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SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 6, 2008

Chuck Long

COACH LONG: Well, it was a heck of a football game obviously. We had a tough finish. I was proud of our guys in the locker room. It's a tough locker room right now, the toughest I've been in since I've been at San Diego State.
We have to find a way to finish the deal. It was a great atmosphere today. Many of our guys have never been a part of this. They'll remember the atmosphere. We have to forget about the loss and get over it quick and move on to next week. But it was a heck of a football game.
I'm sure the country was entertained. I hope they were. Anyway, we're moving on to the next game.
Any questions?

Q. (No microphone.)
COACH LONG: Well, we had a great opportunity there going in, going into the end zone. That's a tough pill to swallow. Brandon Sullivan is going to be very instrumental in our season. I have to find a way to pick him back up. And we will. Had a nice game last game. Had a good game this game.
You know, it's tough on him right now. I know he's upset, but we still had other mistakes besides that. We'll find a way to get these guys back up again.

Q. (No microphone.)
COACH LONG: Well, we did. You know, we just wanted to be in an attack mode all day. There was still plenty of time left. We felt like, let's take a shot. We took a long shot. We missed it. That stopped the clock. We tried to run it.
Yeah, we just felt like, hey, let's attack them, stay on the attack. I'm proud of our kids for doing it. Ryan Lindley, you saw a little glimpses of him, freshman quarterback. Got a very, very bright future with Ryan. I thought our offensive line protected really well. And our defense, I was extremely proud of them. They were down seven D linemen going into the game to injury. They fought. We had to switch some guys around. We put Russell Allen on the defensive line. He had two days of practice there. I thought those guys did a great job.

Q. I know you want to get over this quick, but how hard is this going to be to shake in a real quick manner?
COACH LONG: We've got a long plane trip. Hopefully we'll get that little bit out by the time we land. I thought we represented well. Our first national game in a while. It's one of those games that you want to win, but obviously you want to help in recruiting.
Hopefully the nation can see that we did represent well and we'll take that out of the game anyway. But we have a game next week. I know it will be tough tomorrow. But I'm glad we practice on Sunday so we can get them up, get them going, shake it out of them.

Q. What were your impressions of Notre Dame's defense? What was it like trying to prepare for them?
COACH LONG: Well, it was a tough preparation just from the standpoint we didn't have anything to go off of, a first game. It was their first game. So we had to go off of what Coach Tenuta, defensive coordinator, Georgia Tech, we knew going in he was going to blitz, and he did quite a bit (laughter).
I thought our guys did a nice, solid job of picking that all up. We worked at that every day, all that blitzing. We've done it all training camp. They kept Ryan Lindley upright back there. So that part of the preparation was tough, a lot tougher than the defensive part because the defense, you know, saw some film from last year.

Q. Passing so much so early, can you talk about what went into that decision?
COACH LONG: Well, we felt like when you blitz like that, there's holes in a defense. We wanted to attack those holes in the defense off the blitz. We felt like we could protect, get the ball off quickly, let the receivers do some damage in the secondary. That was the plan behind it.
We have a lot of confidence in Ryan Lindley. He continues to amaze me in every game he plays, and he's only played two. Every practice he just seems to get a little bit better. But I know San Diego has something going there with him, and it's going to be exciting to watch for the next four years.

Q. Think you held up to about three yards a carrier. When you talk about a banged up defensive line, schematically did you do anything?
COACH LONG: We worked on a lot more blitzing this past week. Hey, we went after it, took our chances in the back end. We did put our corners on some islands, as you saw. But we just stayed with it.
Notre Dame made some plays at the end when they needed to. Hats off to them. They did a nice job in the fourth quarter.

Q. Frankly, were you sort of surprised you guys held up as well against the run? Obviously they're bigger and you guys were down a few.
COACH LONG: Yeah, we thought they'd smash us and try to cram that ball in there down our throat, which they tried to do. But I thought our guys, again, held up well. Those inside guys, coach Bob Elliott kept those guys fresh, rotating in there. Boy, I thought it was really a masterful job on his part considering where we were going in. Just tough, tough pill to swallow right now.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about Matt Kawulok? Had a big day. Was that something you were looking to exploit, that area of the field?
COACH LONG: Matt has just become a hot receiver for us. He's not always the No. 1 read. He's the second or third read in progressions. He's just working his way to get open. Very proud of Matt. He's sure-handed right now, has a lot of confidence going. Did another nice job. He comes from a great football family. But really proud of Matt. He's worked hard.

Q. You played two games now. Who is better, Cal Poly or Notre Dame?
COACH LONG: That's a tough question. Each week is different. It's hard to say who's better. They're two totally different schemes. You know, that's one other note I should make. Our defense prepared for an option team going into a Cal Poly to more of a traditional football team in Notre Dame. We're getting a lot of variance from week to week.
It's hard to say who's better. They both beat us, so we're fighting right now to get our first win.
Thank you very much.

End of FastScripts

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