Oct. 12, 2002

Recap?|? Final Stats

Head Coach Frank Tavani:
"I can't say enough about our football team. I've never been around a team that is such a pleasure to be around. These kids never quit and never give up. We were down 21-0 and struggling, but we just keep battling. All preseason people wanted to talk about our offense and how shaky our defense is going to be. But, the defense is carrying this football team. The defense turned this game around when we stopped them on the one-inch line. I mean it was one inch. Then we took it 99.9 for a touchdown. It's a game of momentum. We always talk to the team about momentum, but we had great momentum in the second half. We came out determined that it was going to be our half. Our kids never stopped believing in themselves and never stopped playing hard."

Senior defensive back Bill Stocker:
"It means a lot to me to come back here and to not only walk out of here with a win, but just to walk away. I didn't let many people know during the week that I was just scared. At nighttime, I had trouble sleeping. It was a scary thing to come back, but I wanted this game more than anything. I got down a little because I made a lot of mistakes in the first half, but I wanted to win too much to let it slip away. When I got burnt for that touchdown in the first quarter it was like a slap in the face, or getting hit with cold water. I needed to pick it up because I didn't want to lose this game for my team."

Junior defensive tackle Pat Brown:
"We were playing a 60 defense and we just wanted to fire off the ball and stay low and hope a linebacker could make a play. I don't think we made any adjustments at halftime. We just came out in the second half and did our job on defense."

Sophomore tailback Joe McCourt:
"Well that's my job and that's what I had to do. I knew on that last drive it was going to come down to me. With the weather conditions, we were just going to have to pound the ball. You have to give credit to our offensive line and our two starting fullbacks were hurt, so we had to go with Matt Jackson and a freshman, David Nelson. He was playing on the scout squad, but he made some nice blocks. We were just hungry on that last drive. We knew we were going to score."