Login to view embedded media
Opening Statement…
“First of all, congratulations to Miami. It was a hard-fought win. There were ebbs and flows of the game on both sides, but they found a way to win. And we found a way not to win. It’s just an unbelievably disappointing game. What we want, we have to deserve, and we didn’t deserve what we wanted. We wanted to win, but we didn’t deserve it. We deserved exactly what we got. When you turn the ball over the way we turned the ball over, it’s hard to win. Going in, we were about to score a touchdown and we fumble the ball. Then we had another red-zone turnover. So, obviously the turnovers for us, it’s like a broken record. Our best players have to play well. And right now, we’re just not doing some of the things we need to do, so it's frustrating. Turnovers were the difference in this game in the end. The score that we fumble in the endzone could’ve been the difference in the game. You know, the other turnover down there could’ve changed the game. So, it was turnovers. We gave up the one big run and, at the end of the day, we overcame all of that crap and we have a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter and we can’t finish.
“So, you’ve just got to give Miami credit. We did not stop the run in the fourth quarter and they earned it. We got exactly what we deserved. We turned the ball over and we did not run the ball well, but they certainly did. Especially that one play, and then all of the fourth quarter. We played pretty good for three quarters. It’s disappointing. We just tried to do too much. Tough game. I’m proud of our guys for competing. They never quit and they battled. They overcame a lot of adversity in the first half and most of it was self-inflicted. We put ourselves in a position to win with the 10-point lead and we didn’t finish. You've just got to give Miami a ton of credit. And for us, we’re 4-3, which is exactly what we deserve. I feel like I’m reliving 2010 all over again. It’s like every game, it’s crazy. Two overtime losses, and obviously the game at Duke where we had four trips inside the 10-yard line and got no points. So, it’s obviously very frustrating. I don’t understand why things happen sometimes, but I do understand we’ve got to just keep moving. We’re going to show up on Monday, just like I’ve always done for the last 15 years. Show up, get back to work and find a way to win a game this week. And it doesn’t get any easier. We’ve got to go back on the road next week. It’s really not complicated. We did a lot of good things, we really did. We made a lot of plays; we just didn’t finish. [Jonathan] Weitz gave us a chance, it’s good to see him make some big kicks. I think [Jake] Briningstool had more yards this game than any other tight end has had in the history of the school. It’s just unfortunate that we didn’t take advantage of opportunities when we had them. You’re on the road and you let teams hang around like that, you’ve just got to take your hat off to Miami. Down 10 in the fourth quarter, and they fought back. We didn’t finish, so they deserve it, we didn’t. We’ll get ready on Monday to see if we can find a way to win a game this week.”
On the final play of the game…
“It was a handoff. 100 percent. We had called a handoff. He just pulled it. I got no answer. We were just trying to do too much. It wasn’t RPO, it was a give and we just didn’t do it.”
On success of the offense at the start of the game…
“We made a lot of plays; we made a bunch of plays. It's good to see Tyler Brown bounce back, make some really nice plays in the game, to go execute big plays, that there was a lot of tight coverage, and it's good to see us make competitive plays. We just should’ve had a couple more scores and we just didn’t do it. And I mean it's incredibly frustrating, my heart breaks for our players. And you know Clemson means a lot to love me and we work really hard, I mean we had one of the best weeks of practice we have had all year…And they come right out of the gate just to hold the ground.”
miami.rivals.com
