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FRANKLIN AMERICAN MORTGAGE MUSIC CITY BOWL: LOUISVILLE VS MISSISSIPPI STATEDecember 30, 2019Joe MoorheadDarryl WilliamsJaquarius LandrewsTommy StevensNashville, Tennessee Louisville - 38, Mississippi State - 28 JOE MOORHEAD: Yeah, first and foremost, you know, disappointing outcome. I want to congratulate Coach Satterfield, his staff and his team on a great season. I want to thank our fans who came down and had a great showing here. Always get great support for Mississippi State from our fans and it was great to see them here. Appreciate the bowl, appreciate the committee. It was an excellent week in Nashville, and an experience I think myself and all these guys and our staff are very grateful for. You know, there's a -- all football coaches sometimes at the end of your career you think you're going to write a book and talk about a season, talk about your career and each season is a chapter, and this season was a book in and of itself, and certainly 6-7 was not the outcome we desired. To get bowl eligible, to win an Egg Bowl and have this opportunity to play in a bowl game, to me is a credit to these seniors, a credit to this staff, a credit to these leaders that we were able to battle through a ton of adversity this season. Between graduation and injuries and other things that went on this season, I'd like to credit these guys for giving us the ability to get to here, and certainly in all three phases today I needed to be better, our staff needed to be better and we needed to execute a little bit better. I thought we practiced well at State and here. I thought our kids played hard, but ultimately at the end of the day we didn't do enough to win the football game. Q. Coach, when you talk about the momentum swing, you guys are up 14-0 and they got hot, 31 straight for them. JOE MOORHEAD: Yeah, it's a game of momentum. I think we were doing really well defensively. You know, we had trouble moving it a little bit early in the third quarter, and that's kind of when they caught their fire and moved the ball and scored their points, and we came back a little bit too little too late. But Cunningham, the running back, and certainly No. 1 is an excellent player, and we had a hard time defending him. They did a nice job with the run game and some misdirection. I thought we got the ball running a little bit early, struggled a little bit in the second half and got the pass game going. But certainly you don't want to be battling out of a hole against a team of this caliber. Q. What was different maybe in the third quarter? Seemed like defensively they did some things to kind of slow you down. JOE MOORHEAD: I don't think it was necessarily different things that they did. I think their D-line was doing a decent job. We were running the same run plays and tweaked a couple things, but it was essentially two quick three-and-outs, and that's kind of what got us. I think if you look at the drive chart, I think their first drive took almost six or seven minutes off the clock, then we went three-and-out, then they had another one, then we went another quick three-and-out and didn't get rolling again until the fourth quarter, so they took a lot of time of possession there in the third quarter and we were fighting defensively. We weren't able to generate much offensively, and certainly those three-and-outs didn't help there. Q. I know it's disappointing to see Kylin get hurt on the first play. JOE MOORHEAD: Yeah, very disappointing. Kylin practiced well, practiced hard, decided to play in the game, which meant a lot to him, meant a lot to this team and this university and certainly a base run play you're not anticipating that happening, but he tried to fight through it. That's a credit to him and his toughness and what he thinks of his teammates, and it was good to see Nick and Lee Witherspoon pick up the slack, as well. Q. Was Nick available in the third quarter? JOE MOORHEAD: Yeah, we had Nick and a couple other guys that were on a one-quarter penalty back from when we were back in school. Q. What was going on once Kylin got hurt like that? JOE MOORHEAD: I would guess not 100, but I don't know how much below that. Q. How much does (indiscernible)? JOE MOORHEAD: Yeah, I don't know if it was necessarily a byproduct of what Kylin was doing. Some of it was the plays, some of it was how they were defended, some of it was the reads and things like that. I think we had a good mix of Kylin and Nick and Lee in there, as well. I thought at times we ran effectively but certainly not well enough. Q. The secondary was kind of piecing things together. A lot of starters not playing (indiscernible)? JAQUARIUS LANDREWS: I just saw a lot of young guys giving their best, trying to help with the defense and the secondary against a lot of explosive plays, but I give them their credentials for giving it their all. Q. Tommy, were you trying to do too much? TOMMY STEVENS: (No microphone.) Q. You talk about reads and maybe some protection and whatnot, but I'm wondering