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SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 15, 2019

Rocky Long

San Diego, California

SDSU 17

Fresno 7

COACH ROCKY LONG: Happy that we won. It's nice to get the oil can back. I thought our players had played hard, with great intensity and great concentration, and we deserved to win the game.

I'm not necessarily sure it should have been that close because we had a couple other chances to score that would have put the game out of touch. But it's a really good win for our team, really good win for our program, and puts us one step closer to where we want to be.

Q. You said early on Tuesday in the press conference, you said whoever makes the most mistakes or turnovers is the one who is going to lose and Fresno State obviously made one more turnover than you guys.
COACH ROCKY LONG: Turnover ratio is always an important statistics determining who wins. I thought us fumbling on the one- or two-yard line could have cost us the game. Not only did we not score and take a two-score lead, we gave them momentum by giving them the ball and they drove it a little bit that time.

But I thought our offense finally showed dividends of being in a spread formation. Because we were having trouble running ball because we were having so many guys in there that we couldn't block them all and it was making it tough to run, and we had a whole lot of one-on-one situations with receivers that made good catches, got open, made good catches.

Ryan threw the ball really, really well. Threw the ball on target and the receivers went and got it. Now, I was hoping it was going to happen before this, but now is as good a time as any that they threw it and caught it like they did. We wouldn't have been able to do that if we were in the old formations that we used to run.

Q. Does it surprise you, the first time in five years you hd a quarterback pass for over 300 yards?
COACH ROCKY LONG: No, that doesn't surprise me. Most of the quarterbacks that are passing over 300 yards now, other than the superstars now, that means they are behind and losing.

Q. Did you see a more confident Ryan Agnew as the game went on? Passing game seemed to get stronger.
COACH ROCKY LONG: I think Ryan is confident all the time. It's just like every other person in the world, you have good days and you have bad days. He had a really good day today. And quarterbacks are judged by win/loss records. I don't know what his is, but it's probably pretty darn good. I bet you it's a very good percentage of when he's been our starting quarterback that we've won games.

I mean, he had a tough week throwing the ball the week before, and he threw it really good tonight. Now the receivers did a really nice job of getting open and going and getting the ball too, now. Receivers make quarterbacks look good a lot, too.

Q. Coach Horton said earlier about being aggressive -- does "aggressive" mean you need to throw the ball more? What was the game plan like?
COACH ROCKY LONG: I think we threw it more on normal down and distance. Rather than waiting for third down, I think we threw it more on normal down and distance. I think that's a little more aggressive.

In this day and age of football, it's really not because a lot of people do that. But for our state of mind, it's more aggressive than we normally are on offense that we are throwing it on first down and we are throwing it on second and three and those kind of times where in the past we would have run the ball, okay.

So that's more aggressive play calling and I think it paid dividends and hopefully it will pay dividends the rest of the way.

Q. Is there one missed opportunity you feel like weighed more in the outcome, and made it only a ten-point win, like the one with Parker?
COACH ROCKY LONG: I'm going to have to watch that on the TV replay and I don't know how many replays there are, but the one that kept showing on the scoreboard was a touchdown. I don't know how they keep doing that to us, because last week the targeting penalty was not targeting. In the replays I saw, it was not targeting. And it might have been an incomplete pass and that was all replayed.

And the replay you saw on the scoreboard tonight, that was a touchdown. So that hurt us. I mean, we kicked a field goal, but that hurt us. The one we could have put the game away is the one we fumbled on the two hard line and we fumbled and they got the ball. We would have put the game away there.

Q. You talked about in the week worrying about the players' confidence, the fumble and the touchdown taken away, what does that say to you about the resilience of the team?
COACH ROCKY LONG: I said it for other reasons during the week. We've got great young men in our program. Great young men respond that way. Great young men don't take a failure and make another failure. They try to make it better. They try to work and they try to do it positively. That's what great young men do. That's what great young people do, not just men. That's what great young people do. That doesn't surprise me at all that they were able to do that.

I never know if they are going to play good to be honest with you, I never know, but it doesn't surprise me at all that they did that. There were some times during that game we could have folded, easily folded but we didn't and we won. I'm sure to some of the critics out there, it wasn't by enough and we didn't look good enough, but guess what, we're 8-2, and we've still got a chance to be in the Championship Game. There's only about three teams in this league left that can do that.

Q. Was Juwan not healthy enough to play tonight?
COACH ROCKY LONG: We didn't think he looked good enough in practice. He says he feels good. Says he's 100 percent but he's not running it like Juwan runs it. So we decided to hold him out.

Q. What did you do defensively to adjust to Reyna? Did you do anything in the second half?
COACH ROCKY LONG: I don't think so because he scrambled and got some first downs. Our guys did a nice job of pressuring him but he's very elusive. There was one on the last drive where we finally intercepted the pass that we had three guys back there. I mean, they made their guy miss and they were back there. We had three guys back there against him and I don't know if we laid a hand on him. Not only did they not sack him, I'm not sure we laid a hand on him.

So in the second half, that was their best offense was him scrambling.

Q. Luq, the interceptions, he's tied for second in the nation. Can you talk about your team's ability to take the ball away?
COACH ROCKY LONG: Well, last year we didn't take it away very well. This year we are doing a much better job of taking it way and obviously those are good players making good plays. I thought the two interference calls he got. I thought one was legit and I thought the other one was bogus. He played a nice -- I think if he had done it a little different, he might have had another interception, but didn't. But he got the interception at the end, mostly because he was in the right place and mostly because the quarterback was being pressured.

It would have been really sad if he dropped that one because that was a gimmie: Here it is, catch, it please. But it's nice that he's got that kind of statistic going. One guy does not make a defense, just like him getting interceptions, how about those guys rushing the passer. Now I don't know, you know, since we finally look good on offense, I don't know if y'all realize they averaged 34 points a game and we gave them 7.

Thanks.

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