TOSTITOS FIESTA BOWL: KANSAS STATE v SYRACUSE

December 31, 1997

Donovin Darius

Kevin Johnson

Donovan McNabb

Paul Pasqualoni

Nate Trout

DONOVIN DARIUS: We knew he was a play-maker. We knew he wouldn't mind putting the weight of his team on his shoulders. He came out and really did a good job. When courage broke down or the pass blocking broke down, he was able to try to make something happen. In terms of directing the offense, totally he did a great job. My hat goes after to Michael Bishop.

DONOVAN McNABB: No comment. No comment at all.

DONOVAN McNABB: They did a lot of things. Blitz the quarterback, linebackers read well and they made plays.

DONOVAN McNABB: Did a great job. Covered our receivers well. They played plays.

DONOVIN DARIUS: At that time we were in a blitz. One of the safeties -- where I was the safety that came down. It was a good play called by or defensive coaches. Just put us in a good position to make a play. When the runningback came to me, you know, I wrapped him up and pulled the ball out in an attempt, knowing we were down, to strip the ball. That was a legit attempt. I believe they called it and they said that he was -- he was going backwards, where actually he was still trying to push forward, but I was trying to strip the ball. I believe it was a fumble. The referees called it their way. You know, that's how it goes sometimes.

DONOVAN McNABB: Misjudgment on my part. Should have protected the ball well, did not. Fumbled it.

DONOVAN McNABB: He did a great job. I didn't.

KEVIN JOHNSON: We felt we changed the momentum of the game. We just didn't come out and execute the second half.

DONOVIN DARIUS: You say why was the flag picked up?

DONOVIN DARIUS: From my perspective, the wide receiver pushed off. They called a hold on it. If you would have seen on the film, you would have seen he could not hold him at all. It was a deliberate attempt to push off. That's sometimes how it's happen when you're on their sidelines, they get their calls their way, we get ours our way. It was unfortunate that the play went against us and think scored.

DONOVIN DARIUS: I believe he was inbounds. He did a great job on that. We kind of thought that he was -- that the penalty was on them. Not that we laxed up but it was a good effort of Mike Bishop to get out of the pocket, throw the ball, good catch and run. At the same time, I do believe, you know, he pushed off.

NATE TROUT: I don't really want to look at it like that. He's a great kicker. But I just wanted to go out there and do the best I could and help my team to a victory. Unfortunately, it didn't happen that way today.

NATE TROUT: I wanted to come out and compete with him to see how I stacked up. My first couple kicks weren't too nice. I stepped up and had the last two field goals, got the ball in the air. I just wanted to come out and compete with him and see how I stacked up against the best.

DONOVAN McNABB: No, they did not. Did everything we prepared to do. Did a great job of it. Got a good quarterback, made plays. The secondary did a great job. We just didn't capitalize.

DONOVAN McNABB: I lost three games this season. You can't say this is the toughest. Fourth game we lost this season. That's how I look at it.

DONOVAN McNABB: You don't look at it that way. You look at the scoreboard, we lost. You look at the film, you find out what you did wrong, then you go from there. You try to make changes. So I guess we'll all watch the film, evaluate how we played, and then we'll just go from there.

DONOVIN DARIUS: Anytime you have a match-up, the goal is to go out there and try to make the least amount of mistakes. Today we made more mistakes and they capitalized on our mistakes. That sometimes is the way in which a game is fair.

DONOVAN McNABB: When you look at a team that goes 10 and 1, you can't look at the tough defense and they things they rack up. You have to look at the offensive side. They did a great job on offensive, as well as on defense, as well as special team. You have to tip your hat. Won the game, did a great job, they're smiling right now.

DONOVAN McNABB: Not at all. When I go out there, my mind is focused on what I have to do. I block out the crowd. I believe that my team does it as well.

DONOVAN McNABB: It was just bad judgment on my part. I should have tucked it away. We worked on it every day. You know, while we're practicing, I always tuck it away. I did not.

DONOVAN McNABB: It brushed on my pads and pants and fumbled.

DONOVAN McNABB: I mean, we lost it. I mean, it went between the ref's legs and we lost the fumble.

DONOVIN DARIUS: I wouldn't say that. I give Mike Bishop a lot of credit. I believe today he made plays. In all of our games we played this year, quarterbacks attempted to make plays. I think today he just made a lot of plays. It's not so much a rating of better quarterbacks. I think today he did a good job of, you know, leading his team to victory.

DONOVIN DARIUS: Actually, we were in the man-coverage. We should have been all over that. That was our mistake. That's one of the things we're talking about in terms of mistakes. They capitalized on one of our mistakes.