if there was an instance when you guys weren't moving the ball in the middle of the game and you thought about maybe (indiscernible)? JOE MOORHEAD: Since what we were going to need to do was throw it around to catch up in scoring based on skill set and what we had available, we felt it was best with Tommy in there and came back and generated two long touchdowns there, so that was the thought process. Q. You talked about this being a game in and of itself this season, what was the most challenging part to you and what affected you guys most on the field? JOE MOORHEAD: I wouldn't say it was necessarily one thing but a combination of everything, kind of grouped together. I think what I certainly don't want this loss today to take away from is this senior class and what they've done at Mississippi State and everything that these guys have done, how many straight bowl games, two straight Egg Bowl wins, getting us bowl eligible and fighting and scratching and clawing through a bunch of different things and that I don't want to go through the list of them, because they're significant, but at that point of the season we were 3-5 and we needed to win 3 of 4 to get bowl eligible, and beat Arkansas and beat Ole Miss and beat Abilene Christian. I think it speaks volumes to these guys and their belief in the program and their culture and their leadership because they if didn't believe and they didn't have fight and they didn't know how to battle adversity, we wouldn't have got to this spot. Also I don't want to get kind of lost in the outcome today, the amount of positive momentum that we have going forward with the number of -- I think we had on the field today to start the game six of our 11 starters who started the first game didn't play, and then I think almost a similar number maybe offensively. So throughout the season you saw a ton of young kids in there playing football, who were either first or second-year players and have done really, really well. When you look at it positionally across the board, I think it's going to bode very well for the future and you add that to what we've been doing from a recruiting standpoint, and you stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before you. These seniors have set a high bar between our young kids, our recruiting classes, our development, I think the future is very bright. Q. (Inaudible)? JOE MOORHEAD: It was an existing injury from the season, and then when we cut the guys loose and they went home, he was working out on his own and he kind of dinged it up a little bit trying to do extra and he tried as hard as he could, went out there in pregame, but he just couldn't go. Q. Darryl, what happened with you in the pregame? How determined were you to get out there and play? DARRYL WILLIAMS: My knee just buckled a little bit on that turf. They've got to do a better job on the field. I think I did -- I wasn't (indiscernible) in this game. This was last game in maroon and white. I wasn't going to let my seniors down, but my teammates, who no doubt believe in me. I wasn't going to let those guys down. But I'm okay. Q. Darryl, you mentioned it being your last game. When you look back over the Mississippi State experience, what's it meant to you? DARRYL WILLIAMS: Oh, man, it's been a journey. Like I said before to you guys, I can't begin to thank them for giving me an opportunity to come and play college football at the Division I level. I just took advantage of each and every day to be the best I can be and put the university on my shoulders each and every day. Q. Darryl, (indiscernible) what's that been like from the player experience, just the ups and downs? DARRYL WILLIAMS: I mean, I think this senior class has done an excellent job, our leaders have done an excellent job just keeping guys together. We've been through ups and downs and guys not being able to play in games, guys being hurt. I think we did an excellent job, the seniors, of just keeping guys prepared, keeping guys ready. Q. There was a moment in the broadcast late in the game where a camera showed (indiscernible) on the sideline and they are holding up a sign that has you quoted as saying that Louisville is soft. I don't know if you know anything about that or if you have any comment about it. JOE MOORHEAD: Louisville is soft? I've never seen that, no. Q. Wondering if you have any comment. (Indiscernible)? Q. How much did you guys as an offensive line want to have that record as an accomplishment for this season? DARRYL WILLIAMS: We definitely wanted to give him that record, for him to be the all-time leading rusher in Mississippi State history. I think that we wanted to get him that record. We tried our hardest. I think (indiscernible) on the first play. He think it was more of the team. I think we tried our hardest to get him that record. I think that he is going to continue to get better, a premier back in this league, maybe not this league, but the next level. I'm looking forward to seeing it. Q. Jaquarius, talk about how hard it was to contain Cunningham. JAQUARIUS