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SAN DIEGO COUNTY CREDIT UNION POINSETTIA BOWL: BYU v SDSUDecember 20, 2012Cody HoffmanBronco MendenhallBrandon OgletreeKyle Van NoySAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA BYU:  23 COACH MENDENHALL: By way of opening comment, I'm happy with our seniors. We started the season, with 29, the most I have had anyplace I've coached, they showed heart and epitomized what BYU football is all about, they try as hard as they can, every game, win lose or draw, I'm surrounded by great company here, each has a unique story, what they have done here and what they have accomplished while they have been at BYU, and you couldn't ask for three better spokesmen than the three you have before you in all different capacities. I recognize Coach Mendenhall, his influence on me has been exceptional, I studied under him for six years, he has an excellent football program and winning the Mountain West Conference Championship and winning the championship at the end, they have a great football team. Defensive turnover, our punting game ended up making the difference, and James Lark connecting with Cody offensively in situations to help us, that's the way inning the game played out. Again, my congratulations to San Diego State on a really, really good football team and a good year. And to our team, another bowl game which was 8 in the a row now, winning 6 of the 8 and those are the expectations at BYU is that we do play in postseason games every year and that we win. That can only happen with great young men, which I'm surrounded by and the credit goes to them. So I'll take whatever questions you have for me and then you can certainly have some‑‑ well maybe at the same time for the players if you would like to talk to them. Q. Kyle, can you take us through the play the first touchdown where you got the fumble? KYLE VAN NOY: Goes back to the sideline we were talking about as a unit we need to step up and someone needs to cause a turnover and all 11 guys worked as a unit, Coach always calls 90% right the plays and I just happened to get lucky and make the play and we had a blitz going on and just happened to make the play and come up with the ball. Q. To you, Mr.Van Noy, we're in the moment of truth, that was a fumble? KYLE VAN NOY: His arm‑‑ yeah. It happened so fast from my angle you can't tell if his arm was in motion but replay never lies, usually, they're mostly right all the time, most of the time, I don't know what did you want to call it. COACH MENDENHALL: That's probably a good enough answer right there, I think we all understand that. KYLE VAN NOY: I'll stop. Q. Kyle and Cody, how does it feel to get that individual recognition as M.V.P.s? CODY HOFFMAN: Feels good, shows that our hard work the past couple of weeks in preparation for the bowl game has paid off and just to know that we did it for the seniors, puts it at home. Q. Brandon, can you talk about the defensive perform against the run game tonight? BRANDON OGLETREE: Gratifying to play against them the way we did. We prided ourselves all year in stopping the run and I think we did a good job of that. We love playing physical football and so do they and we knew it was going to be a good challenge. I think we won that challenge. We will watch the film and everything but I think we did a really good job. Q. Coach, there was any major difference between the first three quarters and the things you were doing in the fourth quarter? COACH MENDENHALL: Not necessarily. The biggest thing that changed is we weren't quite as aggressive early in the game when some of the field position swings. We had them pinned down there, we were relatively conservative trying to get an idea of how they might throw the ball, not wanting to give up a deeper throw, but we got progressively more aggressive as we extended the lead and that forced San Diego State to be more one‑dimensional and anytime someone becomes more one‑dimensional we can pressure and that's what happened to started. Brandon was really, Brandon Ogletree was, instrumental in the inside run and playing that way but once it comes to pressure then Kyle on the edge is really who would he feature most of the time about. Q. Bronco can you talk about your decision to put Riley in and why you went back to James? COACH MENDENHALL: Yeah, I thought we were sluggish and flattening out after the three serious or so and I trust Riley and wanted give him an opportunity to have a fantastic finish to his senior season and he earned the chance to play and I was hoping to play him more and with the turnover that happened, I just felt like the momentum shifted a little bit and we ought to go back to James. So I take full responsibility for the decision and I'm happy for James but also I just love Riley and I really appreciate all the hard work and who he is and I respect him as much or more than anyone I've coached. Q. Kyle you look at the final score and it looks convincing but you were trailing going into that last quarter. Your thoughts? With the offense struggling did you as a defense feel that you had to take control somehow? KYLE VAN NOY: We just‑‑ Coach Mendenhall touched on it two weeks before going into the bowl week that we have a "never give up" attitude and we need to do finish with it and I think we finished tonight on all three