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AT&T COTTON BOWL CLASSIC: OKLAHOMA STATE v OLE MISSJanuary 2, 2010Kendrick LewisKentrell LockettDexter McClusterHouston NuttPatrick TrahanARLINGTON, TEXAS Ole Miss – 21 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Dexter McCluster, Kendrick Lewis, Kentrell Lockett, Shay Hodge, then finally we have Patrick Trahan. Coach, congratulations to you and Ole Miss, the team members that played so hard. Coach Nutt, would you make some opening comments after the win this afternoon. COACH NUTT: Yes, sir. I want to give congratulations and praise to Oklahoma State. That school is real special to Diane and I. We graduated there. I want to give a lot of accolades. That team played extremely hard. They have a very good program. Congratulations to them for a very good year. I'm really proud of our team. It's hard to win back-to-back Bowls. It's very difficult. We have excellent preparation. I was really disappointed offensively, shaking my head for about three-quarters. But our defense, our defense, our defense was just outstanding. Tyrone has a tremendous game plan. But our guys got a lot of heart. Kentrell Lockett, Kendrick Lewis, Patrick Trahan, Marshay Green, all those guys, they were just outstanding, and they were relentless chasing the ball, putting theirself in the right position. Because offensively, Oklahoma State is very good. They're dangerous. They had Kendall Hunter back, who had been hurt. So they're just a very good team. I wish we could have helped the defense a little bit more. But bottom line is winning. This is going to help us recruiting. It sets a foundation. To win the old Cotton Bowl, then to come in and win the new one in this magnificent place is just awesome. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you for the opening comments. We'll take questions. Q. Coach, can you go over what was going on with the quarterback changes with Snead. COACH NUTT: I was just trying to find something. Jevan wasn't having his best game. He was turning it over. Sometimes you got to make a tough move. He did get hit there. He took a real hard hit. So I used that next series to put Nathan in there. Nathan had had some good practices, got a good arm, made some good plays for us. Scrambled for a first down, got us out of a wrong play, handed the ball off nicely, made a couple of good throws. As it got tighter, I just needed the most experience I had. I had to go back with Jevan. Jevan finished the game very nicely. But really as the offensive line, this guy right here, the credit goes to the defense. Q. Coach Nutt and Kendrell, what do you think happened improvement-wise since the Mississippi State loss that allowed the defense to perform like this? COACH NUTT: Kentrell, go first. KENTRELL LOCKETT: Execution. We just practiced from the previous game, beating Mississippi State, tried to polish off the mistakes. Everybody tried to be assignment sound and we got the job done. COACH NUTT: I asked Tyrone when we got back from his Mississippi State. You know what's going to happen with Oklahoma State, they are going to think they can run the option play on us, the wishbone, all these things. Ty said, It's not going to happen. If you would have saw these guys practice, we had really about 24 practices, if you count from the first time we started practicing. They were like, Kentrell said, executing, running to the ball. It's assignment football, responsibility. Boy, they did it the right way. Q. Houston, Jevan obviously took the huge hit. What was he like right afterwards? Were you worried about a concussion? COACH NUTT: I asked him was everything okay, did he have a concussion. He said no. He said he's okay, he's ready to go. Just took a hard, hard shot. Took a hard shot. Kind of blindsided him. Took a hard shot. Jevan is tough. I thought it was a good opportunity. I think for him to be on the sidelines, kind of let him watch a little bit. Every quarterback wants to play. So Nathan, that's tremendous experience for him. I was really proud of a couple of series that he had. Q. Find it somewhat ironic that your big guy Powe couldn't get in but made the big play? COACH NUTT: I find it very ironic. Boy, I was upset about that one. I would have bet everything that this guy has been practicing so hard, so quick at 339 pounds, I thought for sure he could get six inches. I've been teasing him about it already. We should have scored. Really disappointed. Should have been 10 or 14 to nothing. To give our defense a two-score lead, it builds confidence. Boy, they play with such a fierce, competitive spirit. You just felt like if we could get up two scores, it was going to be over. But we couldn't help. You got to give Oklahoma State's defense credit. But you can't turn the ball over. Q. Four turnovers at the half, coach. You said you were shaking your head. COACH NUTT: Just like this. It was ugly. I hate that (smiling). I hate that people in the country had to see that because we're better than that. That infuriates you. You have a good preparation week taking care of the ball, throwing, catching, handing off. When you can't hand off the ball without the ball going down, you're shaking your head, When is the deal? It goes back to what? Defense, defense, defense. They kept giving us chances and chances and chances. A lot of times a lot of teams would let go of the rope in situations like that, say, offense, are you going to do anything today? They didn't have that attitude. Kendrick Lewis was flying around. His hands were beautiful today. They got pressure up front with Kentrell Lockett, Emmanuel Stephens, Greg Hardy, Powe, Marcus Tillman, Patrick Trahan, so quick today running down the option. But it's a team. So I'm proud of that. Q. Dexter, the first athlete in the SEC to surpass one thousand yards rushing and 500 receiving. DEXTER McCLUSTER: Man, it's a blessing just to be a part of the SEC, be a part of Ole Miss. To accomplish a goal like this... Coming into the game, I wasn't really worried about it. I wanted to win and do whatever I could do to help this team win. I knew if I did that, it would fall into place, which it did. I give all the glory to the Lord for everything I did today. COACH NUTT: Talking about the SEC, to be the only player in the SEC to have over a thousand yards rushing and over 500 yards receiving, nobody, nobody else. Bo Jackson, I'm talking about great players in this league. He's the only one. But this is why this is so special, because