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GILDAN NEW MEXICO BOWL: WASHINGTON STATE v COLORADO STATEDecember 21, 2013Deone BucannonConnor HallidayMike LeachALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO Colorado State – 48 THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. How would you describe the finish? COACH LEACH: Well, Colorado State finished the game; we didn't. You know, I think down the stretch, they were more consistent than we were on offense. They were more disciplined than we were on defense. They finished the game better than we did. Lesson to be learned from that is it doesn't matter where you're at, you need to go out and finish the game. I give Colorado State a lot of credit. They played extremely hard. They were behind the whole game and they never gave up. They got rewarded for it. We've got to be a tougher team. We've got to play better. I think they deserve some credit. They have a lot of seniors over there. I imagine their seniors never let them quit. They came out on top. Q. Mike, was there anything you would have rather done at the end in terms of milking a little more clock, snapping the ball later? COACH LEACH: We shouldn't have messed with any of that. Fine, use the clock. We should have attacked them and got first downs, then we should have protected the football. Q. Is there ever a concern when sending in a player that hasn't been playing for most of the game that they might be cold or might not be able to jump in and be warm right in the game? COACH LEACH: Next question. I mean, what the hell kind of question is that? You go out there, you practice all the time, you play. I'm not even answering that. Next one. Q. The run to Connor when they replayed it, go through the thinking on that. COACH LEACH: Well, I just think we could have selected things better. You know, the thing is we should have thrown it, attacked it and got first downs. Q. Coach, what was the feeling even after they scored to tie? Did you still think there was enough time? Was there still enough confidence on the sideline to get down and get into field goal range yourself? COACH LEACH: I thought we had a pretty good shot at it. We've done a pretty good job of that throughout the year. As a matter of fact, we've scored a lot before the end of either half. We've done a pretty good job of getting the ball down the field in that situation. We just need to take care of the football to give ourselves the opportunity to do that. I felt we were going to have a chance at a couple shots. Then, of course, Furney can kick it from quite a ways out. Q. A couple times this season when things go wrong, they go wrong quickly and drastically. Why is that? How can that be fixed? COACH LEACH: Next question. Q. At the end of the first half you did try to attack and go downfield. Things didn't go well. Was attacking the way to go at that point? COACH LEACH: Well, I think the biggest thing, we need to continue to run all the dimensions of what we do. It's not as much this play, that play, the other play. I think just the team, starting with the coaches, 'cause coaches, players are in this together, starting with me at the top. I think there was a sense of relaxation there in the fourth quarter that we paid a heavy price for. Q. Connor, you're a junior, so you get another shot. Is this a motivation factor going into next year? CONNOR HALLIDAY: It's too bad. The seniors are the guys that I came in with. I redshirted. Awfully tough to not send them out the right way. But, yeah, we'll get going in the off‑season as soon as we get back from Christmas break. Q. You're a senior. How is it affecting you guys? DEONE BUCANNON: Whenever you lose, it does hurt. At the same time I've always said it's a blessing to be out here and have an opportunity to play with my teammates. That's exactly how I feel now. I feel blessed. Q. Connor, I know you guys have gone through a lot as a team. Where does this rank? How much does this one hurt? CONNOR HALLIDAY: It's tough. But, I mean, we only got ourselves to look at for why we lost that game. Colorado State played real hard. But at the end of the day, we got to be able to run that clock out as an offense. Q. Connor, I know you got a lot of other things to think about, but a big deal is being made on ESPN after your first touchdown pass when you were on the sidelines. Can you talk about what happened during that exchange with the Colorado State assistant? CONNOR HALLIDAY: Coach grabbed me and said some profane things to me. That's all I'll say about it. Q. Mike, Connor had five passing touchdowns in the first half. Talk about the job he had throwing the ball. COACH LEACH: I thought he did a good job throwing the ball the first half. Did so as well the second half. We were just inconsistent. Several drives we stopped ourselves. Some cases they were penalties, some dropped balls. I don't think we caught the ball real well the second half. You know, we just need to finish drives. We had a really good drive, it was 80 yards or so. We had a really good drive. We could have done that consistently and should have. Q. Connor, a good game out of River. Can you talk about him. CONNOR HALLIDAY: