Post Game Quotes From Ohio State vs. Indiana – Ohio State Buckeyes
9/28/2002 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 28, 2002
Recap| Box Score| Notes
Head Coach Jim Tressel:
“I think we did some things well and some other things we need to improve on. We felt much better in the second half. I thought we had a little more of a `we want to put this away’ attitude. We have a long way to go, but we are anxious to get there.”
On a balanced effort:
“We wanted to go in and give them a lot to think about. Our staff did a nice job. It was nice work when the punt team had the fake. That was a really important field-position situation. We threw a couple reverses and spread things out. I thought we did a nice job of giving them a lot of problems and that will help us down the road.”
On young guys making big plays:
“They really made some big plays. It is good to get those plays that are under the gun in Big Ten conference play. We understand that it will get tougher as we go. But we have just to keep focused on getting better.”
On Mike Nugent:
“That was a nice field goal he hit. He is really focused on his technique and that is what it all about when it comes to kicking.”
Defensive lineman Darrion Scott:
“We got every thing we expected today. Indiana came out and played their game. They were very physical up front and their quarterback was a tough player. He liked to throw the ball a little bit more than he liked to run it. It also felt good to get a few sacks.
“We didn’t have a very good game against Cincinnati so it was very important to come out and get back to our style of football. It was a real big boost for us. We gave up some points early, but we regrouped and we were able to shut them down.”
Wide receiver Chris Gamble:
“It felt good to get my first touchdown. I got the ball and saw a lot of people blocking for me so I just hit the hole and took it all the way for the touchdown. Every time we touch the ball we try to make big plays.”
Wide receiver Michael Jenkins:
“I thought our passing game played very well and our quarterbacks made some good reads. Coach Tressel made the decision to go with three and four receivers and every one did a nice job. We’ve been working on our passing game a lot during practice and it worked in the game.
“It was real important to get them down early because you don’t want them hanging around. We want to score every time we have the ball so we can get them out of their game as much as possible.
“They came in here thinking they were going to stop us. It felt good to get he ball moving and put those guys away I the first half.”
Quarterback Craig Krenzel:
“Mike (Jenkins) is a confident kid. He’s confident in his abilities and I’m confident in his ablilities. It was more of an exciting thing to go out there and get a touchdown. He made some great catches.
“(The pass protection) was good. We had a few guys in there who hadn’t been getting that much playing time. Ther were some freshman in there. Alex Stepanovich moved over. They did a great job picking things up as the game went on and they did a good job for us.”
Indiana Head Coach Gerry DiNardo
On his team’s performance:
“The biggest disappointment, to me, was the blocked punt and our offense’s inability to move the football in the second half. So, that was really the difference in the game. I don’t know that we ever had control of the game, obviously, Ohio State had control of the game, but for us to get back into it in the second half we were going to have to play better than we did on offense.”
On field position problems:
“Every time you look at a field position chart, the numbers are going to bear out. There’s an increased chance of scoring when you’re closer to the opponent’s goal, so that, obviously, had a lot to do with (the loss).”
On his team’s penalties:
“Our penalties, which gave them good field position at times, really hurt us. Anytime you have those personal foul-type issues, near the other sideline, its usually going to go against you and that happened a couple of times. In our player’s defense, I wanted to be really tough and really aggressive today. I share some of the responsibility on some of those personal fouls. Not that its right, but we wanted our team to come in here tough and, if that meant we were going to be on the edge a little bit, that’s okay. I’d rather work backwards from there than come in here and be intimidated.”
Gibran Hamdan, Indiana quarterback
On Indiana’s second-half performance:
“Things were looking good going into half-time. Obviously, our second-half performance wasn’t as good as we would’ve hoped. There are little things that hurt us the entire second-half. I thought we fought hard, it’s just a shame that we weren’t able to put something together more on offense.”
On his team’s effort:
“You can always look back and say ‘if this play wouldn’t have happened,’ but as football players, I think everyone is just going out (and playing their best). I know our offense gave 100 percent, its unfortunate that we weren’t able make the big play today. I don’t think it has anything to with someone not being prepared or someone not playing as hard as they can and that’s all that me, as an offensive leader, can expect as a guy to go out and give his best effort everyday. We just didn’t make the plays, and that goes all around.”
On Indiana’s running game:
“That was disappointing that we weren’t able to run the ball as well as we hoped and its hard to tell, because you’ll sit back and say ‘well the flow of the game didn’t dictate that we were going to run the ball a lot,’ but obviously in order for this offense to be extremely effective, and when we have been effective in the past, we need to run the ball well.”
Kris Dielman, Indiana defensive tackle
On Ohio State and his team’s mistakes:
“They’re a good team, but they’re not 28 points better. But when you get punts blocked and you’re missing tackles and you’re missing assignments and you can’t run the ball, you’re not going to win, especially against Ohio State, when you’re in their house.”
