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STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 17, 2019

Casey Toohill

Stanford, California

UCLA - 34, Stanford - 16

Q. Curious your thoughts on how the defense responded after those two first scoring drives by UCLA.
CASEY TOOHILL: I thought we responded decently, but it doesn't really matter, honestly, because we still gave up too many big plays. We still gave up that touchdown at the end. That was disappointing. But you know, I think -- we had some moments. But again, like, no one wants to write about our moments we gave up. We gave up 34 points. So it doesn't matter at the end of the day, but I think there were some things to build on, but we need to start building on those things faster.

Q. How tough is it to kind of fight human nature for guys to try to make big plays when they know that momentum is (inaudible) sometimes, and you guys maybe not be doing a good job?
CASEY TOOHILL: I think, yeah, it is human nature you want to help your team, but the best thing you can do is help your team by doing your job. We've seen it all year. We saw that in the Washington game when we play our best defense we do our job. And you make plays in the framework of doing your job, and I mean that's not hard, that's just rushing, getting the ball out, things we need to do more of. But, yeah, it really comes down to doing our jobs.

Q. (Question about Thompson-Robinson) how frustrating was it for you guys when he was dropping back to pass, you guys are almost getting to him, you see him dance away and (inaudible)?
CASEY TOOHILL: Extremely frustrating. There's nothing I hate more than missing a quarterback. But he's a talented kid. And a couple times, I mean, we let him kind of shimmy on through the A and B gaps. That's on us. We've got to have some better rushes. We've got to be aware. Talented guy. Really good at moving in the pocket. And we probably just should have focused more on that early on in the game.

Q. What's the sense of frustration like coming off your best game of the season as a team to come out with this one?
CASEY TOOHILL: It's never great when you take a step back, right? Because I thought we had some good momentum after that game, was feeling really good. Then we just came out, didn't perform. I think that's a really good lesson for us. I think that's something we've really got to build off because this is the Pac-12. No team's offense is going to lay down because we had a good game last week.

UCLA is really threatened. Chip Kelly is a great coach. They have a great scheme. They put up a lot of points on us. And we should have been -- we should have been better. We should have just executed better. But we just didn't tonight.

Q. (Question about scoring quickly). What changed?
CASEY TOOHILL: You know, I think we just -- I think they jumped us a little bit at first, had some big plays. I think we settled, like coming back to doing our job. That's really what I feel like with defense. We settled down. We were able to kind of lock into what we needed to do, played team defense, and it started working better for us.

Q. What about Booker?
CASEY TOOHILL: Great player, had a great game, disruptive in the backfield. He's a really good football player. At the end of the day, with how defense operates, just one guy making those plays being disruptive just isn't enough. We need everyone to be doing that.

Q. Seems like you guys really had an answer for Felton who is so explosive who can dial up long distance touchdowns but really bottled them up especially in the rushing situations. What did it take to really bottle him up there?
CASEY TOOHILL: I think just understanding the personnel. They're just an athletic group, like you said, really can get after it in the passing game. We understood that coming in and we tried to make that an emphasis.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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