South Alabama head coach Joey Jones
Opening statement:
"We challenged the kids this morning about making this a day to remember, and they did that. Our kids played extremely hard, our staff coached extremely hard, and we would not have had that success today had the staff not done what they did and the players bought into the program, and it's as simple as that. The players did a great job today, and I'm really proud of them. We certainly have some things we can work on, but we can go back and correct those things. I'm very proud of them coming out and doing what they did today."
On the team rushing for 265 yards:
"When you're knocking folks off the ball it's a little easier to run. The offensive line did a great job blocking, the backs hit the holes and did their job as well. In the first game, with our youngest guy on offense being our quarterback, we felt like we could take some pressure off of him by putting it in the hands of the offensive line and the running backs and pound the football. We did that, the offensive line did a great job, and the running backs had a great game as well."
On how the team started:
"In a game like this, first game out, everybody is a little tight. We were running the ball, getting down and not getting into the end zone, and then all of the sudden we hit a bomb and everybody loosened up a little bit and things started rolling. That play broke the ice in the game for the offense."
On Courtney Smith's five catches for 104 yards:
"Courtney Smith is a big-time player and an even better kid. I'm as proud of Courtney Smith as I am any football player on this team. The kid has come a long way, has a lot of talent, and has come to work every day. We love him to death."
On the overall size of Hargrave's players:
"They came and visited our fieldhouse the other day, and coach (Bill) Clark and some of the coaches called me up and said 'coach, you might want to come back here and see these guys, you might not want to play them.' They looked so good, and they're very good athletes. The advantage we had was that we practiced a little bit longer and we practiced two weeks before they did. The fact that we had that many more practices allowed us to tone things up. Coach (Robert) Prunty does a heck of a job. He had those guys for two weeks, they did a good job, and they made some good adjustments at halftime."
On how well he thought the first game went:
"As a coach, you always want them to have every play perfect. We're never satisfied as coaches, we want them to make every play, but when you look back, look at this game and this atmosphere around here, this was a great day and it'll be one that they'll always remember."
On Erling Riis' punt returns:
"Erling is a great one. He's very hard-nosed and you can always count on him. One of the questions we ask our kids is, 'can we count on you.' We can sure count on Erling Riis in anything we do with him."
On turning the ball over in the red zone:
"That's a mistake that young quarterbacks are going to make and we have to know that. He is going to make some mistakes and some other freshmen are going to make some mistakes, and that's fine, but what we do now is go to next game, learn from it and not do that again."
On the gameday atmosphere:
"The Jag Prowl was a great experience. When we walked in it was 10 deep on each side and they were yelling and screaming. One thing I liked about the crowd is that every play they seemed to be into the game, whether it was good or bad. You could tell that it was electric when someone would run for seven or eight yards and they were cheering. They were very into the game and it was a great atmosphere for our players."
South Alabama defensive coordinator Bill Clark
On the defense's performance in the first half:
"We were tickled to death in the first half. It was one of those deals where you come in and halftime and you're almost scared that the other shoe is going to drop because you know they're going to make adjustments. To come out and really not know what they were going to do - we had a base idea that they had a lot of two-back runs in the first game - our guys really hounded them, and we had a bunch of takeaways. We came in at halftime really excited, and we told our guys it was zero to zero. We were disappointed in the second half because our goal is a shutout, and we know that's a big goal, but we had that goal. We know we've got some things to work on because we want to be really stingy, but there were a lot of good things tonight."
On the defense giving up 13 second-half points:
"Defensively we're just really young, and that's not just making excuses for those guys because we tell them they've got to grow up in a hurry. Hargrave is young, so it was a pretty good match with their athletes. We were really proud of our guys, to have some adversity in the third quarter and then come back strong in the fourth quarter and really finish strong. That's when we want to win."
On forcing four turnovers:
"One of our jobs defensively is to get the ball back to the offense, and really that is our job. Whether you go three-and-out, or you stop them on a third down, or get the ball back on a takeaway. We talk a lot about takeaways, and we start every practice with takeaways. We don't say it's a turnover, we say you've got to take the ball from them."
Hargrave head coach Robert Prunty
On how well South Alabama played:
"I'm not surprised - they've been here a year. They've been lifting weights and practicing since Aug. 4. Coach Jones is doing a great job, but I'm not surprised. He got his guys ready, he did a great job, his coordinators did a great job, and our kids enjoyed it."
On preparing to play a team he'd never seen on film:
"We didn't know what we were going to face. Our kids got here eight days ago. We've never seen this team, we didn't know what defense they were going to run. We were going into this blind. They've had a whole year to see film on us, and I could tell by the way they were rotating the personnel. They knew our offense by how they were rotating personnel."
On the experience of coming to South Alabama:
The thing with our kids is that they enjoyed it and South Alabama is a class act. You can tell by how they're putting their facilities in order - we were impressed with it. Coach Jones is putting this program in the right direction. We've played against other JV programs and you can tell that what Coach Jones has going on here is a good thing. Their kids played hard and you can tell they've been in the weight room. It was a great performance by South Alabama.
