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SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 9, 2019

Rocky Long

San Diego, California

Nevada 17

SDSU 13

HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: I just heard D.J. say we didn't play well. That's an understatement. Whenever a team doesn't play well, obviously they weren't coached very well. Way too many penalties. That's an undisciplined football team and that's my fault.

Some of the penalties, it's amazing the penalties had a lot to do with us losing the game. They don't always. I mean, there's some teams that can get a lot of penalties and still win the game, but obviously they had a huge impact on tonight game.

I mean, we go for fourth and about one, and we get it, and then it's called back for a holding penalty and all of a sudden they have got great field position. We don't keep the ball and they have got great field position.

Most of the penalties put us in bad field position the whole night, and we didn't overcome it. We didn't play well enough to overcome that.

Q. With about 3:46 left, you had a fourth and sixth from Nevada's 27-yard line. Was that an easy call going for the field goal?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: It's not an easy call but it's not a bad call. I'd do it again. It worked out just like I thought.

Our offense was struggling. I mean, they got a couple first downs in that drive but they were struggling. I thought if we got some points after a drive, if we had got some points after about three drives in the first half, we'd have been ahead.

But for some reason, we throw interceptions or we get holding penalties or something, and we're not able to score then. So I thought if we scored, and I had confidence that we would hold them and get the ball back with plenty of time, I thought maybe if we scored it would give us a little momentum in our own mind and it worked out just like I thought it did except offense didn't play worth a darn when they got the ball back.

Q. Ryan said the defense did its part, only allowing 17 points, you should win the football game when the defense only allows that many points. Do you think that's a fair statement Ryan said?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: No, I think you lose as a team and win as a team. We've won the last couple games because special teams has helped us out.

Now, obviously, it's hard to win football games if you don't score, and our offense is having unbelievable struggles scoring. I don't have the answer or I'd fix it.

But obviously they didn't play well and that's coaching.

Q. How difficult do you think it is to put something like this behind and you change things in the next couple weeks?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: I think it's a difficult deal. It's all in how resilient the players are.

Coaches, and most of us have been around long enough that, stuff like this happens to us and has happened to us before, but it's more about how the players respond to it. Coaches, we'll be there tomorrow and we'll break down the film and we'll grade the film and see what we did right and maybe see what we did, some things that were wrong. Obviously the penalties and all that, and we'll present it to the players like we always do.

Then we'll start working for the next game and work on a game plan and we'll try to prepare the players better than we did this last time. It's a lot more how the players respond. I mean, players win games. Coaches don't win games. Players win games. A coach can lose a game by a bad call. I mean, maybe some people thought that was a bad call to kick the field goal. They are wrong, but maybe they think that.

You know, a coach can lose a game by making a bad call but a coach has never won a football game, ever, ever, ever, as a coach ever won a football game. Players win football games.

So obviously we've got to do a much better job of coaching so our players play much better.

Q. You're still in control of the West. Do you think that helps your players' mindset?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Well, I don't know if they know that. I didn't know until about two minutes ago that Fresno lost. So misery enjoys company, I guess. I don't know what that saying is.

So they are probably pretty miserable and we are pretty miserable and we get to play each other next week and one of us will feel much better, and one of us will feel just as bad or worse.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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