Georgia State Head Coach Trent Miles
“My hat’s off to Texas State. Everett (Withers) has got those guys playing extremely hard from beginning to end, no matter what. I thought our guys did, especially on defense, an outstanding job of overcoming adversity after the first two series of the game, when they (Texas State) went up 14-0, our defense made some excellent adjustments on the sideline and basically only gave up seven points the rest of the game. We were backed up numerous times because of offensive miscues and gave up no points, so I thought it was an outstanding effort by our defense.
"Offensively, it was our best performance yet. We’ve got to take care of the ball in
the fourth quarter, too many turnovers that allowed them to be right there, but we got bailed out by the defense. We ran the ball better than we have all year, I think we had almost 200 yards rushing. I thought Conner Manning played extremely well, got the ball to the big dog, in Robert Davis, he made some excellent plays. I’m thrilled with the way our offensive line was able to establish the line of scrimmage and move the ball and keep them from getting a lot of pressure on him (Manning).”
Miles on Texas State’s fast start:
“The way they came out attacking us a little differently, but we were able to shift around our coverages and our front a little bit to be able to get more pressure on him and Jesse (Minter) does an outstanding job. There was no panic by anybody. When we get down 14 to nothing there was no reason to panic, we’ve been here before and our guys just honed in on what they needed to do and got lined up right and started making plays.”
Miles on the offensive line:
“Well they did a good job of making sure that they got the hats to the right people. The times when we didn’t get anything it was a miscue, but for the most part they were able to get up in tandem to the right people. We’re an inside zone and a gap scheme team so we were able to pop power on them a few times a couple inside zones. I thought Kyler Neal ran well, the o-line was together today and I thought we had one time that we had too much pressure on the quarterback when they blitzed us and we didn’t pick it up right, but for the most part they were solid and it came down to them just wanting to put their hand down and come off the ball.”
Miles on coming back from deficit and tying:
“Just relax. Play your game and go out and do your jobs, just relax. It was too early in the game to panic, there’s no panic here. If we’re down 14 with less than ten seconds there could be panic but when it happens in the first quarter just go play. Do what you’re supposed to do, stick to the game plan and make the adjustments and move on. What did Aaron Rodgers say? ‘R-E-L-A-X.’ That’s what we told them.”
Georgia State WR Robert Davis
On being a team leader and feeling pressure to win today’s game…
“I always feel pressured to play a good game. I feel like everyone on our team feels pressured to have a good game. As an individual player you cannot go out there without putting a little bit of pressure on yourself. So, I feel like that is for everybody not just the leaders on the team.”
Comments on the fumble on the turnover…
“Well, first thing is that I messed up. I had to apologize to the defense for putting them back out on the field so fast. I mean even though they went back out there on the field, we can look and see what the result was, so in that situation what was going through my head was that I just had to have trust in my team, and know they are a great defense for a reason. “
On being able to execute the touchdown in the second half…
“The offensive line went out there and gave us time to throw the ball, my quarterback gave me a perfect pass, and I did my simple job of catching the ball and getting it into the endzone.
On being surprised with the one-on-one coverage for a receiver his size…
“No, I was not surprised, because we have a lot of great players. It is hard to double team everybody on the field. You have Todd Boyd on the other side, Glenn Smith in the slot, and you can’t double team everybody, so no it was not a surprise.”
On bouncing back from Appalachian State’s game to today’s game…
“Well a part of that was on me because I am supposed to be Conner Manning’s security blanket. I didn’t have a great game last game. There were a lot of plays, and I ran some wrong routes and that placed him in a position to where he was not comfortable, and I place that on me. So, Conner was just able to go out here and do what he does. Throw very accurate passes, get the ball to the playmakers in spaces.”
On being able to bounce back with 9 catches with 147 yards…
“I can’t say that I didn’t expect the bounce back. After my performance last week, I came back this week and made sure that I talked to Conner and told him that last week’s game would not happen again. That performance was unacceptable, so I made sure I could put in all the preparation needed for this week."
Texas State Head Coach Everett Withers
Opening Statement:
“I’m going to look at the tape and see if we played hard and where we didn’t play well. Especially on defense. Really on both sides of the ball. When I get a chance tonight, I’ll watch the tape and evaluate it.”
Question about Georgia State taking the lead:
“Well, that’s a good football team. They came back. Like I said Monday, 0-4 means nothing because they are a talented football team. When you’re up 14 points you can’t just stop, and we didn’t. They were good enough to come back and take the lead.”
Question about adjusting after Georgia State took the lead:
“I think we hurt ourselves more than Georgia State hurt us. Again, I’m going to have to go back and watch the tape, but I think we made some mistakes that cost us more than Georgia State cost us.”
Question about the lack of turnovers:
“Any time you don’t get turnovers, it’s going to hurt you and if you get turnovers and don’t score that’s going to hurt you too. We had four straight opportunities to cash in on turnovers, and we didn’t. So any time that happens, and you don’t get points you’re not going to win the game.”
Statement on Texas State’s effort:
“They wanted to play hard. They wanted to play well, but it just didn’t happen. I think those guys are all playing hard, but are we playing smart? No.”
Thoughts on Thurman Morbley:
“I thought he did some good things. There are some things he has to correct. We aren’t pressing holds like we need to be and we’re missing some protection in the passing game, so we have a lot of work to do.”
