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VIZIO FIESTA BOWL: BOISE STATE v ARIZONADecember 31, 2014Tra'Mayne BondurantAustin HillRich RodriguezGLENDALE, ARIZONA Boise State – 38 THE MODERATOR: We'll start with opening comments from Coach Rodriguez. COACH RODRIGUEZ: Any questions? Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, we didn't overcome it, because we lost, so it must have been pretty difficult. Our guys have come back from big deficits before. Just got to play better. And we did at times, but not well enough to win it. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: We got it executed at the end, not take a sack, try to score a touchdown. We got in good position down there. Got some guys that made some plays. Got to finish better than that. But we competed till the end. Q. What do you think after Cayleb makes the catch? COACH RODRIGUEZ: We had 20 seconds. I thought we could get off three plays. We clocked the first one, so you're going to lose a play. You normally could get off three plays in 20 seconds.  But we weren't able to do that. Q. 10 wins, so much of the stuff you did this season, how will you remember this team? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, after about a week or two I'll probably remember it more fondly than I remember it right now. I think the same way with our guys. If you're a competitor, this don't bother you, you shouldn't be in our program. But I think our seniors did a great job of setting a certain standard, elevating the program to a certain level. As I told the team just a few minutes ago, we've got work to take it to the next level. That starts with the coaches, starts with the players in the off‑season, our summer workouts. I think our guys are competitive enough to do that. Our seniors set a pretty nice standard this year. Q. What did you think of Solomon's play overall? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I watched the film. I thought he made some plays. I thought he competed. But I'm pretty hard on quarterbacks anyway. So I think you can always play better. Q. Despite the loss, you had some injuries today, Jones‑Grigsby stood out in the second half. Comment on him. COACH RODRIGUEZ: Really proud of Terris. He's a guy that walked on, earned his scholarship. We kind of consider him a co‑starter. When Nick went down, Terris came in and played. He played on special teams, as well. Q. How did the injuries to Nick, having other guys out, affect the game? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I don't know. I mean, when you, obviously, lose a really good player like Jared Tevis, who is one of your leaders back there, that may affect a few of the calls. But I thought our defensive guys adjusted pretty well, especially in the second half. But, you know, injuries happen. Seemed like it was coming in bunches today a little bit in the secondary. But still whoever's in there was expected to play at a high level. I thought at times they did that today. Q. What was Boise doing early that made them so effective to jump out? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I don't know, they executed a whole lot better. It was like it was going against air. I mean, wasn't even challenged. I'd have to watch the film to see what happened there. And we didn't tackle well. It was a combination of a whole lot of stuff. For our guys' credit on defense, they buckled down a little bit, got some key stops. In the third quarter we had great field position offensively. What killed us is we didn't finish. We either got field goals or didn't score. That was a big difference in the game. Q. I don't think they got hardly anything in the second half, particularly the third quarter. Did you make adjustments or just play better? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Played better. Played better. Q. How do maybe the last two games here change your outlook on the season? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, we're not in a good mood. I don't think anybody likes losing. I thought we competed better in this game than the one before then. But a loss is a loss and it will sting a little bit. It will probably sting a lot. Again, when you take some time and wait a few days, whatever, I think we'll reflect back and say we got a lot of good memories, too. I just feel bad for the seniors because I don't want them to think this is their lasting memory. I want their lasting memory to be winning the PAC‑12 South, the month of November, how they accomplished things. Q. What is going through your mind as you're thinking of this season, how successful it was overall? TRA'MAYNE BONDURANT: Man, my mind's racing right now. But, I mean, it was a good season. A lot of ups and downs, a lot of great memories. Like coach said, at this point right now, you know, everyone's down right now. Definitely I know I am. I'm torn apart at this point. Definitely had a great senior season. Blessed I had a chance to even be here. Just thanking everybody for the opportunity. I appreciate the university and the coaching staff for everything. Q. Austin, what did you see from Anu today? Did it seem like he really struggled with his read at times? Did you see anything different out there today? AUSTIN HILL: No, not really. I mean, he was making the right reads sometimes. I think he could have put a little bit more on some balls. I think he could have thrown it more aggressively. But we all could have done things better. So we can't just, you know, blame it all on Anu. I don't think he played any worse or better than he has over the season. Q. Austin, given the status of the program four years ago, can you comment about everything that's happened, especially this year. AUSTIN HILL: Four years ago, we had lost our coach. We didn't have a very good season at all. I didn't really know at that point where the program was going to go. But then when Coach Rod came in, he changed everything around. He made us believe and work and feel that we could make U of A a football school. I love him for that. He really has. I think it just took off this year. We really believed in ourselves, considering the win over Oregon early in the season. That's when I think we really started to believe in ourselves that we could accomplish more than we thought we could. At that point it just became our goal to let the nation know that we could play football here at U of A. Q. Austin, with the way some of the games have ended this year for you guys, magical endings, when you get the ball at the end, were you thinking you were going to go down and score? AUSTIN HILL: Definitely. You have to have that confidence as an offense. We went out there to score, even though we were getting field goals, we still wanted to score those drives. We wanted to make plays. I guess it just wasn't meant to happen today. I think we could have played a little bit better, consistently made plays. But it didn't happen. I love the team. I love everything. I'm blessed, you know, to have a coaching staff who had my back. Q. Your thoughts on why you thought Boise was so effective early in the game? TRA'MAYNE BONDURANT: We weren't executing on defense. Like coach said, we wasn't tackling. We took a loss with Jared Tevis. It was one of those games they came out hard on us. Second half we stepped it up. We had a mindset on defense we had all year, bounce back. We've been in worse situations before. That's why we came out second half, stepped our play up. Unfortunately, things didn't work out for us tonight. But, you know, we'll get better. We'll move on, you know, just take it day by day to get over this. Q. Austin, late in the game, the first play after the ball was spiked, it looked like you were pretty wide open over the middle. Did you feel that way? You threw your arms up. AUSTIN HILL: Oh, I mean, I don't know if I mean to do it. You know, I thought underneath was pretty open all day today. I think we could have thrown a lot of pull‑ups against the Boise State defense. We decided to throw it deep. It happened to work out with Cayleb late in the game, which was a plus. But, yeah, you know, as a receiver, it's definitely frustrating when you know you're open but the QB decides to throw something else, especially when it doesn't work out. It's always good when it works out or it's a touchdown, but when it's an incomplete pass, you're wide open, as a receiver you're always wondering, Why not me? Q. How tough was the loss of Jared, losing him so early in the game? TRA'MAYNE BONDURANT: I mean, you know, Jared is my brother. I pray for him, wish him the best. Definitely was a big loss for us. But like coach said, we got guys come in ready to play at the highest level. It wasn't a downfall. Definitely we wish him well out there. Like I say, we're going to pray for him, pray for his recovery. I wish him the best. Q. Did you expect to see that Statue of Liberty reverse they scored on? TRA'MAYNE BONDURANT: I was expecting them to do all types of stuff. Boise is known for trick plays. We practiced for so long with all the trick plays, all the stuff that they do, so we definitely expected to see all the plays. The Statue of Liberty, we practiced it at practice all week. So definitely expected it. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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