Dusty Bonner played ‘exceptionally’ well.
Coach Hal Mumme
(On Saturday’s game against Louisville): “I think we’re still a little bit in shock over how badly we played. Our offensive line got a lot of looks at twists and stunts and got better as the game progressed. Bonner played exceptionally well. I think with our receivers, we have some young guys who can catch the ball. Defensively, we just didn’t play well. Some of it was Louisville because they’re really efficient. They got us punch-drunk with some of those shorts passes and picked on some of our young guys. The only 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 the film 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, we didn’t have holes.”
(On not having a big-play guy): “You have to remember that Craig Yeast wasn’t always like that either. I thought as far as kickoff returns, Dougie Allen and Brad Pyatt did an outstanding job. What we’d like to do is not have to return so many of them.”
(On the focus at practice this week): “Obviously we’re going to try to get better at the running game and we need to work on twists and stunts. We did pretty good with the offensive line when they rushed us straight up. Where we got in trouble was with the young guys in the middle and their twists gave us some problems. We’re going to work on that because we’re going to see a lot of them.”
(On the UK defense against Louisville): “As the game wore on, I kind of felt like there was a lack of emotion. The second play of the game, David Johnson got hurt and we went with Quentus Cumby at safety. Between Quentus and (sophomore linebacker) Jamal White, we just got mis-aligned a lot. All four of the big runs they popped, they got us into a defense where we were mis-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 of punches on a boxer that just stunned us. We tackled and ran well. They were just a very efficient offense.”
(On Dusty’s play against Louisville): “When you at look at one of the interceptions really is not his fault. He was throwing the ball exactly where 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 year against Arkansas and it happened to Dusty Saturday. The two overthrows in the endzone was a case again of a receiver stopped running and then tried to start running again. Davis stopped so he didn’t have any momentum going back to towards the endzone. I think a lot of bad things happened all around him, but in spite of all that he still hung in there and competed. I don’t know of anybody who competed harder than Dusty did Saturday. He really 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 real good checking into runs but we were doing just such a poor job of either blocking it or running it, that what we did was get away from it and tried to go with things that worked. I think he did a pretty good job there and there’s still some things he can do better.”
(On being taken out of the offensive game plan by Louisville): “We really didn’t get out of it until the third drive of the third quarter. We pretty much stayed with it until then. We made the same adjustments at halftime that we would have made if we had been ahead by the same amount. After that third drive, they got up by three scores and we felt like we had to make something happen. Dusty was throwing the ball very well and we were making some plays catching it. I just felt like we ought to throw it up and hopefully some good things would happen and maybe the defense would rise and make a couple of stands for us to have a chance. It just didn’t work out that way because Louisville was too good.”
(On wide receiver Brad Pyatt’s play): “I like the way he catches the ball in his hands and he breaks tackles. He caught five balls and that’s a pretty 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 smart defensive coordinators do. I’ll never forget at 1985 when I was UTEP and we beat BYU, what we had figured out after playing them four years was that the number one thing you had to do was take away the run because then you’re totally one-dimensional. They tried to do that last year and they did a good job of it the first two and half or three quarters. We had two runs for maybe 15 or 20 yards but we never really popped any long ones. The final stats from last year’s game look like we rushed out of the gate on them but they were kind of misleading because we got most of them in the fourth quarter.”
(On Chris Redman’s play Saturday): “It was beautiful to watch. He did a great job. I was most impressed with his accuracy. He threw a lot of balls into pretty good coverage and they caught them. Last year they didn’t catch them. 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 have to have surgery or not. Anwar (Stewart)’s high ankle sprain is tough. He’s probably looking at about a month.”
(On facing Connecticut this Saturday): “They had an opener about like ours and it was tough so we have two teams coming off a whipping going against each other. I’m just glad we get to play at home.”
(On his approach to facing a 1-AA opponent): “After the way we played Saturday 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 know in 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 game he’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 catch and 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 rotation but 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’s so 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 a lot 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’m always 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 on our schedule. We just plan to come out and play hard this week in practice so that we’re ready for Connecticut on Saturday.
Marlon McCree Linebacker
“We were anxious to play on Saturday and I think that caused us to make some 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 of teams like us since we last met. But we were shocked that they put up the points that they did.”
“We feel like our defense is the best kept secret in the SEC. So we were really surprised to see them move the ball like they did against us. We might have hung our heads in the second half a bit, but we’re not worried about the rest of the season. Coming off of a tough, embarrassing loss like this, I think it’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 a better performance. It happens in football. We just have to come back and get ready for Connecticut.”
“I thought I played a decent game. I think I could have helped more though. That comes from game experience. I will just try and have a good game this week.”
“It was definitely a hard loss. I think the defense came out and did some good things. We just have to take it like men.”
Willie Gary Free Safety
“The team was disappointed with losing the first game of the season. When Saturday comes, we are going to be fired up. I think we are going to bounce back and come back ready.”
“I think the team has to come together. We can have a winning season if people 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.”
