Post Game Quotes From Ohio State vs. Kent State – Ohio State Buckeyes
9/7/2002 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 7, 2002
Recap| Box Score| Notes
Ohio State Head Coach Jim Tressel:
“When your defense scores 14 early points in the game for you, it makes life pretty good.”
“I thought the kids played hard and when you’re up 38 to nothing it’s hard to keep your edge. I thought they hung in there and did what they needed to do.”
“The only thing disappointing was leaving the ball on the ground twice. If we do that next week we’re going to have a problem.”
On the quarterbacks:
“We wanted to get him (Craig Krenzel) out there making decisions, trying to decide between running and passing. I thought he did a good job and made some good decisions.”
“It was good to see Scott (McMullen) get some time because there’s going to be a point this season where it will be a critical point and Scott may have to get it done for us.”
“I was happy to see both of them get some throws under fire.”
On OSU depth:
“Defensivel, we played a lot of guys throughout the course of the game. Offensively, especially in the fourth quarter we put in a lot of the up front guys. They are going to have to work their way in and play solid. We need have eight or nine good linemen ready to go.”
On the receivers:
“Our thoughts are to get our receivers the ball because they can make plays. If you leave them alone (defensively) they have a chance to make a good play.”
Ohio State quarterback Craig Krenzel
On the checks:
“We came out early and ran a lot of checks. It makes it a little bit easier for the passing and running game. We could call a number of different plays depending on how they (Kent State defense) lineup, this gives us an advantage.” On the no huddle:
“It gives us more time to get to the line of scrimmage and call our play.”
On his pass completion streak:
“This is not something that I was aware of. When you are out on the field you are focused on the necessary adjustments you have to make.”
Ohio State safety Mike Doss
On his interception:
“The quarterback rolled out and over threw the curl. I was there to make the play. I saw the offense merge to my right so I cut to the far side of the field and Coach (Tressel) was screaming. I just wanted to reach the end zone and get us on the scoreboard.”
On the second half:
“Overall we still have a lot of work to do. They came out in a different package than we expected and we did not adjust very well.”
On how they prepare for Kent State’s quarterback:
“We played our regular base defense. We want to control what we do and adapt to what they do.”
Ohio State safety Donnie Nickey
On his punt block:
“We found a default in their blocking scheme and we exploited it.”
Kent State Head Coach Dean Pees
“We played a really excellent football team in Ohio State. They do a lot of things really well. We knew that we were going to have to play mistake-free football to get this game into the fourth quarter and then try to pull the game out. We didn’t do that.”
“No team can spot another team 21 points off the bat on a partially blocked punt and two interceptions for touchdowns. You can’t do that against any team, let alone the eighth-ranked team in the country.”
“I feel very good about our football team, fighting back at the end of the second half (quarter) and trying to play solid football and in the second half we hung in there and did some good things in the last two and a half quarters. The first quarter and a half we were just really out of sync on offense and their receives were making some really good catches. We just spotted them way too much to ever have a shot in this game.”
On the Offense’s success over the last two and a half quarters:
“The truth of it is we really didn’t do anything different than we did in the first half. It’s just some of the stuff worked in the second half. We really got our self in a hole in the first play of the first half and then we just got away from the things that we really wanted to do. Then we got down 21-0 and tried to play catch up. We got a little frustrated in the beginning and were not in sync. In the second half, I thought we just did things better and like we had planned. I just talked to the team in the locker room and I asked them if they had all grown two inches and put on 30 pounds and shaved two-tenths of a second off their forty-time in the last six minutes of the second quarter? Why was there a difference there? I think it’s all about attitude and confidence and I’m not sure we felt that confident in the first part of the game. I tried to tell them in the locker room that this game would not be won or lost in the first five minutes, but we were unable to overcome what happened in the first few minutes.”
Kent State quarterback Joshua Cribbs
“We Played good. We came into the game with high hopes. Things didn’t go our way. We settled down and played good ball going into the half and during the second half. We came out and tried to do too much at the beginning of the game. We tried to relax and have fun and the we started moving the chains.”
