Sept. 6, 1999
Coach Hal Mumme
(On Saturday’s game against Louisville): “I think we’re still a little bitin shock over how badly we played. Our offensive line got a lot of looks attwists and stunts and got better as the game progressed. Bonner playedexceptionally well. I think with our receivers, we have some young guyswho can catch the ball. Defensively, we just didn’t play well. Some of itwas Louisville because they’re really efficient. They got us punch-drunkwith some of those shorts passes and picked on some of our young guys. Theonly bright spots there is that we can still get a lot better.”
(On UK’s running game): “We have to get better there. When you look at thefilm it’s kind of a combination between the offensive line and our backs.The line opened holes and we didn’t run in them. When we ran hard, wedidn’t have holes.”
(On not having a big-play guy): “You have to remember that Craig Yeastwasn’t always like that either. I thought as far as kickoff returns, DougieAllen and Brad Pyatt did an outstanding job. What we’d like to do is nothave to return so many of them.”
(On the focus at practice this week): “Obviously we’re going to try to getbetter at the running game and we need to work on twists and stunts. We didpretty good with the offensive line when they rushed us straight up. Wherewe got in trouble was with the young guys in the middle and their twistsgave us some problems. We’re going to work on that because we’re going tosee a lot of them.”
(On the UK defense against Louisville): “As the game wore on, I kind offelt like there was a lack of emotion. The second play of the game, DavidJohnson got hurt and we went with Quentus Cumby at safety. Between Quentusand (sophomore linebacker) Jamal White, we just got mis-aligned a lot. Allfour of the big runs they popped, they got us into a defense where we weremis-aligned with one of the those two guys on the wrong side of the field.Basically, we were outnumbered and that was kind of like a flurry ofpunches on a boxer that just stunned us. We tackled and ran well. They werejust a very efficient offense.”
(On Dusty’s play against Louisville): “When you at look at one of theinterceptions really is not his fault. He was throwing the ball exactlywhere it is suppose to be thrown we just had a receiver stop running.There’s nothing you can do about it. It happened to Tim Couch last yearagainst Arkansas and it happened to Dusty Saturday. The two overthrows inthe endzone was a case again of a receiver stopped running and then triedto start running again. Davis stopped so he didn’t have any momentum goingback to towards the endzone. I think a lot of bad things happened allaround him, but in spite of all that he still hung in there and competed. Idon’t know of anybody who competed harder than Dusty did Saturday. Hereally made some outstanding plays so in that respect we’re very hopeful.”
(On Dusty’s play calling at the line of scrimmage): “He started out realgood checking into runs but we were doing just such a poor job of eitherblocking it or running it, that what we did was get away from it and triedto go with things that worked. I think he did a pretty good job there andthere’s still some things he can do better.”
(On being taken out of the offensive game plan by Louisville): “We reallydidn’t get out of it until the third drive of the third quarter. We prettymuch stayed with it until then. We made the same adjustments at halftimethat we would have made if we had been ahead by the same amount. After thatthird drive, they got up by three scores and we felt like we had to makesomething happen. Dusty was throwing the ball very well and we were makingsome plays catching it. I just felt like we ought to throw it up andhopefully some good things would happen and maybe the defense would riseand make a couple of stands for us to have a chance. It just didn’t workout that way because Louisville was too good.”
(On wide receiver Brad Pyatt’s play): “I like the way he catches the ballin his hands and he breaks tackles. He caught five balls and that’s apretty good debut for a freshman. He had one great catch on fourth down.”
(On Louisville’s game plan to stop the UK running game): “That’s what smartdefensive coordinators do. I’ll never forget at 1985 when I was UTEP and webeat BYU, what we had figured out after playing them four years was thatthe number one thing you had to do was take away the run because thenyou’re totally one-dimensional. They tried to do that last year and theydid a good job of it the first two and half or three quarters. We had tworuns for maybe 15 or 20 yards but we never really popped any long ones. Thefinal stats from last year’s game look like we rushed out of the gate onthem but they were kind of misleading because we got most of them in thefourth quarter.”
(On Chris Redman’s play Saturday): “It was beautiful to watch. He did agreat job. I was most impressed with his accuracy. He threw a lot of ballsinto pretty good coverage and they caught them. Last year they didn’t catchthem. They’ve really improved in their receiving corps and their chemistry.”
(On UK’s injuries coming out of the Louisville game): “Obviously David(Johnson)’s really concerns us because we don’t know if he’s going to haveto have surgery or not. Anwar (Stewart)’s high ankle sprain is tough. He’sprobably looking at about a month.”
(On facing Connecticut this Saturday): “They had an opener about like oursand it was tough so we have two teams coming off a whipping going againsteach other. I’m just glad we get to play at home.”
(On his approach to facing a 1-AA opponent): “After the way we playedSaturday we can’t take anybody lightly. If we scrimmage the junior varsity,we better get up for it. I think our guys are hungry to win a game. I knowin the locker room there were a lot of tears and they took this loss hard.I think they’ll be anxious to play Saturday.”
(On the UK tight ends): “I thought James Whalen had probably his best gamehe’s ever had here. I was glad to see Derek Smith get a couple of catches.They’re just so green. I thought it was good to see Chase Harp get a catchand I thought he made a nice play to get the first down after he caught it.I wish I had got Bobby (Blizzard) in the game sooner and into the rotationbut we’ll try to do that this week and get him some more playing time.Right now Whalen is head and shoulders above the other three because he’sso much more experienced. He’s the go-to-guy at that position right now.”
UK Player Quotes
James Whalen
Tight End
?Dusty (Bonner) made a lot of great plays on Saturday and the guys played alot of coverage that left me open. My job was really simple.?
?Dusty is a really smart player who knows how to win. It?s to our advantage that he is used to running and knows how to get himself out of difficult situations.?
On the rest of the season: ?I just want to win. The only thing I want is for this team to win games. The seniors all realize that this is our last go around and every game counts.?
Dougie Allen
Wide Receiver
?The guys blocked really well on Saturday which helped me return kicks. I?malways looking to make something happen in those situations.?
?Saturday?s loss hurt because I know that our defense is really good.They?ll come along as the season goes on. We?ve still got 10 more games onour schedule. We just plan to come out and play hard this week in practice sothat we?re ready for Connecticut on Saturday.?
Marlon McCree
Linebacker
“We were anxious to play on Saturday and I think that caused us to makesome of the mistakes that we did. We’ll be better than we were on Saturday(vs. Louisville) the rest of the season.”
“We knew Louisville would be ready to play us because they’ve played a lot ofteams like us since we last met. But we were shocked that they put up thepoints that they did.”
“We feel like our defense is the best kept secret in the SEC. So we werereally surprised to see them move the ball like they did against us. Wemight have hung our heads in the second half a bit, but we’re not worriedabout the rest of the season. Coming off of a tough, embarrassing loss likethis, I thinkit’ll light a fire under us and drive us in the upcoming weeks.”
Dennis Johnson
Defensive End
“The team is very disappointed. We thought we would come out and give abetter performance. It happens in football. We just have to come back andget ready for Connecticut.”
“I thought I played a decent game. I think I could have helped morethough. That comes from game experience. I will just try and have a goodgame this week.”
“It was definitely a hard loss. I think the defense came out and did some goodthings. We just have to take it like men.”
Willie Gary
Free Safety
“The team was disappointed with losing the first game of the season. WhenSaturday comes, we are going to be fired up. I think we are going tobounce back and come back ready.”
“I think the team has to come together. We can have a winning season ifpeople want to work hard.”
“I think the fans were disappointed. The team was definitely disappointed. We just have to take it and learn from it.”