this guy has done something. His heart is bigger than this stadium, I promise you. Q. The game plan, was it to give Dexter a career high in carries? Were you expecting this type of workload? Coach, were you expecting this workload out of Dexter or was that a process of the passing game not coming to fruition? DEXTER McCLUSTER: I don't have a problem with getting the ball that many times. Coach Nutt has the faith in me to take care of the ball. He knows I can make plays happen. I come in with the mindset as I'm not going to worry for the defense, I have to worry about me. Coach Nutt has that faith in me to go out there and get the job done. I want to thank you for that, coach. I always dreamt about coming in and being an SEC runningback. A lot of people said I couldn't do it. I want to thank you for that. COACH NUTT: You're welcome (laughter). To go along with that, we knew we were going to run his legs off today. It's our last game together, last 60 minutes. We're going to run the legs off. Now, I did expect the passing game to be much better. I did expect us to have 35 or 40 points today. That's what's disappointing. Hey, it didn't happen. Thank goodness for team, team, team, defense, special teams. It's just a tremendous team effort. It's hard to win Bowl games. It's very, very difficult. Especially back to back. So I'm excited. Q. There seemed to be some communication issues between Daverin Geralds and Jevan Snead. What did coaches say to them and what did you say? COACH NUTT: We basically want to get the ball, want to get the snap. I don't know who was saying in this building that it's not very loud. I don't know who said that. I kept getting those words, you know, it's not very loud in the palace, this Dallas Cowboy stadium. That's wrong. It's very loud. You know, when defensive people make their calls, we go on first round, we go on a silent snap, it's easy to get antsy right there. We got to get that corrected. But that was the frustration of it. It was hard enough as it was to go 80 yards or try to make first downs without stopping ourselves. That's what happened. You have an illegal procedure, don't get the ball off, somebody jumps, frustrating. So that was the frustration part of it. We had to get that corrected. We finished it right. But we can't have those. Q. Patrick, could you take us through your touchdown. Under the circumstances, do you take the 15? Coach, were you okay with that? PATRICK TRAHAN: Well, uhm, I don't know what happened. Basically we were in a defense, and they threw the pass. I was just running to the ball. I got lucky. I scooped and scored. I always told everybody, if I was gonna score what I was gonna do. Nobody believed me, so I made it happen (smiling). COACH NUTT: He's been telling me all year he's a runningback. I tell you, he looked like it. He you looked quick getting in that end zone. Q. Kendrick, walk us through your interception in the end zone. Zac said they were trying to get a cheap touchdown. Didn't look like you stopped on the play. KENDRICK LEWIS: No, I didn't stop. You know, when you have plays like that, when you know guys jump off-sides, me being the offensive side, you're taught to throw the ball up, try to make a play. I never quit playing. Went to the ball. Was able to make a big play on the ball and help my team out, out of the hole we was in. Q. Congratulations on the win, it was a W. We have some negative Nancys in here. What made you lean towards the Navy jerseys and the gray pants vice versa going for something else? Was it a fashion choice? What was it leaning towards? COACH NUTT: No, no, no. We just wanted to look good. To me, Cowboy Stadium is blue. Our guys wanted to wear blue. Thank you. Q. Dexter, take us through your last touchdown. Looked like you jumped from about the three yard line. DEXTER McCLUSTER: Yeah, it's kind of funny. Thinking back to last year's Cotton Bowl, we ran the same play to the left side, I scored on it. I just wanted to get the ball and run as fast as I can to get there, just not be stopped. I felt I wanted to take it in no matter what. It was the same touchdown as last year, different dial, different swag to it. But it was good (smiling). Q. Have you had time to contemplate life without Dexter? COACH NUTT: I hate to think about it. Towards the end of this season, you think about it. You think about 22 not being out there. Dexter said his last prayer for us this morning. I'm telling you, it was emotional, it was really emotional. Look at these seniors, Kendrick Lewis, Patrick Trahan, Marshay Green, John Jerry, Marcus Tillman, we just been through so much together. This has been an unbelievable ride for two years. We're talking about a team that didn't win a conference game. When Dexter said this morning, Thanks for making it fun, they've made it fun for us because of their attitude. They love football. They love each other. This has been a special two years. But getting back to your question, I don't like to think about it much. But now as they turn to go, they hand the baton to juniors, we got to start thinking about it a lot. Q. For the three defensive players, a little redemption? PATRICK TRAHAN: You know, the Egg Bowl, it presented a challenge to us to stop the option. Like I think Lockett hit it earlier. It's assignment football and we're a disciplined defense. That should never happen to us. We wanted to come out here and show that. We're coached better. We play better. I think we proved that we could play. Coach Nix, he calls the right plays, it's up to us to run it. KENTRELL LOCKETT: It was a challenge. Coming into the game, we knew what we were going to get. We knew we were going to get the option, all of that, just from our previous game, which we really didn't play well against. So we took the challenge. Coach Nix put us in the right plays, in the right position to make the plays, and we took advantage of it. KENDRICK LEWIS: Those guys really summed it up, the whole deal. Coach put us in the game plan. It was up to us to execute. We showed our hearts to the guys. We laid an egg out there, did some bad things, left it on the field for those guys to see. We knew what we were going to see coming into this game. But, you know, we practiced real hard from that point on. We was able to be successful in the end and get a W. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, gentlemen. Congratulations on a great season and on today's win. End of FastScripts |
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