DONOVIN DARIUS: We prepared well. We didn't execute as well as we would like to.

COACH PASQUALONI: Our congratulations to Coach Snyder and the K State players. They played an outstanding game. They prepared very, very well. Coach Snyder coached them very, very well. I believe on this particular day, you know, they really executed far better than our team did. They made the plays, made some really big plays and some really nice plays. Michael Bishop had a heck of a day. I thought their defense played with the aggressiveness that we thought coming into the game they would play with. They played really, really good team football. They played, I thought, excellent team football tonight.

COACH PASQUALONI: Oh, yeah. You know, we had a pretty good idea that Michael Bishop was good. Certainly you just watched the film. I think Michael has had days where he's been exceptionally hot. I thought tonight he was very, very accurate. I thought that Coach Snyder and the staff, the players did an excellent job in the timing of the routes. His delivery, the receivers breaking the routes out of the coverage, the timing of what they did. We were trying to play the coverage as tight as we could, but their timing I thought, and the precision of the route and the accuracy of throw I thought was excellent.

COACH PASQUALONI: Well, you know, we came into the game feeling as though, you know, we needed to contain, you know, Michael Bishop. As you all know, they've run a wide variety of quarterback running plays, not just options, and not just the quarterback draw. They run a counter and an off-tackle play. Then they draw off the play action, as far as one he scored on. The long one he scored on was a draw off a play action, which is a tough play. We'll go back and look at the film, there will probably be half a dozen things we'll say, "We could have, should have." But we thought that we came in with a pretty good plan. We haven't contained on the one long touchdown pass, where the interference was called, some question about that call, we just failed to contain them. He got out, much like Donovan McNabb does, throws the ball, ends up in a big play. You know, you've got to give Mike Bishop a lot of credit. He really, really played a nice game. I thought they blocked and protected. I thought the receivers caught the ball very, very well.

COACH PASQUALONI: It was big. You know, we were kind of battling to get back in the game, you know, in the third quarter and had a few opportunities to do that. You know, we kind of shot ourselves in the foot. We had a couple holding calls. We turned the ball over, et cetera, et cetera. You know, in a game like this, you play in a game against a really good team like a K State, you're playing in the Fiesta Bowl, two really good teams. It normally comes down to a couple of plays, you know. Tonight we just -- I don't want to take a thing away from Kansas State because they forced mistakes because they played aggressively, but we just made far too many mistakes.

COACH PASQUALONI: Well, I thought that we opened the game and the first drive we played pretty well. Then I thought we closed the second half. The last half of the second quarter, I thought we played pretty well. But in between, we didn't play very well so we just tried to get the kids to focus on what we felt we had to do in the second half. We just wanted to worry about who we were and get done what we felt we had to get done. Go back out and play the second half, we felt we would be nine.

COACH PASQUALONI: I love Donovan McNabb. I would not trade Donovan McNabb obviously for anybody. I think Mike Bishop is a heck after player. But I love Donovan McNabb, I really do. I think he's a heck after kid and a heck of a player. You know, the better the team plays, the better the quarterback plays. It's just not the quarterback. It doesn't help our team to be in third and 38 either, you know what I'm saying? That stuff kind of hurts you, so. I think you saw two really good quarterbacks tonight.

COACH PASQUALONI: I think what he would like to do, a lot like a lot of guys we've had, you know, over the years, a Marvin Harrison, a Kevin Abrahms (phonetic), a Donovin Darius, I think when you've played a lot of football, whether at Syracuse or whatever, you're a fourth year senior, you're finishing up your academic career. I think it's a very natural thing to want to know where you stand in the eyes of the people at the next level. I think what Don said what I'd like to see where I'm at, and I'd like to, you know, know what I have to do to be a guy who could go at the highest level. So we'll sit down at the end of this, let the smoke clear, sit down and figure out exactly what his status is and then go from there. We haven't really sat down and talked about it much or done any work on it, so I don't have any of those answers tonight.

COACH PASQUALONI: Yeah. It's very, very difficult when you have to play the long field and you're in the field position game. I don't know how many yards we had in penalties, but it just seemed to me that every other play was a penalty of one sort or another. I mean, we lined up off sides defensively something like three times in a row. I mean, it was just crazy stuff. You can't play that way. You can't play a game like that and expect to win.

COACH PASQUALONI: No, not necessarily, no.

COACH PASQUALONI: Either of those plays. If we get the turnover and the touchdown, it's a 3-point game with about seven minutes to go. Good Lord only knows what's going to happen there. We lose contain, he throws a long touchdown pass, that's another big play. Any of those. We can go back over this game. There's going to be a lot of plays in this game that we're just going to, you know, wish we had back.