Oct. 1, 2011

Recap | Final Stats

Terry Allen

We got a kill with one second on the clock, but one of our receivers did not get back in time. The last thing we were expecting to do was get sacked. We had a call where we were going to get it out pretty quick. I was watching downfield, but someone just came unblemished into Trevor. We were going to throw it into the endzone and had everyone going to the endzone, last thing we expected was for him to get sacked.

On Wooden interception returned for a touchdown:

It was a nice return. We still have some growing pains right there and work our way through. That was a very disheartening pick-6 that can take the heart out of your offense.

On Foolish penalties:

In the first half, we had some foolish penalties and it goes back to - you have to learn how to win. Obviously they [Northern Iowa] know how to win and they know how to take care of business. In reality, the schedule has been brutal and we saw some of the effects of that here this afternoon.

That is just over-aggressiveness downfield. We have been good all year long on penalties, especially on defense. I don't understand why officials refuse to blow their whistles.

On What happened in the second half to open it up?

They took the opening drive and went down and scored against us. Then, they throw one up , goes through our guys' hands, he bobbles it and lands on his back and catches it. It kind of takes the wind out of the sails and offensively, we weren't able to get any consistent drives going. We would get it to about midfield and had to punt away after one or two first downs.

Six games left to build positive momentum:

We are all guilty of this. We all looked at the schedule and said we could be 0-5. Reality hit and we're an 0-5 football team. I told them that every game we play from now on, we're going to line up and we're going to be just as good as the teams we go against. Where we take it from here is going to be the tell-tale sign of how we're going to grow as a football team.

It's difficult because you're with these guys many hours of the week and they care. They get frustrated. and they get disappointed. It's hard to be the head coach because we all know how hard they work and the schedules they have.


MSU Players

Stephen Johnston

It was really important, obviously. We did have a couple of crucial turnovers. One was in the red zone, almost 10 yards away from the goal line. And one that got returned for a touchdown and that really hurt us especially going in, going down a couple of scores. It was kind of hard to come back from those crucial turnovers.

In one way it does, but in another way it should build momentum a little bit. If we had scored we would've had a lot of momentum going into halftime, but to drive it all the way down there, we should've been amped up coming out in the second half, you know, defense ready to get the ball back in our hands, hit `em in the mouth, and then we'll go down there and score.

I was really happy with the crowd support. Obviously it's a good thing to come home and have that and I just hope they come back out next week. We're going to get this thing rolling and back on track.

I think the biggest thing is that our team needs to stick together. That's the biggest thing. There are a lot of young players and they need to know that all of the upperclassmen are going to stick by this team the whole time. This year and in years to come, they need to stick by this team the whole time.


Jermaine Saffold

(Not scoring at the end of the first half) should've pushed us harder, but we can't do anything except work harder and try to capitalize on that.


Mikel Ruder

Coach Vokolek got us extremely prepared for this game and I thought we were ready, but those long drives just killed us. The quarterback is extremely good. The smallest miscue of any play on our part and there's a 10-15 yard run right up the middle. Just those little things that we need to get worked out. I have no doubt that we will.


The last five games have been extremely difficult against great opponents. I think we're doing alright. Obviously we have some things to work on. We're a young defense. I have faith in our coaches and players that we're going to keep on the grind and get going and continue to try to have a successful season.