Sept. 28, 2004
EASTON, Pa. (www.lafayette.edu) -
Head coach Frank Tavani
on last week's 21-16 upset victory at Richmond:
We're extremely proud of the way our young men responded to playing so poorly against Princeton, and then coming back against a tough opponent and one that most people didn't give us much chance at all of beating. Fortunately the only people who have to believe are the kids on our team and our coaches. It's a great credit to our staff who did a great job of preparing the team to play Richmond, and most of the credit has to go to our kids who had the pride, the purpose and the passion to come out and give it their all. They knew they were the decided underdog. As we talked in pregame, about 20 percent of the teams in the country every weekend that are underdogs end up winning, so at least we contributed to that statistic, I'm not sure how it worked out last weekend but at least we know it worked out in one case. Unfortunately the way things had to end it's a tough ending for either team, they fought the good fight and one team has to come up short and we certainly know and reminded our young men on Sunday how easily we could have been standing there on the short end of it. As hard as we fought, and fought to the very last play, obviously that game takes it to the epitome of that statement. I think what you bring away from a game like that is that we know we're capable of beating any team on our schedule.
on this week's homecoming match-up with Harvard:
We'll be in a battle each week, it only gets tougher as we move onto goal number five, as we move onto a very very good Harvard team which we've had some good games with the last couple of years, we've had leads only to end up coming up short. Once again we have to come right back to the drawing board, get out to practice today and get back at it harder than we were at it last week. Again we're going to see an outstanding athlete and a great player at the quarterback position, and we're going to see as good a tailback as we've seen to date and we certainly saw a good one last week.
on losing junior defensive lineman Eduardo Sanchez:
We lost Eduardo who is a real big loss for us, he sat out a year of school and came back and worked his way back into the lineup and into a starting position. He was playing outstanding football for us and he will be certainly missed. Just the spirit that Eduardo brings and the determination in making a comeback, that means a lot to our players and they look to him for inspiration as well.
on returning to Fisher Field for homecoming weekend:
We're excited about being back at home, and we better enjoy this since it's four weeks plus the bye, in five weeks when we get back to Fisher Field the grass will be beautiful for us. We're looking forward to playing Harvard, this is the best of college football, it's living proof that you can do academics and have top-notch athletics and have some solid football teams. Harvard under Coach Murphy has done a great job and they've been very successful in his time there, with several Ivy League championships, and you're talking about one of the premier schools in the country.
We're happy to be hosting Harvard and playing them, and this will be a big game for homecoming. Hopefully our alumni and everybody else got a little excited last weekend and want to come out and catch this game this week, to come out to Fisher Field and hopefully we'll have a big crowd and I know our football team will be ready.
on the defensive keys to victory at Richmond:
Field position, we were able to even when we started in poor field position we were able to move the ball and gain field position was a huge part of it, and then turnovers. Look at Torian Johnson, he's already tall and it looked like he climbed a ladder to get that one out of the air. Then Tye Murphy, another kid who's been in the program for a few years and finally gets his opportunity, and that was a tremendous interception in the end zone where it looked like they were going in and just rolling, and then they turned the ball over.
on senior Joe McCourt's move to fullback:
As any kid would be in that position, I don't think it was an easy situation for him but he's handling it the way I would expect him to handle it. He's a tremendous young man, a competitor, and he's like a lot of kids we have in that he'd do anything you ask of him for the good of the team. Look at Justin Lauver, we change his position almost every week and he doesn't even blink. He's starting to come up to me and says what's it going to be this week (laughter). He just wants to contribute and make a play, that's as big of a play as there was in the game. It's a huge play and a huge catch, not an easy catch for a kid who doesn't know if he's playing fullback or wide receiver from week to week.
When I ran into Joey after the game he was happy that we won, but it is hard. Here's a guy on schedule to break some records and now he's relegated to a different role. It's very difficult, it's a difficult decision to make but one which we really had to do. He was in there blocking and there are two backs in there, so when Jon (sophomore running back Jonathan Hurt) is making that run the other guy's doing something, he's not standing around watching. Joey had two days of preparation to be the fullback and learn everything, and as the season moves on we'll utilize him even more and he's certainly not a forgotten guy.
on the quarterback play of sophomore Brad Maurer and junior Pat Davis:
We went into the game saying we were going to do it by quarter, we certainly made the commitment to play both of them since the kids are so close. We thought we would play Brad in the first quarter and Pat in the second quarter, and then go into halftime and make a decision or keep going with it. There was discussion back and forth so I just said, well lets wait until halftime. But you don't want to prepare both kids all week long and then let the other kid down when you made a commitment to doing it. Brad's attitude was great, he went right to Pat at halftime and they talked for a while, and Brad said well this is what we were going to do, no problem and no hesitation at all, just "lets go baby". That's hard to find, if you're in this game you have an ego, and that's a lot harder than it looks. The team's handled it well, this team just wants to win and everybody's willing and learning to do what it takes to win.
on the look of this year's defense:
The defense is much the same, there were some changes and we didn't want to do as much but we're a zone blitz defense. Honestly I think our defensive line play is so much better, they're penetrating and tearing up blocking schemes and then our linebackers run extremely well and make plays, and our secondary is coming on, especially the play of Bryan Kazimierowski, Trey Martell and Torian Johnson, those guys are just sophomores.
the players on last Saturday's win:
Junior tight end Chad Walker: As a team, it was a great feeling. Most of us here feel that we're scholarship athletes but sometimes during the recruiting process things don't go like you thought they would. As Coach Tavani said, we came in with nothing to lose out there. It's tough to put into words how we felt after, but beating Richmond is one of the greatest feelings I've had in my career as a football player.
Sophomore safety Bryan Kazimierowski: Nobody thought we had a chance to win the game, so we went out there, like Chad said, playing as hard as we could. We practiced well and everything happened as we expected.
Kazimierowski on the game's final play:
It was a bad feeling right away, when I saw that he had caught the ball, but it felt like I was out of bounds. I knew I didn't hit the ball and wasn't sure what the ruling would be. I looked at the ref right away and he didn't have his hands up, so I just started praying that something was going to happen.
