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ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 5, 2013Osahon IraborTaylor KellyARIZONA STATE – 34 Q. Taylor, how much would you say the pressure they put on you was a factor tonight? TAYLOR KELLY: Not a lot. I have to trust the playmakers around me and my teammates. I've got full belief in them. You know, I've got to be better. I've got to focus more when it comes time towards the end of the game and just kind of eat it and get to the line of scrimmage on that last one. But I've got full belief in our guys, and we're going to come to work this week. Q. Those last two interceptions you had, it looked like you forced them a little bit. Can you go over what happened a little bit? Did you just misread the coverage? TAYLOR KELLY: Yeah, on the first one I was expecting Jaylon to get up on top of them, and I just kind of missed it inside a little bit. I've got to put it more up for him to grab. The second one, I got hit as I threw it so I've got to not do that. I've got to get to the line of scrimmage, know where I'm at on the field and the situation of the game a lot better. Q. Early in the game you guys had two pretty good scoring opportunities. You couldn't punch it in and you got field goals. How much do you think that set you back? TAYLOR KELLY: It set us back a little bit. But throughout the game, we had missed opportunities on third and short, third and one, third and three. So usually we connect on those. We missed out on those a lot this game. Q. There seemed to be some miscommunications or blown coverages in the secondary tonight. Can you talk about what you saw out there? Did they surprise you with some things? OSAHON IRABOR: They definitely surprised us a little bit. They did some things that we weren't prepared for and we tried to make adjustments on the fly. But we've got to stop making mental errors on defense if we want to accomplish our goals. So I think it's for us just to get back to work, watch the film, and make sure we correct the mistakes that we made and we can't let them happen anymore. Q. Real simple question. Where in your estimation was this football game lost tonight? TAYLOR KELLY: I think it started with the interceptions that we threw. They beat us in the turnover ratio, so that's the big thing. If we came out and halftime we were winning that and in the second half we lost the turnover ratio, and I think that's where we kind of lost it. Q. There were a few times even when you had time it seemed like the height of their defensive line took a lot of the passing alleys away from you. Can you talk about that? Was their size a problem for you in the passing game? TAYLOR KELLY: Not really. There were only a couple times they did a twist on us and their height made a factor. I couldn't see D.J., so I didn't want to force anything, so I took a sack. Other than that our passing lanes were open, and I didn't feel a problem with that. Q. You guys have played some tough competition obviously, but with everything you had coming back, are you surprised you're struggling a little bit on defense right now? OSAHON IRABOR: We've got some young guys playing on defense. They're talented, but inexperienced, so we've definitely got to get them up to speed because we're making alignment errors and stuff like that that we went over before the game, and you're not seeing the veteran guys make those mistakes because they've been there and they've done that before. But we've got to rely on those young guys to get better each and every week. At some point we've got to stop making errors if we want to reach our goals and be the dominant defense that we can be. Q. You guys hold a team under 5 yards per carry and hold the opposing quarterback under 50% completions, you return an interception for a touchdown and Notre Dame still scores 37 points. How does that happen? OSAHON IRABOR: I really don't know. You know, they played hard. They got some good players, you know. They're coached just like we're coached. So I really won't know until I look at the film to be able to understand how they put up 37 and we still played all right on defense. We didn't play great. We still made a lot of errors. We could have played a lot better. We need to play a lot better. Sometimes you've got to tip your hat to your opponent's effort. Q. Osahon, once again, just following up on what you said earlier, you said they surprised you with some things they did, what were you expecting from the Notre Dame offense? What did you game plan for? OSAHON IRABOR: We expect them to run their normal stuff, but also we understand we haven't been playing the run too well. So we were expecting them to try to run for the field and stuff like that. Just key notes that we had going into the game, and they started taking fade shots a lot more into the field, which we didn't expect. That usually comes to the boundary, and they were doing that to the field. So we were trying to make adjustments with our technique on the other side of the field and stuff like that. They had a lot of big plays on fade that we can't give up in the secondary. We've got to be stout because it's our job not to give up big plays, and I think we gave up too many of those. Q. For Taylor and Osahon, you guys knew coming into this four‑game stretch every game was going to be tough all around. Where do you feel you stand after getting through it? TAYLOR KELLY: All of our goals are still open. For the Pac‑12 South and to get to those Rose Bowl and the Pac‑12 Championship game and the Rose Bowl. So we've got to come ready to work. We have Colorado this week and then Washington. So we've got to come to work and put this one behind us. It's Pac‑12 game play now. OSAHON IRABOR: Like Taylor's saying, we're still 1‑0 in the South, so we're definitely ready to get back into the Pac‑12 fold and just focus on our next opponent, and hopefully learn from this tough stretch. Like I said, we have a lot of young guys playing on defense. This was a very tough stretch for them, so hopefully they've grown a lot from this. Q. Osahon, sort of a two‑part question. It seems like they were really audibling at the line of scrimmage, anticipation of the blitzes. You guys had no sacks today. Was that a big factor in the game? Secondly just the inability to get to the quarterback when you guys are in single coverage so much, can you talk about that? Has that been a big factor? OSAHON IRABOR: It's definitely somewhat of a factor. We're known for pressuring the quarterback, and, yeah, we definitely didn't get the amount of pressure that we're used to. I don't think that was a huge factor in the game because we make adjustments off of that. We do things like we show pressure knowing we're not bringing it and stuff like that just it to get them to a certain call. So I don't know if that was a huge factor in the game, but, like I said, sometimes you have to tip your hat to them. They executed their offense. Q. How disappointing was it that the defensive line didn't have a single sack on Tommy Rees? Clearly, that had a negative impact on the secondary. OSAHON IRABOR: I didn't pay too much attention to that during the game. I'm focusing on coverages and stuff like that. But they've got some freshmen on the quarterback. Like I said, not what we're used to. But they played their butts off, they played hard. It's just like that sometimes. Q. What did you guys think of the atmosphere? Did you feel like your crowd kind of held up pretty well considering it was a quote unquote home game for Notre Dame? TAYLOR KELLY: Our crowd did an amazing job. We had a great fan base, and I'm glad that they came out and supported, and we could hear them every second of the game. OSAHON IRABOR: Yeah, I don't think we looked too much into the crowd. You've still got to go out there and perform and do your job on the field. So we weren't too worried about the crowd. Sun Devil Nation came out and supported us very well. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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