Western Carolina Head Coach Mark Speir
On Thursday night's game:
"Middle Tennessee came out, had a great plan, executed it and did what they needed to do to win. My hat is off to Coach [Rick] Stockstill. He's got a great program, he's a great friend and I wish him the best of luck."
On the team's effort:
"I'm very proud of our football team. That thing could have gotten ugly right there before the half and our guys came out, battled and created some turnovers. That's something that Middle Tennessee doesn't normally do. That was a positive part, that we were able to create some turnovers that created some momentum."
On correcting mistakes:
"I thought we made a lot of those first-game errors that you always worry about, especially with a young football team. We gave up a punt return for a touchdown. We had some substitution issues that made us burn some timeouts. We're down there after Troy [Mitchell] got knocked out in the second half and we threw a pick in the red zone. You have to come away with at least a field goal. That was a big turning point. We were battling the whole game and we give a turnover."
On moving forward:
"I love this team. Never was there any finger pointing or blaming, only encouragement. We have to grow up. We played a really good Conference USA football team tonight. We were able to stand toe-to-toe with them for most of the ballgame; we just wore down at the end. That's where those extra 22 scholarships come into play. It works down there at the very end. I'm excited about our football team. We have a tough matchup next week with Virginia Tech, but then we get into SoCon play. We've got another week for these young pups to grow up, then we'll be ready for when SoCon gets here."
Middle Tennessee Head Coach Rick Stockstill
On tonight's game:
"I thought we played well, especially in the second half. We came back and made a nice run at the end. We had a great first half. Our offense moved the ball even though we had a couple turnovers on drives we thought we could have scored on. Our defense had a little lapse in the second half, but overall we got the win and that's what counts."
On Jordan Parker's touchdown run:
"I think our offensive line did a great job. We were more physical up front, but we had more guys in the boundary than they did and up front we did a great job on Jordan's (Parker) run. But he did a great job too finding the hole and making a good run."
On the running game:
"I think all of our backs did a great job. I'm not sure what we rushed for as a group, but they all did a great job. William (Pratcher) had some good runs up the middle and around the edge, but all of our backs did a great job."
On the defense tonight:
"I thought our defense played really well for the first 26 minutes of the game. We had a turnover there early, but the defense worked hard and held them to a field goal. We just had two deep balls go against late there in the half, but we came back in the second half really did a great job."
On the special teams:
"I thought we were really good on special teams tonight. We got a return touchdown, which is always good. We missed a chip shot field goal and we're still trying to determine his range, but I thought (Josh) Davis punted the ball really well tonight and for the most part we were really good on special teams. However, we do have to figure some things out still with kicking field goals.
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