LANDREWS: He's a very good athlete. I just had to use my outside (indiscernible), but he's quick, he's fast, and I have to give him his props for that, but it was pretty tough, and I just had to keep my side contained and do my job. Q. There were a lot of 3rd-and-longs during the second half. Was it something that they were doing effectively or was there something defensively that was just out of place? JAQUARIUS LANDREWS: Just felt like they had give up a lot of explosive plays. They kept throwing it in the middle and they were scheming us up real good, so there was really nothing we could do about that, we've just got to do better with our play calling? Q. What's this season been like for you? TOMMY STEVENS: It's been wild. Yeah, obviously still emotional for me. Nothing really in life goes exactly how you think it's going to go. With that being said, I mean, the picture or the plan, it's -- I'm so thankful. I'm so thankful to have been able to come here to, to meet a whole new group of guys, play with guys like Landrews, guys like Darryl. It wasn't easy. It wasn't easy to make that decision. It wasn't easy to -- for those guys to welcome me in the way they did. I'm forever thankful for that, for those guys just giving me a chance. It's tough. It's tough because a lot of people on the outside don't really understand how much it takes. They don't understand how -- and with that being said, it's difficult, but we love what we do. It's a lot of emotion, a lot of emotion. I'm going to miss this team. Q. (Indiscernible)? JOE MOORHEAD: It's like watching one of your own grow up. We have a relationship that dates back and I've known him for a long time, watched him grow as a player, watch him grown as a person. He's got a wonderful family. You know, whether it's in the game of football playing, whether it's in the game of football coaching, whatever he does in life, I know he's made of the right things. He's a good kid with great character and a great set of values, and whatever he sets his mind to he's going to accomplish. Proud to be associated with Tommy Stevens. Q. You're a guy that took advantage of the transfer portal, being a grad transfer, that's been a hot topic this year. Looking back now, was that a good decision for you, to have the ability to take advantage of the grad transfer portal? TOMMY STEVENS: Like I was saying there, I don't think anything that happened this year would have determined whether or not it was successful or not. It was the best decision for me at the time. I don't regret it at all. Q. Kind of along those lines, the transfer portal or anything like that, are there any (indiscernible)? JOE MOORHEAD: You know, we're going to take a couple days off here. We report back on Sunday with a team meeting, and then class will resume on Monday, and then I'll have next week set up, the position coaches, and met with the players individually and have season-ending meetings and I'm going to meet with all the players individually next week. Q. (Indiscernible) how have they impacted your team? JOE MOORHEAD: With the guys that have the opportunity to play at the next level, they have to have the ability to get that done, and all those guys have been blessed with ability and talent and they've done an excellent job at this level of football and now it's going to be about their opportunity to go to the combine or our pro day and show things that they're able to do from a measurable and quantifiable standpoint and put those things together. You don't need all 32 to like you, you just need one to like you and I know if these guys get the right opportunity that they'll make the most of it. Q. Joe, wrapping up your second season, this is obviously not how you wanted it to end, but what's your biggest takeaway? JOE MOORHEAD: We've just got to stay the course and keep working. Certainly ending the season with a loss in the bowl game is not ideal. Two years, 14 wins, two bowl appearances, two wins over top-25 teams, two Egg Bowl victories, three successful top-25 recruiting classes, a bunch of young guys that have played and played well. It's trying to focus on the positives, sit down next week and evaluate every aspect of the program, see where we're at, continue what we're doing well, and looking to fix the things we need to do a little bit better and take -- obviously not the positive momentum from this game but all the things we've done well the past few years and need to build off of that. Q. You were mentioning those list of accolades. Do you feel like there's sometimes too much weight put on that final record? JOE MOORHEAD: Not necessarily. I mean, it's a barometer of what you've done for the season. I think there's context for everything, but certainly finishing with six wins and getting to a bowl and winning the Egg Bowl, you would have loved to finish this one off the right win and finished the season with a winning record rather than a losing record. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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