Nov. 14, 2009

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South Carolina

Head Coach Steve Spurrier

Opening Statement
“I’m proud of the effort of our players. A lot of guys played their hearts out tonight, especially our defensive guys in the second half. We were in position late in the quarter to maybe tie it up. One play seemed to doom us. We were trying to throw it to (Jason Barnes) on the right, and Stephen thought he saw something on the left. It bounced off (someone), and they got the ricochet. That’s not what we were trying to do. After that we went backwards every time we touched it, taking sack after sack.”

On the fourth-quarter interception
“That turnover took a lot of steam (out of us). Give Florida credit. They played pretty well. I don’t know if by their standards they thought they played super, but our defensive guys fought to the end of the game. We just got overpowered on offense in the fourth quarter. That’s how it happened.”

“I’m proud of a lot of guys. A lot of guys played their hearts out. Unfortunately we didn’t play great and had a bunch of turnovers.”

On Stephen Garcia’s fourth-and-three run
“That was a heckuva play. He got out there, and they had everything covered. It was a good play. Unfortunately if he missed it maybe they would have had 70 yards to go. Anyway, we fought back.”

On the number of sacks
“We were down 10 and kept trying to throw. We’re not good enough to pass block those guys. Looking back maybe we should have tried a couple of five- to six-yard gains. We threw some passes in the first half that we hit, but we didn’t hit them in the second half. We kept getting sacked. Going down with the ball gets you at second-and-20 half the time. We have to (tell) Stephen [Garcia] to throw it away sometimes. We have to do a better coaching job.”

On field position
“We didn’t have much field position early. Fortunately they tried that field goal that gave us good field position. So we were right there only three points down, but to beat them you can’t have those kinds of plays happen. Unfortunately I would have liked to see what would have happened (in the game without the interception).”

On fumbles
“There were too many. Kenny Miles fumbled his first carry. Brian Maddox fumbled one that came back to him. I don’t think they scored on the one after Kenny fumbled. The pick that ricocheted off was certainly the turning point of us being in the game or not. That’s the way it happened.”

On the fans
“The fans were super. It was an electric atmosphere in the stadium. Our guys wanted to win for the fans and win for themselves. A couple of careless plays took us out.”

On Florida’s blitzes
“Most of the time they were rushing five guys. We had guys assigned to them. We tried to get them offsides one time, and they called it on us. Maybe somebody jumped or jerked his head.”

Stephen Garcia

On Florida’s blitzing
“They were blitzing throughout the whole game. Coach [Steve] Spurrier and Coach [G.A.] Mangus looked at me and said I have to start throwing the ball away. I’m still learning.”

On the bye week
“It’s much needed. Eleven weeks straight of football, four games in a row of SEC football, is pretty tough. Playing against the competition we play against, it is much needed. I think everyone’s pretty excited about it. The guys were saying in the locker room, we have to get ready for the second season, which is Clemson. Everybody is going to play very hard against Clemson, which is a must win for us.”

On the defense compared to Alabama
“To tell the truth, I couldn’t really tell (a difference). I think they’re all really strong and really fast. They’re similar to Alabama. We moved the ball on them. It’s tough. We had them.”

On playing against Clemson in two weeks
“It’s going to be the same as any other game except it’s Clemson, so everyone will be a lot more juiced up. Especially after the bye week, everyone needs the rest and a break for a little bit.”

On what a win against Clemson will do for the team
“To be 7-5 as opposed to 6-6 will be huge for us. It should have been a better record, but it didn’t work out that way. This is a huge game for us. In my opinion and the rest of the team, it’s a must win for us.”

On the team’s performance
“I don’t think we played to our capability. We had mental errors and physical errors. It was a pretty good football game. It was some of the best we’ve played all year.”

On the fourth-and-three run
“It was supposed to be a pass, a naked bootleg pass. I was waiting for Patrick DiMarco to go out in the flat, but I guess he saw no one was behind him so I tried to run it.”

On what Urban Meyer said after the game
“He said that compared to last year I’m a lot better this year. He said I’m throwing the football very well, he’s very impressed and wished me and the team the best for the rest of the year and our careers.”

Weslye Saunders

On being more involved in the offense
“Coach [Steve] Spurrier and Coach [Steve] Spurrier, Jr. came up with a great game plan for these guys. I appreciate the opportunity to come in and make plays. They gave me the opportunity to go out and make what I could happen, but we just couldn’t come out with the win.”

On the interception
“You try to keep your head up, but obviously my heart dropped as soon as the guy caught the pick. We were never down and out. We always thought we had a chance. That really got us down a little bit.”

On the momentum before the interception
“We definitely thought we could pull it off. We had the momentum and there was no doubt in our minds that we were going to go out and score. For that to happen, it was a big disappointment.”

Mood of the team
“It’s all or nothing right now. We won’t take no for an answer. We have an off week to prepare, and we’re going to go out there prepared for Clemson.”

Assistant Head Coach Ellis Johnson

On the play of the defense
“I was proud of the effort. Over the last few games, we continue to do things, assignment-wise, that continue to get us in trouble. Florida came in and did some things different. They were really different with their running attack. I think it took me too long to believe what they were doing. They were running the ball from the weak side to the boundary side quite a bit. By the time we were adjusted, we had given up two long drives. The first touchdown, you have to hit that guy as soon as he catches it, and we play another down. When you’re in three-deep zone, you can’t give up 70-yard plays. The next drive, it was third-and-12, and someone should make a call for a dig, and they throw the dig, and there’s nobody there. Some of those little things, if we can get them straight we’ll be okay. Obviously these kids (the Carolina defense) have something to them. With as little age experience as we have, they came back and really fought hard in the second half.”

