Marshall University Athletics
Marshall Football Postgame Quotes
10/10/2015 12:00:00 AM | Football
Recap | Notes | USATSI Photo Gallery 
MARSHALL
Doc Holliday, head coach
Opening Statement:
"It was a tremendous performance. I was proud of the way our coaches had our guys prepared. I thought we played well in all three phases. I thought Southern Miss was a much improved football team. Todd (Monken) has done a great job with them. They lead the league in total offense and have played well against some really good football teams."
"That's about as good a defensive performance as I've seen anywhere. They gained some yards, a lot of it late in the game, but when they had to make a play they made a play. They created five turnovers, which was huge. I thought our special teams play was tremendous again. We had a few big kickoff returns and our punter continues to flip the field. Our kickoff guy does a great job kicking it off and our field goal and extra point kicker goes in and makes them."
"Offensively, we were good for the most part. We had the one turnover and that's one too many. Our freshman quarterback is starting to grow up. He's 4-0, which is all that matters. That's just a great team win and I'm proud of our team and our coaches."
On forcing five turnovers:
"Bottom line is that offense moved the football a lot against Nebraska and Mississippi State and some good teams. That quarterback had been sensational, but I thought we put a lot of pressure on him. When he wasn't getting sacked, he was getting hit quite a bit and that was good to see."
On Deandre Reaves:
"He's a good player and he's making plays, not only on special teams, but he's making plays in the slot, too."
"It's great to see great things happen to super guys. He's a great guy that's never been an issue since he's been here. He does everything right, he makes plays, he's got his degree and it's fun to see great things happen for guys like him."
On overall performance and improving:
"Today was the best overall game we've played all year. We told the team this morning at breakfast that the ingredients were in that room to be a special team like our last couple teams. It's a different team. When you've got a true freshman quarterback, you go through some growing pains, but we can get a lot better. We have a lot of work still to do. We have a lot of challenges ahead of us. We can't get complacent and think we've arrived. We've got to hold each other accountable. We've just got to keep going to work every day like this team does and we'll be fine."
Tiquan Lang, junior safety
On the defensive performance:
"We knew we were going to have to come out and play. All week we practiced hard, didn't complain about anything and it definitely showed on the field."
On how the secondary played tonight:
"We played great, very aggressive. We worked all week trying to catch everything. We had a couple mistakes but we will get better."
Jarquez Samuel, redshirt senior defensive lineman
On his touchdown:
"This reminded me of the game last year against FIU but I actually scored this time. I think I was just lucky, the ball came right to my hands. That's every DL and OL's dream, to score."
On putting pressure on Southern Miss' quarterback:
"I think he felt the pressure. We definitely turned the heat up on him so I don't think he was comfortable in there with the blitz coming at him so I think we kind of got him off his game, especially in the second half."
Gary Thompson, redshirt junior defensive lineman
On shutting down one of C-USA's top offenses:
"Going forward, we just have to stay focused and improve on what we need to improve on and get to the next game."
Chase Litton, freshman quarterback
On the momentum going into halftime:
"Going up by seven at the half helped us a lot because we knew we would get the ball back after the half so that gave us a little room to work with but the defense stepped up and they did the whole game."
On Deandre Reaves' touchdown:
"Pre-snap they gave us the open coverage and I realized that that safety can't run with Reaves, so when I let it go I was confident it was a touchdown and then as soon as I let it go I look to my right and I thought No. 12 would make a play on him but Reaves just out ran him for 61 yards and made a touchdown."
On converting third downs:
"That's not good at all but we just have to be consistent. First down wise we were pretty consistent, but third-down wise, 1-of-11, we can't do that."
SOUTHERN MISS
Todd Monken, head coach
On moving forward:
"The good news is we've come a long way. We control ourselves. We have good talent, we have good coaches, and we just got to do better. There was just too many things where we did poorly against a good football team."
On Marshall's defensive performance:
"Doc [Holliday]'s done a great job. They're one of the premier teams in our league. Athletically on the back end they are as good as anybody we've played and we've played some pretty good people."
Nick Mullens, junior quarterback
On team's performance:
"I think we just made too many mistakes to win. Coming up on the road, especially against a good opponent, you just got to find a way to play the most perfect game you can. I think we lead in almost every statistical category, but this game proves that doesn't matter one bit."
On team morale following the blocked field goal in the second quarter:
"It's hard to take the wind out of our sails this year. You can tell at the very end, we were determined to score, we were in the redzone with a minute left and down by 21, but we fought because we wanted to finish strong."
Brian Anderson, senior linebacker
On how he thought his team performed:
"I think we did ok, we had opportunities to make plays. At the end of the day our job is to keep them from scoring. Overall the effort was good, we just got to capitalize."
On moving forward:
"We have to just go back, make our corrections and it's on to the next week and prepare ourselves for the next game, this one is behind us now. We know we messed up, we just have to let it go and move onto the next one and make sure it doesn't happen again."
