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GATOR BOWL: MISSISSIPPI STATE v MICHIGANJanuary 1, 2011Denard RobinsonRich RodriguezJACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA Mississippi State – 52 Q. Did you expect it to go that way in the early part of the game? And what happened after that first quarter? DENARD ROBINSON: I mean, we made a couple mistakes and they played well, so I can't... Q. Denard, there's no secret that your coach is under scrutiny. What would you feel if he wasn't here next year? DENARD ROBINSON: That's my coach. That's who recruited me, so that's it. Q. What was the mood in the locker room afterwards considering all of the stuff that's going on about the future of the program? DENARD ROBINSON: We're a team, we're going to be a family. We're going to hold each other up. We're not going to let each other fall. Everybody is going to pick each other up. Q. (No microphone.) DENARD ROBINSON: Oh, yeah, it was. It was a tough loss. The guys will come back to work for next year. Q. You had such a fast start in the first quarter. Did they do something defensively? DENARD ROBINSON: They didn't change anything different. We just didn't execute, that's all. Q. Denard, can you compare their team's speed with some of the teams y'all have played? DENARD ROBINSON: I mean, they looked like all the Big Ten teams. They were right in there with us and they was playing with us, so there wasn't no difference. Q. Was there some point when State's defense started to figure out what you were doing before you did? DENARD ROBINSON: No, no. They only picked up on one play, and that's it. Q. What positives can you take away from this game going into next season? DENARD ROBINSON: I mean, we've got to come back hungry now. We took a loss, and our guys, we're going to have to pull each other together and try to come back for next year. Q. Can you just talk about what you guys weren't really able to do when you got in the red zone those couple of times, especially the 4th down play where you weren't able to come away with a score? DENARD ROBINSON: Man, we just didn't execute. We didn't execute. I mean, we didn't play Michigan football. That's just what happened. We didn't play Michigan football. Q. Can you talk about the momentum that you guys had in the first and what it kind of felt like after that when you slowed down on offense? DENARD ROBINSON: I mean, we just slowed down. The offense kind of slowed down, and we didn't have our tempo going. That's what happened basically. Q. What are some of the things you want to work on in the off-season, over the summer? DENARD ROBINSON: Everything. I mean, I could get way better at reading coverages and be in the film room a lot more, just doing things -- the little things to get better. Q. Were you guys distracted at all because of the controversy with coach? Do you feel like you were distracted at all? DENARD ROBINSON: We was not. Coach told us don't worry about it. We kept our focus, and we kept the main thing the main thing. Q. Can you kind of talk about the cowbells a little bit? I know you've been practicing with them all week. What were they like come game time? DENARD ROBINSON: They didn't bother us at all. We did not change -- on the center we didn't change the snap count. We kept it the same. Q. If coach doesn't return next season, will you leave and go to the NFL? DENARD ROBINSON: I'm a sophomore. I can't go to the NFL anyhow. Q. Denard, maybe a little more serious of a follow-up to that one, if Rich is not here, will you be here next year or have you given thought to that? DENARD ROBINSON: No response. Q. You're saying that you guys didn't execute, just a matter of just not executing, but how is that possible when this offense was seemingly unstoppable when offense was supposedly the strength of this team? You had six weeks to prepare and everyone was healthy. How can it be that it simply was a lack of execution? DENARD ROBINSON: I mean, we had a couple of missed passes and a missed box. A couple of little things that didn't work for us today. We didn't work; we didn't come to play football. Q. Just to follow up, you guys didn't come here to play football was your quote there. But to elaborate on that, you guys were not mentally sharp at all? DENARD ROBINSON: We didn't finish. We didn't finish. That's -- we didn't finish. We started off, we didn't finish. Q. Rich, did you have any sense something like this was coming at all either in your team or what you saw from Mississippi State on film? COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, I thought our guys practiced well, I thought they were focused, how we came out with the right intensity. But from the second quarter on, we did not execute. It sounds simplistic, but it's very disappointing because the guys have a great attitude. But they made plays and we didn't. They tackled better than us, they caught better than us, they ran better than us, and that's unfortunate. Our guys did play hard, we just did not play as well as we're capable of playing and they played extremely well, and that was the ballgame. Q. A lot of players make comparisons having a lot of time to prepare for Connecticut, kind of comparing that to having a lot of time to play in the Bowl game. How was the execution different in both games that kind of made it different? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, if I had the golden answer to why sometimes 18, 19, 20-year old kids don't always execute perfectly, it just happens sometimes. Sometimes you press a little bit, and I think that probably may have happened a little bit today. When we got behind, we probably pressed a little bit and didn't maybe concentrate as much. I don't know, but it happens sometimes. We obviously didn't tackle well, and we couldn't get our defense off the field. So you couldn't really get a lot of positive momentum. And when we had a chance to make some momentum offensively, particularly in the red zone when you can't kick field goals, it hampers you a little bit. All in all, we didn't play as well as we could play and they played extremely well. I don't know if they had a penalty until later, the last five, six minutes of the game. They played well, we didn't. End of story. Q. I was going to ask you about the first possession of the second half. Did that kind of take away your chance to get back some momentum? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Certainly it stemmed the little momentum that we had. I mean, you've got to come away with some points there and get within two scores. I know hindsight is always a little easier to look and say maybe you should have went for it on 4th and 5, but you've got to be able to make that field goal, too. So I knew that was kind of a downer. I felt that a little bit, and we tried to bounce back from that, but we didn't. Q. What did you think of Mississippi State's defense, especially the linebackers playing you guys sideline to sideline? COACH RODRIGUEZ: They played well. They tackled well. They're very active. But again, looking back, we moved the ball, we just didn't finish drives, particularly after the first quarter. Again, I don't know if it was just because we were pressing or whatever, what have you, but you give them some credit. But the looks that we were getting, I think our guys felt comfortable because they've seen them for a couple weeks. Q. What's your mood right now? Surprised? Disappointed? Frustrated? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, probably all those. I mean, disappointed and frustrated, and I think you ask our players, they'll say the same thing. But not discouraged because we've got a great group of kids. There are some guys that -- I guess lack of improvement defensively is frustrating for a lot of us and for our fans, and we expected to see some, but I don't know if you should expect too much when you see two freshmen. It's not excuses. I've said this many times to the folks that follow us at home. But when you play true freshmen, true freshmen, as many as we play on defense in key roles, it's going to take a while before we can raise the level of play where you need it. They need an off-season. They need to get bigger and stronger and faster and understand the speed of the game better, and they will. They're a good group of young guys, they just had to play before they were ready and they weren't good enough. Q. When do you expect to meet with your athletic director and what case will you make for keeping your job? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Dave has been around, and he's doing his evaluation. I don't know when we're going to meet. Q. How frustrating has this last month been for you with everything swirling around? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Frustrating? I don't know if that's the correct word. We just come to work. I mean, one thing I'm proud of the players and the staff is we have not cheated the University of Michigan a day of work, and I wouldn't allow it and I wouldn't let our staff allow it, wouldn't let our players allow it and never have in my entire coaching career. And we're paid to do a job, and we did it as hard and as well as we could with some obstacles, but everybody is going to have obstacles. And that's the one thing that even though the season certainly didn't shape out the way we wanted it to and there's a lot of things that happened, we fought through it, and the team got closer. This team is closer today than it was a week ago and three weeks ago, and sometimes there's some hard lessons to learn for all of us. But there was nobody cheating our school a day of work; that I can trust he -- trust me on that. Q. With the way the defense has been playing, do you feel pressured like you have to score on every possession? Does that let you call the plays the way you would like? COACH RODRIGUEZ: You know, there is something to that point right there that I think you do feel sometimes that you probably -- it changes a little bit on how you attack somewhat. And sometimes you don't go as fast because you want to get your defense some rest so they can kind of recover. So certainly when you can't stop them, it changes your mindset somewhat. As a head coach, you've got to be understanding of all the phases and had we been a little bit better certainly at times defensively, there's no question we would have won more games. I mean, I'm stating the obvious there. But we will get better. Do we have to look at some things and evaluate some things? Sure, that's my job, evaluate everything. I know we're going to get better because those young guys will be a year older, but I also know we're going to be better because I'll evaluate everything and get it right. Q. Do you get any sense because of the way this game unfolded that -- any sense at all that this will affect Brandon's decision about you? Did you think it was about this game and that this could impact it negatively? COACH RODRIGUEZ: You're asking the wrong person. Q. Do you think you'll be back next year? COACH RODRIGUEZ: You're asking the wrong person. I do. Q. Do you think your team was distracted by all the hoopla surrounding your job status? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Really we didn't talk about it much, really. I know that guys -- it was the elephant in the room every time our guys were meeting. But I would tell you if it did. The practices were sharp, the kids paid attention, the coaches did their job. I mean, they recruited their tail off -- the hardest thing with all the speculation is recruiting, you know, players that you're recruiting and develop relationships want to know if you're going to be there. And our coaches have done a fantastic job of selling the school and selling the program and getting commits in the midst of all this stuff. So that told me that our guys, our coaches are doing a good job, our players are staying focused. You know, Denard is one of our best recruiters. He'll sit there and a guy will come and visit campus and Denard will say, "Let me have him, I'll get him committed." So that tells me our guys are focused on the day, on what they need to do to develop our program and they have been since day one. I would be disappointed if it was ever anything other than that. End of FastScripts |
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