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GILDAN NEW MEXICO BOWL: WASHINGTON STATE v COLORADO STATEDecember 21, 2013Shaquil BarrettGarrett GraysonWeston RichburgALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO Colorado State – 48 THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Garrett Grayson, Weston Richburg, Shaq Bell and Shaq Barrett. Q. Shaquil, talk a little bit about you get the fumble, they overturn it, what is going through your mind to get it again? SHAQUIL BARRETT: I really wasn't thinking about anything. I was kind of thinking in my mind, that was our shot to get back in the game right there. Then they run the ball. Tried to bounce it back, just get my arm in there. When the ball came out, it was a lot of luck from the man above, help from the man above to put us in the right position. I really wasn't thinking about trying to get it again because I didn't think I was going to get the opportunity. Q. Garrett, how often do you practice the Statue of Liberty? GARRETT GRAYSON: Walk‑throughs every Friday, we practice it a couple times. Worked for the most part. It worked today. Q. Weston, did you feel like this was a team, it was almost like you were somehow destined to win this game the way it came down at the end? Did it feel that way as it was happening? WESTON RICHBURG: Yeah, I'm still kind of at a loss for words for exactly how that whole thing ended up. Two minutes left, we're down by 15 points. Now we won the game. Yeah, it must have been destiny. That's the most unbelievable game I've ever been a part of. Q. You did win, by the way. WESTON RICHBURG: Yes (laughter). Q. You're getting ready on the sidelines after the dramatic replay to go to overtime. How is your mindset and how did you change it to, I got to get back out there now? GARRETT GRAYSON: I was pretty mad because I felt he was in. I had no doubt in my mind that he was in. At that point I went over to Coach Ezell and Coach Mack, we were trying to figure out a play, what we were going to call going into the next drive. We knew he was in. I was standing pretty close to right behind him when he was going. I saw the angle. I was pretty mad they didn't call him in at first. We got it. That's all that matters. Q. The fumble occurs, you're right back on the field instead of overtime. GARRETT GRAYSON: Coach Mack came up to me and said, We're going to run the ball here. If they don't call a timeout here, we'll let the clock run out, we'll spike the ball. We have a great kicker, one of the best in the country. He does that every day in practice. You have seen it all year in games. He's big‑time for us. He's one of the more clutch players I think out there. If we can give him the ball like that, we know it's going in. Q. Does any of this seem real yet or is this going to take a while? SHAQ BELL: Seems real.  It's real, but still unbelievable how it ended. Q. Garrett, you're going to come back next year. Mack will sit at his house and think about something you did wrong. Do you get the feeling, it's not enough for you guys? GARRETT GRAYSON: I won't say 'not enough'. He just wants us to be perfect and expects that of us. He won't ever say it's not enough. Like he said earlier, is it them or is it us. We look at mistakes we made all year. We could have had a few more wins if we executed a few more things. Even though we started out slow today, I had a few bonehead plays I guess you could say, put us in a tough position. If I didn't throw that pass, get that intentional grounding, that leads to a punt block. Just things like that that Coach Mack is constantly harping on be perfect about, don't make those mistakes to put us in that position, so... Q. Shaq Barrett, can you describe what you just experienced postgame? Just an avalanche of fans. You were the celebrity posing for pictures, kissing babies, everything. SHAQ BARRETT: It was just a great feeling to be appreciated for your play. I just want to thank all the fans who came out to support us all. Did a tremendous job of cheering us on. To witness the unbelievable fourth quarter, the last two minutes... The celebrity moments are fun out there, but I'm still a low‑key kind of guy. I don't want to be in the spotlight all the time. Just get in the locker room, get changed, head home. That's what I'm looking forward to. Q. You played from behind most of the game. You had one of the most incredible comebacks ever. Talk about the growth you made as a team. WESTON RICHBURG: I think that's the first time in my career, maybe with an exception of a couple situations where we have played the entire game, even when the odds were not in our favor at all. Two minutes, 15 points down, you know, we just kept going. We did. That just speaks about the resiliency of this team. We've got some unbelievable players. Shaq made a huge play. Steve‑O made a huge play. These guys played really well on defense. Throughout the entire game, we never stopped, never gave up. That was very fun and something I'll remember forever. Q. What happened in the first quarter? Seemed like you were a team that was trying to self‑destruct. What happened in the first quarter? GARRETT GRAYSON: I just think Coach Mack, he was kind of different all week this week. He never really got mad at us. He was trying to keep us calm. I think that's something he's learned from his experience in bowl games. Especially us, we haven't been to a bowl game. He wanted to keep us as calm as possible. That first quarter showed maybe we were a little too hyped. We just needed to calm down and play our own game. After that first quarter, I think we did that, so... Q. Shaq Bell, you guys in the secondary have been given problems for giving up plays. SHAQ BELL: Once we get to the sidelines, we talk to each other. We talk about what did he run, was the technique good. After the play happens, you just have to stay confident. You can't let that one play determine the rest of your game. We didn't give up. We kept fighting. They got a couple of plays on us. I mean, we just kept fighting the whole way through for four quarters and came out with a win. Q. Garrett, how was your experience as a whole here in the New Mexico Bowl? GARRETT GRAYSON: It was amazing. They treated us like we were kings. It was an awesome experience. Send these guys out the right way, let them get that experience. That was something coming into the season I talked to my dad about. I wanted to send the seniors out the right way, get them to a bowl game. I'm happy to be part of it. But, yeah, as far as the experience goes, it was something special and something I'll cherish forever, so... Q. Weston, how would you describe the atmosphere of the team traveling here to New Mexico beforehand knowing you were going up against a team who is offensively very strong like you? WESTON RICHBURG: We were really confident in our preparation. I think we practiced probably seven, eight days straight, watched a lot of film. Watched film while we were in Albuquerque, practiced twice out here with another walk‑through. We were really confident in our preparation. We all knew it was a bowl game. For us three it was our last one. Really confident that our guys wanted to give their all, understood there's no reason to hold anything back as seniors. We were able to do that. That kind of went into our preparation, went into our focus this week. Focus was turned up a lot higher today because we understood that today's the day. We understood the task. We understood what we were supposed to do, went out there and did it. Sometimes it wasn't pretty. First quarter was terrible for us offensively. That focus really helped us. We just continued throughout the entire game and ended up with a win. Q. Garrett, with Halliday putting up the yards and touchdowns on the other side, what is going through your mind on the sideline? Was there a sense you need to match what he's putting up? GARRETT GRAYSON: I just kept telling myself to be dominant today. I kept telling myself, You're the better quarterback. Kept telling myself that. That helped me at the end of the game being confident in whatever we're going to do. Four minutes left, being confident. I never really talked to myself I guess before. That's something I say I'm going to do from now on because it worked. I'm happy. Congrats to him. He put up some crazy numbers, but I'm happy we got the win. Q. Is this almost the perfect ending to your careers considering you spent your year trying to crawl out of a hole that you've been in for three seasons? WESTON RICHBURG: I couldn't have thought this up this way. It was unbelievable. I wouldn't change it at all. We faced a lot of adversity today. When some of us thought it was over, it wasn't. Just a heck of a way to end my career here at CSU. SHAQ BARRETT: In the locker room I was saying that I wished I had one more year to play with these guys. I loved the way it ended. It's important that we got to win as seniors, but it's more important that we handed the baton to Garrett and the underclassmen to start the next season off right. The ending of the game, I think it would have been better if we would have won by one point. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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