Post Game Quotes From Ohio State vs. Minnesota – Ohio State Buckeyes
10/14/2000 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 14, 2000
Box Score| Notes
Head Coach John Cooper
Opening statements:
“We were beat today by a team that outplayed us. They outplayed us on offense. They outplayed us on defense. As much time as we spend on pass protection, we relied too much on Steve (Bellisari) throwing the ball. “
“We have got to bounce back. We obviously weren’t ready to play. That’s my fault. I’m the head coach. It seems like we were out of sync the whole day offensively. We did play well in the second half. There were many times when we got the ball in fairly good field position. But we started picking and choosing which plays to use, and Steve didn’t do well on the option plays. We didn’t protect him when we needed to. When we did protect Steve we didn’t give him much time to throw the ball.”
Minnesota’s game plan:
“I thought they were a much better team now that they changed the quarterback position. (Travis Cole’s) the guy the coaching staff went to play after play. And, they made plays we didn’t.”
On Minnesota’s top defensive linemen:
“We knew we had to block Karon Riley and Maurice White because we knew they were good defensive linemen for Minnesota. We didn’t match up very good against those guys. Again, I have give the team credit.”
On needing to make the big plays:
“You better respect who you play and you better be prepared to come and play. Sometimes you’re ready to play and sometimes you’re not. We didn’t have anybody block the punt, and we didn’t have anybody making the big plays.”
On being down 23-10 at halftime: “We were playing poorly in the first half. I thought the worst thing we could do was have Minnesota score before the end of the first half. I’ve seen it happen too many times when you take yourself out of the game in the first half. My thinking was let’s just get out of the first half, and go back and discuss what we need to do for the second half.”
Minnesota Head Coach Glen Mason
“We’re getting better, we’re improving. We are what we are. We have a bunch of tough kids who I wouldn’t trade for anybody. They’re scrappy. We’re going to enjoy this victory until the plane lands in Minneapolis and then we have Indiana next week.”
“I was asked by ESPN after the game about some of those catches that seemed unbelievable. I see those catches every day in practice. If there’s one guy who works tremendously hard, and we’ve got a lot of them, [it’s Ron Johnson]. Sometimes he makes those diving catches in practice and I close my eyes and say, `Ron, don’t do that in practice, save it for the game,’ but he only knows one way to play and that’s full-tilt.”
“Obviously it was a great team victory for us today. Sure, it is more meaningful for me. I have great feelings for this university. If Ohio State wouldn’t have recruited me out of Jersey and given me a scholarship and if Coach Hayes hadn’t hired me to come back and coach, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here today as head coach of the University of Minnesota. I am deeply indebted to this place. I have a lot of memories, very good memories.”
“We’re ecstatic that we won the football game today. I thought it was a great team effort. Especially our defense holding them to 70 yards rushing, 200 yards on the day. I thought the first drive of the game by our offense was very critical, very impressive. Our defense was on the field a lot in the second half, but every time they did something, we could counter. It’s been a long time since we’ve gotten the ball at the end of the game like that and were able to run it out. I’m so proud of our guys. Everything hasn’t gone our way this season but they hung in there. The credit goes to the players.”
“Ohio State is really playing good defense. What they did in the last couple weeks was very impressive. They have good players, they’re well-coached and they play hard. There was the possibility that we would play conservatively because the number of times they’ve sacked quarterbacks is amazing. We couldn’t do that. You don’t play to keep the score close, you play to win. It’s a lot more fun that way. I don’t know if we did anything than what we normally do.”
