Oct. 18, 2003

Recap?|? Box Score?|? Notes

Oct.18, 2003 Coach Lou Holtz post-game press conference comments

We couldn’t stop the bootleg. We couldn’t tackle well. I can’t explain it. They just ran it down us. Two of their drives were over 90 yards. To give up that much rushing is something. …

Let’s credit LSU. We fought back in the second half. We stopped them twice in a row. Then they got their only sack, and from there it was downhill. …

I’m just disappointed in the way we tackled and in our lacke of enthusiasm. A lot of things can happen during a game, and the enthusiasm was not there. That’s the first thing we have to address. …

I thought Dondrial did a nice job. We’ve got to be able to control the line of scrimmage. We protected the passer well, except for the blind side sack. Dondrial was excellent. …

The younger players played well. Matthew Thomas, some of our receivers, Newton, Tyler stepped up and made some nice plays. …

Right now, I’m sort of numb. I hope after the film I’ll feel a little bit better. Right now I feel like an idiot because I don’t have any answers. …

We only had the ball three times in the first half. They had the ball. Demetris doesn’t play for them. I bet he wishes he could run behind that offensive line….

On third down defense: We blitzed and did a lot of things, we just couldn’t get through. They do the same blitzes we do. When we were in man, (Mauck) made some nice throws….

I’m very disappointed in our defense in the first half. We looked like a deer in the headlights. They didn’t do anything different. I have to look at the film, but I don’t have an answer now, but I will have it on Monday. …

We are in the SEC. We give scholarships. We have a training table. There is no reason this shouldn’t have been a competitive game, and it wasn’t. We got beat soundly. We got outcoached, out-hit, out-enthusiasm-ed.

SOUTH CAROLINA PLAYER QUOTES vs. LSU October 18, 2003

Dondrial Pinkins “Most of the time when we have a balanced attack on offense we have success and are pretty hard to stop. I thought we were ready to play but we didn’t come out and execute well. If we would have established our running game, it could have been a better game.”

“I think they (LSU) came out and played a good game. After the fumble we couldn’t get back into the game. It just seemed like after that, things fell apart.”

Jabari Levey “I was very surprised that we didn’t have any yards rushing. WE have to come out and work harder next week. They loaded the box on one on one and we needed to make adjustments – we’ll be ready for it next time.”

“(step back?) It’s a step back but you have to come back and go 2-3 steps forward. We are disappointed. Everybody is disappointed, it’s a heartbreaker but we will fight back because we are strong. LSU was big and strong but we expected that. They made adjustments and we weren’t ready.”

Jeremiah Garrison “They played extremely well and ran hard. We didn’t have it together the whole game. I was surprised anybody could run the ball like that – like they did tonight. They did their job tonight (LSU). Fatigue wasn’t a factor tonight with the defense – we didn’t do our job. We are normally pretty good on third down, we weren’t tonight.”

Demetris Summers “I knew they were going to be a good team. They played hard. LSU is a good team and they did so much shifting. We didn’t play like we were prepared, like we weren’t focused. I am very disappointed but we have to practice hard next week.”

Dunta Robinson “We just didn’t play well period. Last year we didn’t play well at LSU either. I don’t think they have our number, we just didn’t play well tonight. We usually played usually pretty good on third down but tonight we had a lot of trouble. We had a lot of missed assignments all night. We have to get better as a whole team. We made a lot of mistakes. Coach Holtz was embarrassed. Everyone on the team was embarrassed. If you weren’t embarrassed tonight then you don’t care and I know we do.”

LSU Coach Nick Saban

“I’m really proud of the team, they bounced back after last week at a tough place to play. We controlled both sides of the ball and ran well.”

“Special teams were solid. Kickers weren’t great, they thought the field was soft and sandy.”

“(Matt) Mauck got first downs when he needed it.”

“Offensive line did the best job of the year today. They were the most physical and played the best start to finish. All three running backs did a good job. “

“I thought South Carolina would be difficult to run against. Our plan was to stop the running game and not allow big plays. We made a couple of mental errors on the big play for a touchdown. I’m not taking anything away from them it was a good play on their part.”

“We wanted to run the ball and control the line of scrimmage, throw in play action and take shots down the field.”

“Football is not Hamlet, it’s not a tragedy, it should be fun.”

On the attitude of his team during this weeks practice: “I was pleased with the attitude of our players. Pleased with the way we prepared, pleased with the way we practiced.”

If he has ever had a 20-play drive like the one in the second quarter: “No, but I love them.”

Jason Ledoux, DE

(On Fumble Recovery) “It was on a third down. I wanted to make sure it was in my hands. I took advantage of the opportunity. It was the first that has ever happened to me in college and it was probably something that I will never see again.

“It was a big win since we were coming off the loss. Now we are back on track. It is always tough to win on the road.”

Matt Mauck, QB

(On playing at Williams-Brice) “Any time you can win on the road in the SEC it is great. It was loud and rowdy so we wanted to control the tempo from the beginning.”

Andrew Whitworth, LT

(On freshman running backs) “We talked to them all week about playing in this big game and told them they had to keep their heads up. They took control of the ball and did a great job.”

“We have struggled in our running game this year. Our goal when we came in was to hit people and in the end we were successful.”

Ben Wilkerson, C

(On offensive line’s blocking) “We wanted to re-establish our ability to run. We didn’t come out to show anyone except for ourselves that we could dominate the line. We are very proud of ourselves.”