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PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: OREGON v ARIZONADecember 5, 2014Erick DarganMark HelfrichMarcus MariotaSANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA Oregon – 51 THE MODERATOR: Coach, an opening statement? COACH HELFRICH: Didn't know I had to make an opening statement, but just extremely proud of our entire program and what our guys have accomplished this year. Just an unbelievable group of men and women in our program that have made this whole thing happen. And also want to congratulate Coach Rodriguez and Arizona on an incredible season. We've been in that locker room before and it's not much fun. But those guys had an unbelievable season and happened to get them this time. Q. Coach, you and Marcus on the conference call on Monday you said that you and Marcus really haven't discussed the Heisman much during the season. You wanted to lay low. Now that the resume is complete, what would you say about Marcus and the Heisman? COACH HELFRICH: Well, what I would say is, you know, without getting too involved is if this guy isn't what the Heisman Trophy is all about, then I'm in the wrong profession. Just on the field and off the field, our team is made up of a bunch of guys that are in his mold, and a lot of that is due to leadership. Obviously, that speaks for itself. But if you want your son or daughter to have a role model, pick this guy. MARCUS MARIOTA: Thanks, Coach, for all the nice things you said. I wouldn't be in this position without my teammates. There are 11 football players that have to play. You know, without those guys in the locker room, none of this would be possible. Again, I'm just very proud of the guys in the locker room and just thankful that we got the win. Q. Coach, it took a little while for the offense to get going tonight. It seemed like the first half was pretty tough, but you were able to get things going and get a lot of yards and a lot of points. How do you feel about the offensive effort? COACH HELFRICH: Well, I think the effort was excellent. Our effort in every phase was excellent. Our defense did a tremendous job of stopping a very high‑powered offense, and limiting them to minus yards rushing, and I don't even remember what the number was at halftime. Offensively we were a little bit tight. A bunch of guys that were trying to make it 42‑0 on two plays and that's very difficult. Whether it was jumping off ides or making mistakes, we were inches away from a bunch of points. You have to give them credit for that too, but I think the effort was outstanding. Q. Talk about the defense today. 25 yards in the first half, and you guys played probably the best this season. We know you were really upset about the first time you played them, and you guys are trying to focus more and pay attention to detail. Can you tell us about your performance today? ERICK DARGAN: Our defensive coaching staff really just allowed us to focus on our keys. Our front seven played pretty good. Front seven played pretty good today. Q. Do you have a feeling you might be as dialed in with them as you were? You seemed like you knew what was coming and prepared for everything? ERICK DARGAN: Definitely. We pride ourselves on communication. We know if we communicate, we can be as good as we can be. Q. Going along with defense it seemed like your front seven had big games. Can you talk about those guys? COACH HELFRICH: Yeah, I think as a lot of people and our local media asked about during the week, they run offense similar to ours because you try to put people on their heels, whether it's psychological or, in fact, and I thought our guys did an exceptional job of attacking. It's not read and react. It's read and attack. And the faster that happens, obviously the one‑on‑one in space becomes a more constricted space. We made a ton of great one‑on‑one tackles in close quarters and in space, and that's what you have to do to stop a team like this. Q. Marcus, how much different is this team than the one that played Arizona earlier? And I know you guys talked it down, but how happy are you to get that off your record? MARCUS MARIOTA: We had a lot of motivation going into this game. This was our goal was to be able to win the conference. You know, we didn't try to put too much emphasis on it, to be honest with you, because that's going to cause a distraction and not allow you to play to your abilities. For us, we just wanted to go out there and play the best we could. The last couple years we haven't been able to put that out there against them, and tonight was just a great example of us playing a complete game as a team. We're very fortunate to be able to come through. Q. Marcus, at the beginning of the season you talked about how important it was for all you've accomplished. How does it feel to win a championship? MARCUS MARIOTA: It feels great. For us as a team to be able to accomplish that just says a lot about how much work and how much we've prepared this entire year. I'm so proud of the guys in the locker room. So proud of just everyone that's involved. It takes a lot of hard work to win in a conference like this. It's just an awesome feeling. Q. For Coach or anybody up there, was there one thing in tonight's game that surprised you? That stood out, good, bad or otherwise? ERICK DARGAN: I think we just prepared for it. We knew we were going to be good coming into the game. So I think we just read our keys and communication. COACH HELFRICH: Anybody else surprised? No? I don't think surprised. There are so many