University of Hawai'i at Manoa Athletics

Post Game Quotes
Hawai`i at Rice
Oct. 4, 2014


UH Head Coach Norm Chow
On playing tough but seeing the lead slip away late….
A: “I thought we played hard. We’re still not playing very smart. Just look forward to the next one.”
On all the team’s mistakes….
A: “We just have to keep working. We lost to a good football team. That quarterback is a very nice player. We need to play better offensively.”
On Derek Dillard’s performance….
A: “He played very well. So did that quarterback (Driphus Jackson). He’s big and elusive. They have a nice scheme and they play awfully hard. They’re going to have a lot of success.”
On the Rice defensive line getting pressure…
A: “Number one (Christian Covington) is a real good player. I congratulated him after the game.”
On going for it early in the game rather than opting for a field goal…
A: “We have to take chances. We saw something on film that we thought we could do earlier in the week. It’s still early in the game.”
On a new beginning with conference play now beginning…
A: “That’s what I told our players. We’re 0-0 and none of these game matter. We have a tough conference schedule but I think we can compete with them. We look forward to it.”
 
 
Rice Head Coach David Bailiff
 “What a great game for us. We knew going in that Hawaii was a great football team. They are well-coached. We knew that we were going to have our hands full. What they do defensively that it would be high-pressure and that it would be famine, famine... then we could have some feast. We didn't realize how long we were going to be in the famine period.
 
We were in that (the 'famine') almost the entire first half, until Driphus found James Mayden. What a fabulous catch, it sparked us.
 
In the second half where we kind of finally got an offensive rhythm started making some plays, started stringing some drives together that led to points.
 
Driphus came to me at halftime and said 'coach it’s the worst half of football I've ever played and I'll get better in the second half.' He's a man of his word. That's exactly what he did.
 
(I was pleased) the way the O-line protected, the second half the way they opened that game for Darik Dillard, he was able to get 141 yards rushing tonight, a career-high for him.  (Also pleased about) getting Jordan Taylor back in the lineup.
 
Late in the game we had Luke Turner in to pick up that third and short. We had already made the decision that if we didn't get it then we were going to go with the same package to pick that first down up. 
 
He had a bad snap, but thank goodness Luke's talented and veteran enough to jump on that football. That brought up fourth down and 18 seconds and we thought, we've got Jordan... let's have Driphus take a shot and if nothing else it will burn up some clock. Jordan had over 100 yards. It was great to get him back.
 
We played pretty solid defense the whole night. We did have a long pass interference penalty. That frustrates you, but you know that's something you can work-on. We had seven sacks and another 12 tackles for losses. You can't say enough about effort like that.