sides of the ball with the never give up attitude, the effort and the play making. You know, we put those three finally together and we came out with the win and it feels good to put all three together. Q. Bronco, can you talk about your red zone defense? It looked like a couple of times they had great position and you shut them down. COACH MENDENHALL: It comes from how well our players execute. They know exactly‑‑ we have a simple saying that touchdowns aren't good. It might sound simple but it's what helps us win games. Going into this particular game we were one, two or three in red zone defense in the country so what you saw tonight wasn't anything new, it's just our players doing what they do and I'm lucky to be their coach. They were just consistent as they had been the rest of the season. Q. Brandon can you talk about the sequence where it looked like they got the interception and you guys were able to come out and stuff them? BRANDON OGLETREE: We've been in that situation plenty of times this year and it's one of those things that as players on defense we look around and say, it's time to make a play and time to do what we do. We practice those situations all the time in practice. We're prepared for them, and I think a big thing is we have all the confidence in the world when we go on to the field that they're not going to move the ball. We pride ourselves in it and we have 11 dudes on the field who really, you know, we believe in each other and we were able to execute. Q. Bronco, on the fumble that became the touchdown, it wasn't obviously the first time that they had started a drive back that far and they had gone with Adam, were you surprised they were going to pass it there? COACH MENDENHALL: We were. As the nature of the game started to shift we became more aggressive. Again, you can do that when a team is‑‑ the situation of the game is determining whether they have to run or throw. We became more aggressive as the game went on knowing that that would be the only chance that we were going to cause turnovers and we were going to need turnovers to win and that became parent as the three quarters went by, we needed to pressure the ball more hoping the ball would come out. Q. Cody, coming in here on their home field and winning a bowl game and closing the season the way you did, just an overall thought on when that means to do what you did tonight? CODY HOFFMAN: It feels good to come in here, bowl games are always fun to play and the atmosphere is great but it's intensified by coming to their home field and with the rivalries between the coaches, we knew it was going to be a good game. The season didn't go the way we planned with the tough losses but it felt good to come out and close with a win. COACH MENDENHALL: One other thing that I wanted to bring to everyone's attention, we had this in our locker room, our team gave ‑‑ Coach Lance Reynolds after 31 years at the same institution at BYU and serving as my assistant head coach he is stepping back from BYU football. He addressed our team in the locker room and our team gave him a standing ovation and a lot of hugs and things. And very seldom in college football does someone stay at the same institution for 31 seasons and it's remarkable. I hope that can be talked about as well and it's very fitting as he talked about to our team being in the next locker room over, winning a national championship spraying soda pop on each other's heads and now he finishes with another victory here in the Poinsettia Bowl and I wanted to acknowledge his efforts. Q. Cody, you guys were having a tough time getting in the end zone, what does it do for the team when Kyle was able to get you the ball to get more points on the board? CODY HOFFMAN: It's definitely frustrating to come up short but at the same time we have confidence in our defense and we know they're going to keep the other team out of the end zone so if we keep working hard and work on fundamental things we knew we would get in the end zone. Q. Coach, the last two seasons, there has been a certain degree of pressure on this group of players heading into unchartered territory, would you reflect on the last two years and where things have been and where you're going? COACH MENDENHALL: Independence has been a positive move for our program. The national landscape of college football is changing dramatically with defections from conferences, realignments, at the expense of natural rivalries, regional rivalries, all for the sake of security and money, I think. We have distinguished ourselves with a very unique institution, it's a private institution, it's faith‑based and we have specific moral and values excluding and including Sunday play or lack thereof and we're on the outside now out of the fray watching it all happen. In the meantime, we are growing our program and winning football games and the schedules will continue to get more difficult, the exposure will increase which means that I have to continue to develop the program and improve myself and our players to perform on the biggest stages. We had a similar game as we had tonight against Notre Dame who plays now for the national championship. There is no one that we have competed against or played that we took right to the wire and either we won or didn't win and I think that will be the case moving forward. We