things that happen during the course of the game and just staying focused on your job. These guys doing that, the way they've prepared and the way they've improved, it wasn't surprising. Q. Coach, when you guys were here a month and a half ago, Cal was up 21 points against you, since then your defense has gotten a lot better. Why and how has it gotten so much better from the time you played Cal here till tonight? COACH HELFRICH: I think a huge part of that is a prideful bunch of guys and a prideful bunch of coaches that are competitive. I think we've gotten better almost weekly. This was a completely different challenge from all the rest of the games since then. There are obviously a lot of different schemes and systems in the Pac‑12 that you're getting ready for on a weekly basis, and our guys were dialed in tonight. ERICK DARGAN: Going off what Coach said, we want to get better each week, and from that game to here, we did that. Communication is our biggest thing. Q. Did you have a message to the guys at halftime to pick it up in the second half? MARCUS MARIOTA: I think the overall message on the sidelines was just to relax. We were able to move the ball. We were executing a lot of the plays that we had prepared for. I think overall the feelings and emotions of the game kind of got to us a little bit. Again, can't say too much about how much those guys really came in, fought and relaxed and were able to kind of execute and finish the game. Q. You guys are a great team. I know you're aware of what kind of a special team you are, but are you aware of how much the community of Eugene and Springfield and the State of Oregon thinks about this team? Do you give it much thought? Are you aware of how much we love your team and the way you guys play and who you guys are? MARCUS MARIOTA: It's all pretty surreal. We're very thankful for it. ERICK DARGAN: Without the community's support, we wouldn't be where we're at. We're very grateful for it, and we just can't thank the fans enough. Q. Marcus, after the Arizona game, it was sky is falling from media, fans, freaking out, wanting to know what was going on. How did you handle that and stay the course with this team? Did you ignore it all and feel confident that you guys could get it turned around? COACH HELFRICH: I think he's one of those people. No, hey, that's part of the deal. Again, they're the number 7 ranked team in the country for a reason. I was kind of snickering at the question about penalties and we just beat the 7th ranked team 51‑13, and it's hard. We just have an unbelievable group of players as people. Unbelievable group of assistant coaches that came back. I know I've talked about this a bunch. The next day they were out and every single guy in our program was on the practice field 25 minutes before they had to be fixing it. It wasn't, hey, you screwed this up, you did this wrong. It's how do we do this better? And they haven't looked back. Again, that's an incredible credit to those guys. Q. For all three of you guys, now that there are no more games the next couple of weeks, do you feel like you're playing your best ball going into the playoffs now? COACH HELFRICH: Yeah, we need to talk about that in the locker room a little bit of finishing. Those guys have had great characteristics of a champion to this point. They have to finish school this week. They have to finish in the next couple of days traveling, and coaches going recruiting and all that stuff, and we'll rally up when we find out where we're headed, and continue to ascend. Q. Coach, I know you guys keep track of this stuff, but there are 57 offensive snaps in the first half helped break a defense that was initially very game to hang with you guys. What is that number of offensive snaps, where does that rank when you keep track of it and going over 100 snaps a game offensively, what's that do to the opponent? COACH HELFRICH: Yeah, we want to go fast, they want to go fast. Again, credit to the defense of their possessions were shorter, and we put together some drives and had some fourth down opportunities and didn't finish‑‑ finish with touchdowns on those in the first half the way we would have liked to. But, yeah, we certainly believe in our conditioning. We certainly believe in everything we do as a game wears on our guys are more and more confident. Again, that's easier said than done sometimes against a team like Arizona. But our guys finished, for sure. Q. Coach, a lot of the contributions from the young guys (No microphone). Just how would you assess their play, especially their maturity level on the big stage tonight? COACH HELFRICH: It's been big. You know, if you would have been kind of out with these guys in the summer and hearing, hey, wait until you see this guy, wait until you see this guy, whether it's defensively Erick and Ifo leading the back end or some of the front end guys, Keanon Lowe training, our young guys, they're just, again, phenomenal guys. Keanon Lowe, again, the type of guys that make up a bunch of our team. Keanon Lowe is teaching Charles Nelson how to take his job. He's teaching Carrington how to take his job. He's teaching them how to take balls out of his hand, and that's not normal. It's just, again, a credit to our assistants. Whether it's Jim Fisher recruiting all the guys that go out and do it, and making sure we get the right guys. Because we knew we needed guys to step in and play significant roles early, certainly at those spots. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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