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FAMOUS IDAHO POTATO BOWL: OHIO VS NEVADAJanuary 3, 2020Frank SolichNathan RourkeJarren HamptonBoise, Idaho Ohio 30, Nevada 21 THE MODERATOR: We'll take an opening statement by Coach Solich, and then take questions. FRANK SOLICH: It was an exciting, exciting game I believe. Obviously a lot of good plays made by guys on both sides of the ball. For them, obviously for us. We made it a little bit tougher on ourselves as we turned the ball over a couple times. Could have been in position to score, put some more points on the board, made it a little bit easier. But they've got a lot of fight. I like what they're all about, the way they came back. It was a great ballgame. The two guys sitting next to me are two great athletes for us. Obviously Jarren Hampton on the defensive side of it, and Nathan, our quarterback. Appreciate what they've been all about, the type of year they've had. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. We're going to be enamored with the postgame celebration where you were doused with French fries. Any idea where those suckers came from and did you taste one? FRANK SOLICH: No idea where they came from. I did get one and ate it. Very good. I'm sure it's an Idaho potato, you know. That's a lot better than water on you. Over the course of the years, I've had some water on me. I will take those potatoes any time. Q. (No microphone.) FRANK SOLICH: It was very nerve-wracking. It could have went either way as we came down the stretch there. It wouldn't have taken too much to all of a sudden find yourself scrambling to try to win it right at the very end with one or two plays. It was tough. But I feel like our ballclub has always been the kind of ballclub that is going to play things out, be a four-quarter team. I was hoping that we'd be able to play at the level that we needed to play as to pull it out at the end. Q. Jarren, as a member of that defense, you have had issues forcing turnovers, getting stops late in games all year. What did it feel like for you and the other guys to be the defining factor down the stretch today? JARREN HAMPTON: We knew we were going to get the opportunities. It's about capitalizing on them. I know we had that forced fumble towards the end of the game. That was big for us. They're going about to score. It's just about capitalizing, giving the ball back to our offense, letting them do what they've been doing all year. Q. Coach, when you took over, Ohio hadn't been to a bowl game in 30 plus years. Here you've won your third in a row. What is it like to see the growth of this program that you started? FRANK SOLICH: Yeah, it wasn't really all that difficult to build. I was fortunate enough to be around the right kind of people from the president on down, our ADs. It just seems to me to have been something that as we went through the years, the program just kept getting better and better. I felt all along that it was a school we would be able to build, have some kind of repetition in terms of big wins and wins that will move your program forward. The first year was a little tough. I think we got four wins. The next time we played in the MAC championship game. Once that happened, there was a whole different feeling with the players on our campus. Then it became a little easier to recruit also. It all kind of feeds one upon another. Q. Nathan, talk about this game today, how it encapsulates your career at Ohio, what you've been able to do. NATHAN ROURKE: Yeah, I think more than anything it was a game that it took both sides of the ball to win. Our defense stepped up and played tremendously well, especially in the second half. The forced fumble at the end was so crucial for us. I'm just proud to be on this team and be a part of this program. Although we weren't able to win MAC championships while I was here, we were able to make history in a different way, win three bowl games. I'm proud to be a part of that. Q. Nathan, obviously you talked about during the postgame you've never been a person to look at accolades. You played your final game. What do you want people in Ohio to remember the most about you? NATHAN ROURKE: I hope more than anything I was a good teammate. I love the guys in the locker room. I take a lot of pride in being a good teammate, being a good leader, being coachable by the coaches. I've been so fortunate to be able to come here and to just be one of the guys, learn from these coaches, have a lot of fun, a lot of success doing it. I couldn't ask for more from this program. Q. Nathan, you lost an important part of your run game at the end of the first quarter. What did you think of the backup runningbacks coming in? NATHAN ROURKE: We've been really fortunate this year. We haven't had 'backup' runningbacks, we've had a cycle of guys going in. We don't really skip a beat offensively when we have De'Montre or Julian go in. O'Shaan has played extremely well when he was in, but the other two. Even past that, Jake Neatherton, played extremely well. We've been fortunate in my time here to have extremely good runningbacks. It definitely makes my job a lot easier. We didn't skip a beat. We just kept going. Q. Jarren, take us through the last couple defensive series, the reverse, last play in the end zone, nearly a pick. JARREN HAMPTON: The reverse, they were coming out in the same formation they had been running, they ran the previous series, with No. 2 