Oct. 4, 2005

Head coach Frank Tavani

On this week vs. Columbia:
"Probably the worst case scenario occurred. They are coming in here off a 43-3 loss to Princeton last week. They're certainly going to come in with a vengeance after a week of practice that probably wasn't too much fun. I know Coach Shoop will have them well prepared. When I looked at the tape of the Columbia/Princeton game, it wasn't as easy as the score may lead you to believe. Columbia shut them down five times, making Princeton settle for field goals. That tells me something about the grit and grind of the Columbia defense. They're going to bring a lot of pressure, especially on the outside edge, similar to what we saw last week. I'm sure they saw us struggle with that a bit. I've watched all of their games, and they play very hard. They played Fordham in a night game, and it looked like Fordham had the game until Columbia came back and won. We certainly know that they will be well prepared and will play hard. Sure we've beaten them the last couple of years, but I'm sure it will be a tough, physical football game."

On last week's win over Georgetown:
"It was a good win for us. We struggled in the red zone a couple times and came up empty, but we maintained field position, which was key. We have a lot of confidence in our defense. One time when Georgetown thought they were going to have the short field, David Yankovich came up with probably his best punt of the year. There aren't going to be too many long, 80-yard drives against our defense. If you play great defense, you give yourself an opportunity to win every game. We're sitting here at 4-1 and 2-0 in the league. We have a lot to work on, but I think our team is improving. We're looking forward to playing with the same five offensive linemen in consecutive weeks for the first time this season."

On Georgetown's scoring drive:
"Other than four missed tackles on one play, our defense pitched a shutout. Again, it was a little bit of a let down not doing some basic things well. We may have just let down a little bit and they were able to be successful. That's says something about our team and our defense--we're resilient and we came back. After that our defense said, `okay that's it.' They got one on us, but they weren't going to get anymore. That's why at the end of the game I didn't think twice about going for it. I always say that if you can't gain an inch, you don't deserve to win the game. In the back of my mind I was thinking that they had to go an awful long way, and I was confident in our defense. I was disappointed we didn't get the first down, but I was also confident that our defense was going to come through, which was what they did. They shut Georgetown down, put them away and held the game for us. The only thing I was concerned about was that nobody was smiling in the huddle after the win. We said our moment of silence and prayer, and we looked like we had just lost the game. I just tried to make sure that I saw some smiles. You have to appreciate wins, because they don't come easy. Half of the teams in the country, at any level, finish at or below .500 every year. Sometimes we lose track of that, and when you start fretting about wins you better start thinking about doing something else.

On Columbia's offense:
"Like anything, I think Columbia's offensive line is still coming together. I've seen two quarterbacks on film--both good-sized kids that can be effective. They're also playing with a freshman tailback with a senior tailback backing him up. Coach Shoop is in his third year now, trying to piece together guys he inherited with guys that he's recruited. As I said, they are a well prepared football team that plays hard."

On execution:
We called the post route to Brandon Stanford that we had been practicing all week long and ran it perfectly. Unfortunately, those things don't occur enough in any football game. That's what's tough about football, having 11 guys doing their job at once. There are very few plays in football that run exactly like you planned because of intangibles both by yourself and the opponent. We need to execute better, plain and simple. Occasionally we don't execute as well on the defensive side of the ball, but for the most part we do since we're the most experienced there. We expect our defense to play a perfect ball game every week, because we have that experience."

Senior Larry Johnson:
"You know you have a good team when you get upset about a win. Regardless, a win is a win, and you have to be happy about it. We have great momentum heading into Columbia at 4-1, and we just have to keep it going."

Senior Joe Ort:
"We expect more of ourselves than what we put on the field last week. We're correcting things at practice this week, and I think everyone is ready to play the full 60 minutes that we've been talking about."