Yeah, I kind of had a feeling River was going to be special when the freshmen got here in June. He came out right away in seven‑on‑seven and made a difference. That kid just really loves football. He works his butt off. He grew up quite a bit today. Q. Your offense is predicated around getting the ball to as many people in space as possible. At the same time as a freshman, he got honorable mention honors. Do you feel he's a reliable receiver you can count on? CONNOR HALLIDAY: I don't really think too much about that. The bottom line, in this offense you just got to go through your reads. Whoever is the first read, you got to look at him first. Whoever is the fifth read, you look at him last. Q. Coach, can you talk a little bit about the individual effort of Shaquil Barrett on the last couple plays. COACH LEACH: Yeah, I didn't see the play well enough really to comment on it besides the fact that I thought the Colorado State defense played really hard. Their back was against the wall. They didn't surrender at all. I don't know specifically who did it. I didn't see it well enough to say how it happened. I did think their defensive and offensive units had an awful lot of intensity even when things weren't going their way. What they did is finished the game. They never gave up, continued to play hard throughout. They had a lot of reasons to quit in this game. They could have quit at any point because they spent most of the time about 10 points, two touchdowns behind. They never did quit. They didn't quit then. I just saw them as a unit rising and playing at a really high level. Something that we did a lot of in the course of the game ourselves. Down the stretch, if you're the guy on top, that's got to happen with you, too, otherwise the other guy puts himself in position to get there at the end. Q. Mike, you switched Dahl and Eklund up front for this game. What was the thought process? COACH LEACH: We were going to do it for a while. The biggest thing is we had some time between the end of the season and this game in order to do it. Q. With the bowl season, with what you have accomplished, does this diminish what this Cougar team accomplished this season, reaching a bowl for the first time in 10 years? COACH LEACH: I think it's huge making a bowl for the first time in 10 years. I think that's gigantic. A lot of that happened by continuing to improve. We went through an incredibly tough stretch as a team. We got better and better all year long. I think both Connor and Deone have a lot to do with that and a lot to say about that. They're both examples of keeping on pushing and believing when others didn't. They converted a lot of guys with them. Their leadership was incredibly key. I don't know how many it is, but as it is we won four games more than everybody thought we were going to win. So I think that's good. The only diminishing that exists is, you know, throughout the season, there's missed opportunities, there's ways we could have played better. We have to develop the skills and focus to do that. We're a young team so we're a moving target. But we're improving all the time. I think it starts with a certain level of belief. Where I think we're a little better team than we across the board believe we are. You say confidence breeds success, success breeds confidence. Some of it's off‑seasons, time on the practice field in order to develop those skills, to get a visual of what you're really capable of individually. Then as you do it together more often, become more familiar with one another, you really start to see it take shape. That's where we are. We need to continue to push and develop that. CONNOR HALLIDAY: I think Coach Leach said everything that needs to be said. Great season. Went through a tough stretch there again, like he said. We battled through it. But, yeah, I mean, I think everybody in that locker room really wanted this one. I think everybody was really excited to play. I think we prepared really well in film studies. It hurts that we got to look at ourselves in the mirror knowing that we weren't able to win the game as an offense just running the clock out, getting first downs, keeping our defense off the field. DEONE BUCANNON: I don't think this is diminishing to the team at all. I honestly think the way that I know our team is, we're going to bounce back, come back harder. We're going to have a great off‑season. I know Coach Leach is going to get them right. That's what I think. Q. Connor, the mixed emotions that go into winning the award, but losing the game. Your reaction? CONNOR HALLIDAY: Yeah, like I kind of said up here before, it's just really, you know, frustrating that you have all that stuff happen early in the game. That's great and everything. But games are won at the end. We didn't play well enough at the end. I mean, it's great that I was able to play well early enough in the game. It's great that our receivers ran good routes, made catches for me, we blocked up front. That's a whole offense award. But too bad it's not something everybody can feel accomplished about as a whole team. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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