Brian Maddox

“We were definitely in position to win that game. Things just didn’t work out for us unfortunately. We played with high intensity the whole night.”

On playing against Florida
“We ran the ball well. That’s what Coach [Steve] Spurrier wanted. I went with that, and felt that I did well at times.”

On the tough loss
“It’s been really tough because we have been working our tails off, day in and day out. Unfortunately it’s not coming around for us.”

On his running of the ball
“It felt great to get out there and run the ball. I just wish we had won; that would have made it better. The coaches told me to get ready to run downhill and get four or five yards. It opened up, and I started getting more and more yards. It could have been better.”

On playing against Clemson
“We have motivation going into the Clemson game in a couple weeks. Defeating Clemson would be good, but we could have had a better season. We are going to work hard to get that to happen.”

Clifton Geathers

On the change in momentum after the interception
“After Florida made that pick, the team stayed up at the same level. We tried to make the plays and get the ball back to our offense. We are going to play even harder for the Clemson game, no doubt about it.”

Eric Norwood

On the interception in the fourth quarter
“It was a momentum changer, but we still went out there and tried to get the ball back to our offense as quickly as possible. We tried to stay in the zone. Offense was playing great all day, and we tried to stick with them. Win as a team, lose as a team.”

Moe Brown

On playing Florida and finishing the season out
“The atmosphere was a lot different than the last two years. It’s going to be very nice to have this bye week and get ready for the Clemson game. We want to finish this season off on a positive note.”

Florida

Head Coach Urban Meyer

Opening statement
“I always like to start by saying how much respect we have for the coach at South Carolina and for their entire team. This environment is SEC football, and you never take that for granted. For those of you that only cover SEC football, I guess you get a little spoiled with stadiums like this, and the noise level was real. That was real, and for our team to come out on the road and take control. With that pass to Riley Cooper, we felt like we had control, but then [South Carolina] ran the ball very well with over 200 yards in the first half. The second half was just dominance with defense as well as I have seen. I think Brandon James got loose a little bit finally with our special teams, and we played field position. With our kickoffs, we did a good job other than the one that went out of bounds. I am not sure we punted very much, but our punt coverage was tremendous, and we played field position football. We did not play perfect, and I am not sure we have played perfect in quite awhile, but I think that is 20 [conference wins] in a row, and I am awfully proud of our team. As much respect we have for the Southeastern Conference, to do what those young people are doing is pretty special.”

On Justin Trattou’s interception
“It was huge. The whole field was tilting [in favor of South Carolina]. We started the second half, and I think we had three drives where [our offense] pinned them down in [their side of the field], but we need to score. We need to stop missing field goals, and then the field shifted back and momentum completely swung. You felt it in the stadium. And then that play by Trattou will go down in history as one of the great plays.”

On the start of the fourth quarter
“We have a lot of confidence in our defensive staff, and we have good players. I would say [the interception] was a magic call but it was not. It was a bunch a good players that fought really hard. It is almost like you expect them to make a play by not only myself but our team does.”

On scoring on Florida’s first drive of the game
“It was very important. I don’t take this environment for granted. I took my headset off, and I was like, “Wow,” when they started playing that music, and they have a great student body. It was something. When you start coming into these types of environment, and come out and bang it with a 68-yard pass, it settled us down. We kind of had control. We started losing it before [Justin] Trattou made that play, but we felt like it was somewhat under control until the momentum shifted at the end of the third.”

Tim Tebow

On how the defense turned the game around
“Maurkice got a hand in there and tipped it up. I can’t really tell how he got it, but he made a pick and actually looked really athletic running down the field.

On how the game ranked on the pain meter
“I’ve had a lot worse on the pain meter. When you win, it takes away a lot of the pain, but I feel good. I feel healthy.”

On the touchdown pass in the first quarter
“It was huge. It was good for momentum, giving our defense some room to work, and also just the excitement of our guys going out there and opening it up. Scoring that first drive was good.”

On the perfect SEC record
“That’s the most important thing out of everything that is going on, just winning, being 10-0. Going through the SEC undefeated really means a lot, because that’s a really good conference, and we played a lot of really good teams, so to come away undefeated means a lot.”

On tying the SEC record for touchdowns
“I didn’t know that. That’s exciting, especially because of all the people that have played in the SEC. That really means a lot.”

On momentum changes
“We’ve been in a few momentum changers. We have a lot of character, and those momentum sways don’t really affect us too much. I think our defense, offense and special teams do a good job of just playing the next play and not letting it affect us or get us down.”

Did you panic when you were only up 17-14?
“Our team didn’t worry about that. We were just playing the next play. We’ve done that all year this year. We have confidence in each other and just play.”

“We have a team full of character and we fight till the end, and it might not be pretty but we just keep fighting.”

Joe Haden

Was that one of your worst first halves?
“Oh yea, I was playing out of technique. On the corner route, I didn’t really think he was going to do that. They usually go 15 yards, but he went 25. I was just playing a little off first half.”

What did coach say after first half?
“He let us hear it. He said we weren’t playing like a Gator defense, and I know for a fact that we weren’t. We were doing stuff that we don’t usually do, and people were messing up on their assignments. We just had to slow it down and come back and play good.

On defense picking it up
“We know that we were playing off pace a little bit, so we calmed down and settled down. Coach told us that this game would lead us to a championship game, so people were playing with so much emotion that people were playing with a little extra.”

On a lack of execution at first
“It was a little overhyped. We weren’t really getting the calls there. I messed up on two balls when I thought he was doing a certain call, and I messed it all up.”