Oct. 10, 2005
P.J. What a great, great football game between two teams that really fought their tails off the whole day. It's a shame that one team had to lose that game, because both teams really spilled their heart out there. I can tell you this; we are fortunate as a country to have young men from both of these teams representing us, because they fought from start to finish. I have a lot of respect for Coach DeBerry and Air Force. I thought they played hard and the game could have gone either way. We just found a way at the end of the game to make one more play. I couldn't be prouder of our guys. They believed they could win. I scripted it out for them at halftime and it ended up just like I told them. I couldn't be happier for the players. It's a big, big win for us.
Q. In your coaching career can you name any more thrilling victory than this one?
A. Oh, I don't know. This one was thrilling. I'm just happy for our players. They work so hard. One of our goals was to have a chance to keep the Commander-In-Chief's Trophy and at least now we control our own destiny. We still have to beat a very fine Army team. At least we control our destiny. We don't have to hope for somebody else to beat somebody. We're excited about that.
Q. Paul, can you talk about the two plays that Reggie made to tie the game.
A. We felt like we had a good match-up outside with Jason Tomlinson and to their credit Coach Bell (Richard, Air Force defensive coordinator) made a good adjustment and rolled into a cover two, but what that did was when they rolled the two deep it put their linebacker on our slot inside and Reggie was able to beat the guy down the middle of the field and Lamar got him the ball. On the pitch we lined up in a trips right and caught them slanting down where they took the quarterback and fullback and we got it read right and got the ball pitched and Reggie made the free safety miss. Reggie has enough speed where I didn't think anybody was going to catch him after that. It was two great plays by Reggie. You can't give our quarterback enough credit either. I thought he hung in there and got the job done. I know he would have liked to have played better to start the game, he struggled a little bit, but to his credit he stayed in there and he found a way for us to win. He made the plays at the end. I'm proud of Lamar. He did a really good job of coming back and playing in the second half.
Q. Paul, can you walk us through the last couple of plays? You ran a couple of plays then you called timeout and sent the kicking team out there and then you changed your mind.
A. Yeah, we probably messed that up a little bit. I thought we did. What was happening was that I thought if we could get the ball to the 30-yard line he would make it because the breeze was going that way. The ball was on the 21-yard line and I didn't want to take a chance of getting sacked or maybe throwing an interception. I really thought we would catch them on the first play, a mid-line option, but to their credit their nose tackle made a nice play and tackled the fullback, which made us burn a timeout. Then I thought I would catch them slanting the other way this time and he got me again so we had to burn our other timeout. Now there is 27-seconds left and we practice that situation where we run the kicking team on the field so I thought we would run the quarterback draw because it was safe and I didn't want to kick with 27-seconds left because I didn't want to give them the ball back. I sent the kicking team out there figuring they would take a timeout and they did so we put the offense back out there and just got them all coached up so that if Lamar got a first down we would have gotten to the line of scrimmage and killed the clock and if we didn't get the first down the kicking team would run on to the field. When we practice this it normally takes about 17 seconds and we had 28 seconds so we felt like we had plenty of time. We didn't get the first down and the kicking team got on the field and Joey knocked it through. What a great kick.
Q. Were you surprised that you got the ball in the third quarter and the wind in the fourth quarter?
A. No, it just worked out that way. What happened was that we deferred to the second half so they took the ball and we took the wind to start the game and they did the same thing in the second half. That was the smart move. Actually, towards the end of the game, there wasn't a lot of wind. It had died down a little bit. I don't think the wind had anything to do with it. Their punter didn't get off a good kick, but the punt before he kicked it about 70 yards. We are just fortunate that he didn't hit a good one and we got good field position.
Q. Can you talk a little bit about Bullen? Here's a kid that was on the sprint team last year and today he makes the biggest field goal of his life.
A. He never seems to get flustered. I wasn't too worried about it. The hardest kick to me was the extra-point after we scored. That was the hard one. The one at the end there was a win-win. If you make the kick you win the game and if you don't you are going to overtime. He went out there and kicked it right down the middle. The other people you have to give credit to is Matt Williams the snapper and Brian Hampton the holder. People forget about those guys, but they did a great job.
Q. What did you think about the defense?
A. I thought our defense played so much better there in the fourth quarter and the second half. It was kind of a different game than the last two when we played them really good for the first two or three quarters on defense and then they moved the ball on us at the end. Today they had some success early, but we stopped them at the end of the game. Keenan Little made a great play on third down when they tried to throw the screen. I really thought it was a backward pass, but I guess it wasn't. Keenan made a great play. Our whole defense played well. I think you have to give those kids credit. We were playing without Jeremy McGown so we had a couple of young guys like Rashawn King and Dell Robinson step up. They stayed in there and fought. At the start of the game we gave them a short field a couple of times with turnovers. It was a team win. Everybody contributed.
Q. Can you talk about the long TD pass Air Force threw right before the half?
A. That play was a killer. They were just trying to run the clock out and we let them get out to about the 45-yard line on the option and then we knew they were going to throw it and we let the quarterback get outside of contain, which is a critical error, but the safeties have to be deeper. The backside corner got lost, which happens sometimes when the quarterback scrambles, but it was unfortunate. I got upset at the time but I told the team at halftime to forget about it. That play was over and there is nothing they can do about it. I told our football team that we turned the ball over twice and let them throw the football over our head with six seconds left in the half for a touchdown and we are still only down 10 points. I reminded them of the game last year when we were up 14-6 at halftime and they came back and tied it up in the second half. To our kids credit they believed.
Q. Did you feel fortunate to be within a touchdown late? The way the game was going you could have been down even more.
A. I don't know. We held them to a field goal one time after a turnover; I don't know how much more they could have gotten. They scored a touchdown the other time we fumbled. I would imagine they felt fortunate to be ahead 17-7 because you wouldn't think you were going to get the touchdown before half.
Q. I thought your offensive line really stepped up in critical times of the game. They gave Lamar lots of time to throw and they came up big down the stretch.
A. We pass protected fairly well. We had a hard time getting the fullbacks going as well as we have against them in the past. I think the strength of their defense is their defensive line. We found a way to make enough plays to win the game. Without watching the tape I thought Air Force's defensive line played very well.
Q. So did your defense.
A. Especially in the second half. We played great on defense in the fourth quarter.
Q. You've had great success in these Academy games. Talk a little bit about the emotion in these games compared to the other games you play.
A. The No. 1 goal of our program is to win the Commander-In-Chief's Trophy, but quite honestly we approach these games, as far as preparation, the same as any other game. I think what's happened a little bit is that our guys have had some success and they played with a little confidence. They believed they could win and if you don't believe that you're going to win you won't.
Q. How big is this win for the rest of the season?
A. It gets us back even. It keeps all of our goals intact. We dug ourselves out of the hole we started in. We have a home game next weekend against a good Kent State team with a chance to get on the positive side of the ledger. We have to keep getting better. We can't have the start we had today and survive too many times. Just like last week this team finds a way to win. There is a very small line between winning and losing and a lot of it is attitude.
