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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA L.A. MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 21, 2006

Karl Dorrell

COACH KARL DORRELL: I guess you could say it was an entertaining game. I'd like to thank Notre Dame for this experience, coming here and playing. Fans were great.
I felt our team played hard. It battled throughout the game. I think Coach Weis and Notre Dame is a very classy program, and it was a pretty exciting game.
Unfortunately for us, we had a chance to win it, we were there all the way to the final minute and didn't find a way to finish, that's what it comes down to. Didn't find a way to finish. We had opportunity to do so on almost every phase, offensively we could have, got our first down. We could have finished the game by exhausting Notre Dame's time-outs. We didn't do that. We did exhaust time-outs but didn't finish it from that side. Our defense could not hold them with a minute and two left with no timeouts.
I think the experience, Brady Quinn, obviously, is a very talented quarterback and made the critical plays at critical times. I think that's the difference in the game. They had some experience at that standpoint and did the nice job of finishing the final minute two seconds.
Disappointing, I've never lost a game like this in this fashion before. I'm proud of how our kids played, played hard. That's really all I can take from it. So, we've got to move on, play Washington State next week at home, and get ourselves back in the win column. Any questions, please.

Q. What's the thinking behind taking the delay in the game on last punt instead of trying to snap with a couple of seconds left on the play clock?
COACH KARL DORRELL: The first punt before the penalty the clock was moving, ran third down, tried to exhaust as much time as we could. We wanted to take the delay. Didn't matter for us.
Then we kicked and punted. They had a holding call and we had to re-punt again. The clock did not start again with that penalty. So we had to re-kick. So it ended up, we kicked it out of the end zone for a touch back; they had it on the 20 with a minute two. I did notice, and the clock is supposed to start on the snap again with transition, change the possession. This clock did not start. I did notice that. I don't know if those are factors in the game. Obviously it didn't turn out in our favour, and we have to keep learning from this and moving forward.

Q. Can you talk about the play with Hickman today and what you saw out of him going into Brady?
COACH KARL DORRELL: Those guys played hard. Hickman did a great job trying to put pressure on him. They have a big offensive line. They did for the most part a good job pass protecting for him. Bruce Davis also had a chance to make some plays in the backfield. Both those guys played hard. Our whole defensive line played hard. Everybody played hard. We played smart at times. There are those mistakes here and there that every football team has but for the most part we played hard and Hickman was one of the many guys on that side of the ball that did play hard as well.

Q. On offense, can you talk about your offensive line, how you think they played?
COACH KARL DORRELL: We had some struggles early. It was tough for us to one football especially and protection was also tough in that circumstance as well. But we did make some plays in the passing game, was very encouraged by that. Receivers came up and made some big plays, Williams, his first catch goes for a touchdown. Those things are very strong positives for us to take from this game.
We could have played better obviously. Could have played better, and we'll keep pushing and grinding to play better. And you know, that's where we're at right now, we're getting better slowly, not quite at the pace I'd like, but it is making some progress. Behind me there pretty much with his voice, played throughout the game, and he'll continue to grow and mature as we continue to move forward with him.

Q. Can you tell me what you saw on the game-winning touchdown, did you think you guys could have made a play on that?
COACH KARL DORRELL: Yeah, great protection. He moved around the pocket, slushed out of the pocket and found an open receiver that was coming across. He made a couple guys miss, and great effort by him getting in the end zone. Made two or three guys miss on the tackles. He found the end zone. It was what -- you know, you hope all of your great players in any program would do is to finish a game like that when they need a touchdown to win the football game, and here is a guy that wants the ball in his hand and wants to score for his team and he was the one that did it.

Q. Notre Dame seemed to struggle with your pressure most of the day. What was different about the last drive, was he just getting rid of it a lot faster on those three passes?
COACH KARL DORRELL: Our pressure, we didn't blitz as much towards that last drive. We tried to play more on coverage. They did a nice job of connecting and hitting some passes and getting out-of-bounds, saving some clock time. And then Brady did a nice job staying alive, staying alive in the pocket and moving out of the pocket. Hick had two pick out passes in that drive that were big plays on the right-hand side of the field. They did a nice job of execution.

Q. Your run defense did a nice job rebounding from last week, can you talk about that, and also, Notre Dame's run defense today?
COACH KARL DORRELL: Our defense played well for the most part. We did try to stop the run, and we were able to do that pretty well. Notre Dame was just as effective against us in the run game.
So I thought really both teams played hard, played hard and battled. It was a good defensive effort on both sides. We made a few mistakes in the first -- in the second half, you know, we had a three and out and we had a fumble snap. Those are things that fortunately for us, they didn't amount to points, but still in this type of game, those can be critical errors, but I think our guys played hard, and I think their guys played hard.

Q. When you look at the last couple of minutes, last three minutes, is there anything you would have done differently, or is it just a matter of Notre Dame players making plays?
COACH KARL DORRELL: We would have loved to have finished the game on offense. No question about that. We had 2:20 I believe was on the clock, they had three time-outs, I'm not exact, but we had to exhaust all their time-outs but we didn't finish with the first down. We needed one first down to finish the game and we didn't do that.
Then our defense was in pretty good position, with 80 yards to drive, they needed more than a field goal to beat us, no time outs and they did a nice job of execution on that part. I do take my hat off to what Notre Dame was able to do in this type of scenario, and they have done it before. And then we'll grow from this. We'll have to learn from this and build from the positives of what happened in this game and move forward. We have got five games left with a lot to play in the Pac 10. And this gives you a bad taste in your mouth, but you know what, life's tough sometimes. You've just got to fight through it, keep battling, and sometimes you keep grinding, good things happen at some point.

Q. What did you tell them after the game and what did you see in the locker room when you got in there?
COACH KARL DORRELL: Disappointment. Much like what I'm looking like right now. You know, we're disappointed. Those guys, they fought. They put everything out there for us. They wanted to do something special on the road. They are disappointed. They know that they had to win on their grass and didn't finish.

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