guess what, that had something to do with the off-season, too.

It's nice that they realize that because sometimes they don't like to do what we make them do.

Q. You guys didn't break the 100-yard barrier in the running game. Do you feel like Air Force forced you guys to throw the ball?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: I thought -- I thought that both teams played really well up front on defense. I thought our defensive line played well and obviously their defensive line played well.

So you can take the positive side, which means both defenses played good, or you can take the negative side and say both offenses didn't block very well, whichever way you want to write it.

Q. It seems like you keep grinding out wins however you need to. How motivating is that for you as a coach and your team?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Well, it drives me crazy.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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