Sept. 24, 2002
Lafayette head coach Frank Tavani
On loss to Penn
It's disappointing, but you can't go too far down with the lows and you can't go too far up with the highs. The situation is kind of typical of a fight, where you get staggered by the first punch or two and you never quite recover. What I thought was good was that we came out in the second half and being able to mount a drive and the defense held three and out. To some degree, we wore out a little bit and we weren't able to recover as much as we would have liked to.
On playing Princeton
We're really excited about this week's game against Princeton. It's an outstanding university, a great academic place, great atmosphere. It has to be one of the best venues in the country at any level regardless of the size of its seating capacity. To me, you play these games for this kind of situation. I hope there are 34,000 people in there screaming their brains out. When they get in that atmosphere, it's going to be a light 'em up situation and we're really excited about it.
On who will replace McCourt at running back
It depends on the week of practice. Brandon McCloud has to be put in the position mentally of being the man, so to speak, and step up. If he has a great week of practice, then I'm really not one for tailback by committee. Let's get a guy established and get him going, get into a rhythm. The great ones, in my estimation, are only getting rolling at 20 or 25 carries.
On practice this week
I think the focus is to focus on us now, not focus on the opponent. Obviously you have to focus on what they're doing and work on those things, but more let's get back and re-examine the fundamentals and get back to some basics and practice hard. We need to stay with it and not let anything get us down. It's week to week no matter what. We got knocked down and we have to get up.
On multitude of receivers
Well we're utilizing a lot of receivers, we usually utilize five kids through a game minimally. We're running plays in and out and we do a multitude of formations. It's mostly progression reads and people more and more are trying to zero in on (John) Weyrauch, so that's going to open some things. Jeremy got a lot more touches and he's going to get a lot more yet. You have to take advantage of what the defense gives you.
Lafayette junior wide receiver Jeremy Burkes
On his two long touchdown plays
Having a deep threat is always good. Weyrauch is able to go inside or outside and then you have me inside and deep. I think that adds another dimension to our offensive game. I don't know if they were expecting it last game, but I'm pretty sure next game people will focus in on that. It was a great play that coach made up and it worked to perfection.
Lafayette senior defensive back Herb Kennedy
On improvement of secondary
We're just trying to feel each other out and get in the flow of what each other is going to do and how we're going to react to different situations. I think we're finally starting to do that and starting to gel, so we're playing better.
Princeton head coach Roger Hughes
On the opening loss to Lehigh
Well I think we try to accentuate the positives. We went toe-to-toe with what I think is a very good football team. While we came up short in the long run. We played three quarters of pretty good football. Now we have to find a way to put four quarters together and find ways to throw that knockout punch. We had opportunities to do that and we didn't come through. We missed an opportunity to score a touchdown late in the second half and we just can't do that against good teams. So I think the first thing that we have been preaching is that you can't be satisfied with the fact that you went toe-to-toe and lost in the last second, but you still lost the game. That's going to be our mantra this week to make sure that we try to play at the same level of intensity and emotion that we played last week.
On wide receiver B.J. Szymanski
He had a great finish to his freshman year last year in the last two games, made some big catches for us. Certainly he's someone we try to get the ball to and try to get a number of touches to him because he does have very good speed for his size. He has a good size and great leaping ability, so he is someone we need to get the football to every week.
On what to expect from Lafayette
Well I expect a very hard-fought, emotional game. One of the signs of a well-coached team, the Penn game got out of hand a little bit early in the game, but they kept playing hard and didn't quit. I think that's the mark of a well-coached team and also mark of a team that is playing with a lot of pride. So I don't foresee any letdown on their part. I know it's their first road game and I think the venue is going to be great for both teams. Playing at night in our stadium, it's kind of an electric atmosphere and I know our players like it very well. Number one, I don't see any drop-off in their emotional play. Number two I think they're well-coached. They do a number of different things defensively that cause you a lot of concern. I think they've got two receivers that are very good players. Their quarterback is not flashy, but he always finds a way to buy more time and if you give the kid a lot of time, he's going to find someone open down the field. He's got great vision down the field, and we were his coming out party two years ago when he came in a freshman and riddled our secondary so we're very concerned and very aware of what he can do.
