Head coach Mike Sanford
Opening statement:
“Credit to Maine for the victory, obviously they came in here and for them to overcome a 21-point deficit within the first five-ten minutes of the game, five minutes or so, um and be able to rip off 31 unanswered points, you know obviously, a lot of credit goes to Coach Harasymiak and their team for their resiliency, um you know, obviously, very tough loss for us. Very tough pill to swallow. I talked to the team afterwards, you know, obviously we all played a role in that loss but know that the situations that we put our defense in and short fields mainly the fourth down, I feel that we needed some juice, um, needed some offense, you know our offense get that push and wanted to give our guys an opportunity to go out and earn that fourth down conversion and at the end of the day that was a call that was detrimental to the overall course of the game there’s no doubt about it, and uh, you know and as I told the team, you know obviously, that one that I didn’t put them in the best position possible. It’s heartbreaking. This is the key for us going forward is that we stay together. We’ve got 10 football games left. Certainly there was some bright spots. LaFrance is a definite bright spot. Defense played well in fits. We can’t give our defense that short of a field and ask them to come up big obviously.”
On Maine coming back from a 21-0 deficit:
“Almost unexplainable the factors that led to it. You know it was just kind of piece by piece. We got a little out of rhythm offensively. One of our goals in our keys to victory offensively was we wanted to hit four shot plays in this game. Four down the field shot plays. We had the opening play of the game offensively. We did take a few other shots down the field. We wanted to be aggressive because we knew that Maine was going to be a blitzing outfit. And obviously we just connect the dots in some of those situations I feel like you know, we’re close to blowing the thing out to 28-0 right after the 21-0 lead so, we didn’t connect the dots on those plays and we let them hang around and really the sack fumble recovery for a touchdown coming out of the half, that’s a huge momentum swing.”
On the positives moving forward:
“I’ll say this, the group of young men in that locker room, they’re going to stick together. We obviously have to put blinders on, we’re going to have to talk specifically about the most important thing is the opinions in that room, in that locker room, it’s your teammates and caring for each other. I think part of it is we have to be honest with ourselves, I have to be honest with them, both good and bad and even self-reflective a little bit and I think that we’re a team, we’re a culture where honesty is obviously a big part of that and I think that’s going to be what’s going to help us bounce back from this game and I fully do expect us to bounce back from this loss. I do. I know nobody else does out there right now but I feel like the WKU football program that took the field and exploded in that first five minutes like we haven’t seen probably in quite some time. I think that’s who we are. We have to maintain that and channel that and keep the gas pedal down for four quarters. That was obviously apparent. Once we got up 21-0, we took the gas pedal off a little bit and that’s all the way from top to bottom.”
Opening statement:
“Credit to Maine for the victory, obviously they came in here and for them to overcome a 21-point deficit within the first five-ten minutes of the game, five minutes or so, um and be able to rip off 31 unanswered points, you know obviously, a lot of credit goes to Coach Harasymiak and their team for their resiliency, um you know, obviously, very tough loss for us. Very tough pill to swallow. I talked to the team afterwards, you know, obviously we all played a role in that loss but know that the situations that we put our defense in and short fields mainly the fourth down, I feel that we needed some juice, um, needed some offense, you know our offense get that push and wanted to give our guys an opportunity to go out and earn that fourth down conversion and at the end of the day that was a call that was detrimental to the overall course of the game there’s no doubt about it, and uh, you know and as I told the team, you know obviously, that one that I didn’t put them in the best position possible. It’s heartbreaking. This is the key for us going forward is that we stay together. We’ve got 10 football games left. Certainly there was some bright spots. LaFrance is a definite bright spot. Defense played well in fits. We can’t give our defense that short of a field and ask them to come up big obviously.”
On Maine coming back from a 21-0 deficit:
“Almost unexplainable the factors that led to it. You know it was just kind of piece by piece. We got a little out of rhythm offensively. One of our goals in our keys to victory offensively was we wanted to hit four shot plays in this game. Four down the field shot plays. We had the opening play of the game offensively. We did take a few other shots down the field. We wanted to be aggressive because we knew that Maine was going to be a blitzing outfit. And obviously we just connect the dots in some of those situations I feel like you know, we’re close to blowing the thing out to 28-0 right after the 21-0 lead so, we didn’t connect the dots on those plays and we let them hang around and really the sack fumble recovery for a touchdown coming out of the half, that’s a huge momentum swing.”
On the positives moving forward:
“I’ll say this, the group of young men in that locker room, they’re going to stick together. We obviously have to put blinders on, we’re going to have to talk specifically about the most important thing is the opinions in that room, in that locker room, it’s your teammates and caring for each other. I think part of it is we have to be honest with ourselves, I have to be honest with them, both good and bad and even self-reflective a little bit and I think that we’re a team, we’re a culture where honesty is obviously a big part of that and I think that’s going to be what’s going to help us bounce back from this game and I fully do expect us to bounce back from this loss. I do. I know nobody else does out there right now but I feel like the WKU football program that took the field and exploded in that first five minutes like we haven’t seen probably in quite some time. I think that’s who we are. We have to maintain that and channel that and keep the gas pedal down for four quarters. That was obviously apparent. Once we got up 21-0, we took the gas pedal off a little bit and that’s all the way from top to bottom.”