in the backfield. They ran a toss. We're thinking short yardage situation he's going to run the ball. They just tried to hit us with a trick play. The toss was botched, I don't know what happened. Our D-line had been pressuring in the backfield all day. They ended up coming with the recovery. Same thing with what we thought was going to be an interception. The D-line got pressured. The quarterback started scrambling, threw the ball up. That was that. D-line, they deserve a lot of credit for what they did today, for sure. Q. Coach and Jarren, what can you say about Nathan? JARREN HAMPTON: He wants to be remembered as a great teammate. That's exactly what he was, a leader, captain. To me, with my experiences with him, he's respected throughout the whole locker room. Nothing bad could possibly be said about him. He comes on the field, puts it all out there, works hard. He gives us everything he has. That's why we've been successful in the past. FRANK SOLICH: From the moment he stepped on campus, we knew we had somebody special in the way that he conducted himself and everything he did, whether it had to do with football, whether it was in meetings with the coaches, whether it was working with the players on their own time. He's a guy that thinks through so many things to make himself as good as he can be. Brought his own pair of shoulder pads to put on during the summer so he could be throwing with shoulder pads on to help it be a little more realistic for him. Just the ability to communicate to people. He is tremendous at that. So the players love playing for him. I love coaching him, as our other coaches love coaching him. You don't find them like him all the time. We've been blessed to have him for three years. Certainly appreciate everything that he has done for this program. He thinks beyond himself. That's not the way it is all the time. He is definitely team oriented to the point where he'll do anything he can to help his teammates become better athletes, better players, better people. Q. Nathan, what does it mean winning MVP your last game? NATHAN ROURKE: In terms of the MVP, mine was Austin Conrad. I think he played extremely well. Forced fumbles, the whole D-line played extremely well, like Jarren said. He's the MVP in my book. In terms of playing with this team, it's awesome to be able to finish it off with a win. I know the last couple of years definitely it was important to me to win and send the seniors off in the right way. It's awesome to be able to go out in that way. You form so many bonds on this team, especially with people like the O-line, the offensive line, you travel with them, eat dinner, meals with them. They're just so fun to be around. Then obviously you go to battle with them. Yeah, it's been a good ride. Q. Jarren, the fumble recovery, the bend, don't break defense, how important was it to get a fumble? JARREN HAMPTON: I was very proud. Like you say, our defense is bend, don't break. That's the mentality we have. When they had a timeout before that, we just kept telling them, it's a two-possession game, we got to get out of here with a stop. Turnover is number one. If we have to force them to kick a field goal, that's two. Like I said, we have fighters on our team. We're not going to lay down for nobody. That's what we did. We showed that today. It got rough, but we persevered. Q. De'Montre, 97 yards, how important was it for him to have a game like that with O'Shaan going out? FRANK SOLICH: He's been something really special throughout the course of season. All he does is score touchdowns it seems like when he gets chances, picks up yards. Great athlete. A little sidenote. He did break his finger in pregame warmups trying to catch a ball. It his finger, hand wrong, broke his finger. He was able to obviously play with it. I was wondering whether or not he needed to carry the ball in the opposite hand all the time. He said no, he'd be able to handle it. Starting out we weren't real sure how he was going to be able to function. Then, you know, when he had to get in and start playing, it was obvious he was going to be able to play with it. Q. Frank, in a lot of ways it's been a tough years, close games, long field goals didn't go your way. How do you process this where your defense came up with stops, a game didn't get away from you in the fourth quarter? FRANK SOLICH: The last three games have been special for our team in terms of productivity on both sides of the ball. Special teams, as well. I think it's a real tribute to these guys that they played as well as they've played coming down the stretch. It was not easy for anybody in the program to accept what kind of happened to us in terms of not getting it done at the level that we believed we were going to get it done at. It would have been very easy to kind of let things slide, not come out to practice with the same kind of enthusiasm and effort as if you're going down the stretch battling for a MAC championship. They didn't let that happen. They came out every day with a lot of pride, ready to go. If it was coming off a defeat, it was to bounce back. If it was coming off of a win, it was just to get better and win more. This team has a special place in my heart for how they responded. Are you kidding me? THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Congratulations. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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