don't intend to back away if the competition or the exposure or on members of our coaching staff. We're increasing the demands because we want more and that's the direction we're going. Q. Kyle, could you describe the other touchdown, the interception return? Is there anything on defense that you have yet to do that you would like to do in terms of just a single kind of a play? COACH MENDENHALL: If I could make a quick point, quite a while‑‑ it was remarkable that he caught the ball on the interception, he is not known with the best hands. CODY HOFFMAN: I was more impressed with the fact that he kept his hands on the ball. KYLE VAN NOY: I did play offense. COACH MENDENHALL: We recruited you because you could play defense not because you could catch the ball. KYLE VAN NOY: I don't know what to say, that's not funny. COACH MENDENHALL: We're both laughing though. KYLE VAN NOY: We got a smile out of "Tree" though. With that it goes back to 11 guys doing‑‑ there was pressure, quarterback was pressured. I happened to be in the spot at the right time, caught the ball‑‑ caught the ball‑‑ COACH MENDENHALL: First time. KYLE VAN NOY: And just tried to make a play and ended up in the end zone and didn't know what to do. Q. You said you got a smile out of "Tree" can you‑‑ KYLE VAN NOY: Can I make a point on that? COACH MENDENHALL: You can. KYLE VAN NOY: Tree is one of the best role models on our team because he's a father. At the end of the day he's my role model and I look up to him as a father, he's a good dad, if you want to see him smile just get him with his kid. COACH MENDENHALL: The other thing with Tree is‑‑ I'm not sure either one of us smile a lot but his work and his leadership is the heart and the soul of the defensive group. I'm not sure there will be anyone I miss more and the impact that he's had for us defensively has been remarkable. So whatever the question was‑‑ I don't remember now either but hopefully that's an answer but Tree you ought to say something. BRANDON OGLETREE: I will say something. There is part of me you don't see but Kyle and Cody are probably the more funny dudes on the team and on the field I take things seriously. KYLE VAN NOY: Funny or crazy? BRANDON OGLETREE: Both. But, yeah, I definitely‑‑ when I step on the field I definitely carry a chip on my shoulder. A lot of that kind of probably carries over to press conferences and interviews after practice or after the game or whatever, but I guess I have to tone that down a little bit now that the season is over. Q. Coach, you're losing a lot of big players this next year. Could you talk about going forward more so as a team and what's going to happen? COACH MENDENHALL: Yeah, I think it will be a challenge certainly for the 29 or 27 seniors that are leaving now. What I've come to understand is BYU football is bigger than myself as the head coach and it's bigger than any single player, there are strong core values and a strong organization that's in place and anyone that's lucky enough to join the program I think we'll get the most out of them and the program will continue to grow but it will provide a unique challenge but each team does that. I'm not interested in looking ahead, I'm looking forward to celebrating with our seniors and the players for this team. Q. Bronco, on that note, some of the talent you have had defensively, can you explain how it stretches the coaching staff's imagination to build concepts or is it using ideas you don't always get to use because of the talent level? COACH MENDENHALL: It's fun, the culture has remained the same but we have added more talent. Without losing the hard work and the effort it allows us to be creative. So between nickel packages and blitz and running safeties from the half ‑‑ from the line of scrimmage it gives our pressure a chance to get there. That all starts with playing the run. The base fundamentals of culture and playing the run have to be in place and it allows us to use what we call our exotics, and when you have players like Kyle and Cody and Ziggy and‑‑ I would forget to mention somebody, we have a lot of good football players and I have latitude with them because they're asked to do things and they do what they're asked. Q. Tree is finishing out his career and Kyle we don't know if he's going to be back unless you're ready to make an announcement but that type of performance, is that what you were hoping to see‑‑ COACH MENDENHALL: Absolutely. The thing that I was most passionate about was that the team would play in a manner that was reflective of how hard they had worked all season and how they had played all season. From an offensive prospective they battled hard and did what they needed to do to give us a chance, the punting game did the same which has been instrumental all year and defensively they came and helped us do what they needed to do to win the game and the bowl game played out exactly as the season has played out and that was enough to win 8 games and win a bowl game and I'm proud of them for that. Thank you for your time and we had a fantastic experience, and I want to say that the Poinsettia Bowl we had a fantastic experience, we have never been treated so well and we had a first‑class experience, so thank you for that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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