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MOUNTAIN WEST FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP BOISE STATE VS HAWAIIDecember 7, 2019Nick RolovichMiles ReedIkem OkekeBoise State - 31, Hawai'i - 10 NICK ROLOVICH: First off, congratulations to Boise, their players, their staff. They're an excellent football team, excellent coached football team. I think they won a lot of the situational football, red zone, some 3rd downs in the first half. I don't know what we ended up but I know we struggled in the first half with it. Those decisions are on me to go for it on 4th down. I love this team. I love our players, the fight in them, and how much this meant to them, and I'm proud of them the way they fought. We just came up a little short. This was a fun season so far, and we've enjoyed being together, and I just feel for them very much because of how much they wanted it and how much they hurt right now. Q. Miles, was the weather or anything like that a factor in this game? MILES REED: No, I think we prepared all week to play in the cold, so I don't think anybody was affected by it. I just think we lost the situational football, and that was it. Q. Can you guys talk about what kind of happened down at the end of the first half? Things were going great, something seemed to change. Can you talk about what happened there? IKEM OKEKE: I feel like we were playing real good. We were playing good in the first half and then next thing you know, bad things started happening, and we can't control that, but we came back in and we came into the locker room and we had the mindset to come back out and keep on fighting and try to make plays and come back and win this game. At the end of the day, that wasn't the result, and in that locker room they're feeling it right now just as we're feeling it up here. Q. Ikem, preparing on defense, what was the challenge like knowing you might not know which quarterback of the three you were going to get? IKEM OKEKE: Well, we knew all the quarterbacks were good runners. We knew they all could make plays, the challenge was just to prepare for all the shifts and motions. Boise State likes to do a lot of shifting and motioning before the snap, and we just had to be prepared to be able to play that out and do our job and execute that, and I feel like we did a good job with that, we just left some stuff out there on the field. Q. Was the potential explosiveness of Boise State the reason you wanted to play a little more aggressive, especially on the 4th-down situations? NICK ROLOVICH: I didn't think field goals were going to win this football game. I guess that would encompass that answer. The 4th-and-1 at the goal line when we didn't get anything, I think that was a big turning point. But I thought we had to play aggressive to win this football game versus this team. When they were able to gain the momentum back right before the half, I thought that's great time management by Coach Harsin. They made a play, we didn't make the play and got that second touchdown. There's a lot of plays that we could have made, but the calls are on me, and the kids played their hearts out. They tried their best. Q. After rotating the quarterbacks to end the season, can you talk about the decision to run with Cole for the whole game today? NICK ROLOVICH: Not really. We just felt Chevan got banged up at the end of the game, so I think the decision to start Cole happened earlier in the week than maybe some of the times the last month or so. Q. Nick, you've seen Boise State twice this year and obviously there will be a lot of talk the next 24 hours. Your impressions of this team and where they stack up against a Memphis and that kind of thing? NICK ROLOVICH: Well, I don't know Memphis that well or Cincy or the other ones in the conversation, but I think there's not a real weakness on this Boise State team. There's a strong belief in their systems, there's a strong belief in each other, well-coached, and there's talented athletes on this team. You've got three quarterbacks that can play. You've got a couple running backs, a bunch of receivers that can make plays, the tight ends. They have a ton of weapons. I was proud of our defense to get a few stops early on. I thought we started to have maybe a little bit of control and then I think it was a 4th-down stop at the goal line that kind of shifted things. Q. Seems like you had a lot of uncharacteristically false starts. Was that because of the crowd? NICK ROLOVICH: This place, they do a great job. They do a great job with the crowd noise, tried to have a plan all week, and they were still successful. But it does -- those are not beneficial to -- they just hurt the situations you get put in, whether it's 1st-and-10 going to 1st-and-15 or 3rd down going from 3rd-and-4 to 3rd-and-9. Again, I've said this before, it's really a combination of all the years of great football and the community feels a part of it, and I think the crowd noise is part of that. Q. Can you talk about getting to this point in the season and what you guys have been able to accomplish, and where you feel like this program is at and your plan for what you want to happen with Hawai'i football? NICK ROLOVICH: Well, obviously we'd like to win this football game. I don't know if there's many people that thought we'd be here at this point maybe six months ago. But I thought our players stayed together and continued to fight, won tough games, won close games, won games different ways, kind of scratched and clawed our way into this game. And it's still a successful season for our program: They're hurting in there in the locker room, our fans are hurting, our coaches are hurting, but there's still a lot of positive things to be -- to kind of reflect on. We've still got the bowl opportunity, and it's hard to think that way after a loss in a championship game. When you take a step back, it's true. There's a lot of good things that happened to this football team this year, that they made happen. Q. There was another big fourth down in the first half in the other direction. They were able to score the touchdown there on the fourth-down play down the sideline there. NICK ROLOVICH: Oh, yeah. Q. You brought everybody up close to the line of scrimmage on that play. I would assume you guys were thinking something quick there and they ended up going deep. What you guys were looking at there? NICK ROLOVICH: I think the sprint out was a nice call. He sold the out and up and made a nice catch. I think it was 4th-and-5, around there. So you could have some of that thought process, but it doesn't necessarily mean you don't think they can't take a shot, right. I mean, there's the opportunity that they can take part of their quick game, but yeah, it was a great call by Boise. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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