Post Game Quotes
Army at Hawai‘i
Nov. 30, 2013
UH Head Coach Norm Chow
On his feeling about the first win of the season....
It’s been rough, it’s been a hard day…it’s really not about me or about the coaches. It’s about these young people. To see the happiness on their faces.
It was a tough game…we knew we’d have our struggles stopping them our offense I think we played well. Scott Harding is really something isn’t he? We’re obviously elated…but it’s been tough.
On the tragic loss of Willis Wilson and resilience of the team....
You know we preach that every week…we fought every game…we fought and fought and fought and again it’s a real credit to these young people…I tell them all the time…Failure is not failure until you blame somebody else. We never blamed anybody, we just kept fighting and they were a joy to be around and a real credit to the seniors. They came in and didn't know who we were and they were recruited by a different staff. But they just continued to fight and lead and it’s been very inspirational.
On describing the emotion after the win….
I think there’s a little sense of relief that these people know that they are capable of winning games and that they are willing to….sacrifice what it takes to win games.
On the adjustments made after Army came back to tie the game….
It was tough…That special teams deal was tough and you know we just had to stem it, stem the tide and change the momentum and our offense realized that and at (28-28) I believe it was, they came back and scored…I think that really, really lifted our guys and made us understand what it was going to take.
On whether this team came out fired up considering what happened today….
It obviously was a tough morning…we gave them some time to mourn and then we tried to regroup before our pre-game meal. We went about it just a little differently than we wanted to but you know obviously they did. Like I said, this is a proud, proud group of young men and they deserve all the credit in the world.
Army Head Coach Rich Ellerson
On playing from behind…
We were on our heels to their credit. They played us much differently in terms of their structure on defense than they did against Navy, and we didn’t adjust as quickly as we should have. They were daring us to throw to the perimeter and we missed every throw in the first half.
We knew they were going to be hard to stop and we didn’t do ourselves any favors on defense.
It’s a four-quarter game and it’s been hard for everybody who played Hawaii this year. If we are going to beat Hawaii it’s going to be hard, if we don’t know anything else we know that.
I’m not surprised and no one should be surprised, it was hard-fought. We expected that it would come to the end, if we got out to the gate better maybe we could’ve came up bigger in the end.
You have to give your opponent some credit, they were well prepared and they threw the kitchen sink at us… their QB had a big game last week and it wasn’t a fluke he can play like that, and Joey (Iosefa) got his legs back under him, all the rust is off.
Switching QBs…
The competition at QB had been fierce all year, Angel (Santiago) pulled away…but we always felt like that it was always competitive. So when we were struggling to make some of those throws, we saw this as an opportunity. We also saw A.J. (Schurr) had some legs under him… he has a chance to be a really good QB in this offense.
On tragedy before the game…
We talk about how much we care about each other, the bonds that our players have with one another is really remarkable. I think something like that you can reflect on and reflect on that team dynamic… if nothing else take a moment step back and be thankful for all we have. They are part of a rare unique brotherhood.
I think our guys genuinely felt for their opponent. Those guys are ballplayer too; they lost a teammate they can all empathize. They wanted to be out there and be supportive of those guys.
You feel a connection with people across the field… Give our guys credit they have a lot of empathy and sympathy for what those guys are going through.
-UH-
