Oct. 14, 2003
Head coach Frank Tavani:
On last Saturday's win over Columbia:
"I'm sure you all enjoyed the defensive struggle on Saturday. We tried to put on a show for the families of all of our students and we had some fun out there. But more importantly I think this past week, for the coaching staff, was what we needed and was what we were looking for. And I think it was what our football team needed. It was pretty apparent of what we've been teaching - to keep playing. Keep playing to the next play, the next quarter, just keep playing to the very end. We can't get too high on the highs and too low on the lows, and there were plenty of both of those during the football game. The bottom line was, what I think we took away from it as a football team, is if you keep on playing, and playing hard, and making things happen and believing you can make things happen, then good things will happen. A year ago the Columbia game was somewhat of a turning point for us and I'm hoping that that's the case again for us as we head into the backstretch of our schedule. We're playing for a piece of the Ivy title this weekend before heading into the homestretch of the Patriot League."
On preparing for Harvard:
"I think I've looked at more film on them than I have on any other opponent to date, on both sides of the ball. The first film I grabbed was the Northeastern game because this is a scholarship football team that was ranked number one in the country going into the preseason. I'm pretty flattered that (Harvard head coach Tim Murphy) thinks we're the best team they've played. That makes us better than them so I guess I didn't ask for enough in that contract last year if that's the case. It's a tremendous challenge, and looking at what happened over a week ago with a lot of teams that won that weren't supposed to win, that's a position we're comfortable with, being a complete underdog. No one's going to give us a chance to go up there and do anything. I told our football team it's a great opportunity to go up to historic Harvard Stadium and do something great. I have every belief and confidence that we have the ability to do that. I've said all along that we still haven't played our best football game. If we ever really put it all together somebody's going to be in big trouble."
On his concern over the defense's performance against Columbia:
"Well, I'm not really that concerned. Not as much as you would think. I didn't go in Sunday morning ranting and raving. I think sometimes in trying to be perfect you try to be too perfect and try to do too many things, instead of just your base stuff that works. The only concern I have is that we need to tackle better. We're getting some pretty good initial hits and not finishing off some things. As a positive, I think our football team will come ready to play much improved defensively next week. The bottom line is, they didn't quit and they came up and made plays when they had to with the game on the line. To be challenged in that way and have to battle back is something that this football team is still maturing into. I think it was an advantage for us."
On the fake punt call against Columbia:
"You guys have been around long enough to know I'm not afraid to do anything. I really believe in rolling the dice. You can play things close to the vest or whatever, but our staff does a great job of preparing on the philosophy that I don't want to practice this stuff and not use it. That really aggravates me. I spoke with coach Hachmann earlier in the game about it, but at that point they hadn't given us the alignment we were looking for. Ultimately we put it in the kids' hands to make the call. He has to say, 'I've got the look that I want and I can go do this.' We have full confidence and we practiced it and Maurice (Bennett) the ok to look at it and it was the look we wanted. These things don't come down to coaches' decisions. They come down to these young players making those plays in those situations. You see Maurice break out of there, but a lot of people don't notice Brendon Green staying on a block on a guy that we thought was going to loop out and he looped in. Justin Lauver pulled up through there and of course Maurice Bennett being the guy he is, making a big play. I don't know how many emails and calls I've gotten about having big cajones and all that kind of stuff. You know, you just make decisions based on the plays that you believe your kids can make."
On Joe McCourt's touchdown pass to Marko Glavic:
"Those are the situations where you take a shot. Where everyone was stunned and apparently, even on your telecast, you guys were stunned from what I understand. That means you're calling it at the right time. Now whether it works or not is a whole different story. We had full well decided that we were going for it on fourth down anyway, so we were taking our shot or we were going for it on fourth down. You shouldn't be in the game if you don't want to make some of these decisions."
On the team's attitude against Columbia:
"I think the team knew we had to take our own hands off our own throat. I think a year ago our senior group was so downtrodden for so long that they just got tired of it and came out and fought with a vengeance. This senior group had it a different way. Sometimes subconsciously, or consciously, you start to believe your own press clippings and then you don't come out and perform the way you should perform. I think the team said it best to themselves. It was a matter of coming out and playing better and everyone had to look in the mirror and come out and play better. I think our seniors at that team meeting basically got that done. That's my opinion, I wasn't in the meeting, but that's how I saw it after the meeting and through the whole week of preparing to win as we talked about not waiting for Saturday for the light to come on."
Senior receiver Jeremy Burkes:
On what went through his mind on the first play of the game, a 73-yard touchdown pass from Marko Glavic:
"I thought about it all week. I knew that I would be getting the ball the first play of the game since Thursday. Before the game everyone kept coming up to me and saying, 'First play of the game. It's you. You have to make it happen.' And I just kept saying, 'Stop, stop.' I knew it would be open like that because coach Faragalli drew it up perfectly. He showed us exactly what would happen and everything I imagined happened. My only concern was that Marko would overthrow it. I knew it would be so open I was hoping that he would have enough time to throw it or that he wouldn't overthrow it. Everything just worked out perfectly."
Senior quarterback Marko Glavic:
On the offense stepping up:
"At the meeting we just talked about how we're not having the amount of fun and we're not doing things that we were doing last year. We talked a lot about the Georgetown game and we just came to the conclusion that they wanted it, for some reason, more than us. We didn't really understand that. That kind of peeved us off a little bit. We came into this game with the attitude that, 'Hey, let's go out there, have some fun and win this game.' We wanted to this game badly. I think we showed resiliency the whole game. They kept fighting back, we kept coming back at them. We were able to make the big plays to win the game. We know what we need to do. We know when we're not playing up to our potential. We've been getting a lot of heat for not living up to the expectations and things like that and we just went out and made plays. I'm confident that we'll be able to do that in the next couple of weeks. We're going to have some tough challenges but I think we play better when we're playing against tougher teams."
On what satisfied him the most about his performance on Saturday:
"I would have to say the satisfaction came from how I threw the ball. For the past three games before that I hadn't thrown the ball as well as I should have been. I was able to make some good throws, I was confident in the pocket, my drops were good, I didn't have happy feet, when I had to scramble I did and when I had to stand in there and take a hit and still get the ball off I was able to do that too. I was pretty happy with how I threw the ball. I was efficient too. Obviously I think the biggest thing I've been doing is being pretty smart with the ball and not making turnovers. Of all the picks I've had I think only one was a bad decision. I've had a lot of tipped balls and stuff like that. The catch was obviously something fun. I've probably replayed it about nine times and told my family up in Canada that they're replaying the game on DirecTV tonight and I told them to stay until the end."
