Oct. 10, 2009
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Iowa Player QuotesQB Ricky Stanzi
On being 6-0“I think it’s a good testament to our coaches and all of our staff. They’ve done a great job leading into this season and during camp. They’ve let us know about our potential and also preparing us that there will be bumps in the road and a lot of things that will happen. They’ve taught us to fight through adversity and we’ve had to do that a lot in our football games. We’re excited about our record, but there’s still a lot of football left. We still have a lot of things that we need to work on but that’s also exciting. We’ll take a look at tape tomorrow and just keep pressing forward.”
On having Moeaki“He’s a big target and a guy that can run after he catches it. He also did a great job of blocking in our offense. When he slips out into the open for passes he’s great at catching the football, getting on the run and getting to the end zone. He has a knack for finding the end zone. He brings a lot of energy to our team. Everybody loves the kid; he’s a great football player and a hard worker. His character is really what this team is looking for and he’s obviously one of our leaders.”
“That just goes back to the coaches and them preparing us mentally. That’s really a mental thing. Also, our strength coaches getting us physically prepared. It’s a long battle in a game, especially when you have to play the full 60. It’s important to prepare that way not only during the week but in the off season. I think that’s helped us a lot. It really says a lot about the guys on the team; their ability to respond and fight through adversity has really been something to marvel at this year. We’re all really proud with the kind of effort a lot of the guys have been putting forward, especially the young kids.”
TE Tony Moeaki
On his first TD
“That is something that we worked on. Rick has the freedom to check it to a player and that’s what he did, and we just executed it.”
On his second TD
“I’m not sure what read I was, I was wide open and to be honest I just jogged it in because Reisner and DJK threw some good blocks for me so I went in untouched.”
On his expectations for tonight:
“I didn’t practice last week and to be honest it was almost like a game time decision to play. I just wanted to be out there and help the team as much as possible. I’m just happy that we won. It wasn’t a game time decision tonight, but I didn’t practice much so I didn’t know how I was going to come out and how my ankle would feel.”
On savoring the moments on the field:
“Yeah, I do. Running out of the tunnel with my teammates is always really special to me. It’s just a great group of guys so it’s just great to be out there with them.”
On Stanzi’s tough play:
“Rick is just a tough, resilient guy. The pick six is whatever, but he keeps fighting back. You’ve seen him do that continually and he just finds a way to win.”
On not playing until Coach Ferentz thought he was 100%:
“That’s a tough question, but I trust Coach Ferentz. You know, if he thought I could play then he would have played me in previous weeks. Maybe it was for the best, but I trust everything he tells me to do. He is the head coach.”
On being so wide open:
“We saw it on tape, and worked on it a little bit. Rick just made a really good throw, and that’s really just Rick. That’s exactly how we practiced it.”
FS Brent Greenwood
On being 6-0:
“As coach tells us, you can’t be any better than 6-0 at this point in the season. It’s a huge win, but we realize we’re only half way right now. We have six more games to go. We’ll enjoy this win for 24 hours, and then we’ll move on.”
On interception in fourth quarter:
“It felt great. Anything that can help the team out is great. We were able to get the ball back and run out the clock. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time and make the play. I knew I needed to make the catch, get down and give the ball back to our offense to run out the clock.”
On Michigan switching quarterbacks late in the game:
“We saw during the fourth quarter he (Denard Washington) was warming up and about to come in. We realized he was more of a runner than a passer. He’s an athlete, period. We just had to try and contain him. He did a heck of a job on that drive with the touchdown. When you have quarterbacks like that who can get away from your defensive linemen it’s hard on the defensive backs and linebackers. You just have to try and get back and keep covering your guy.”
How did you think the defense performed:
“We’ve been practicing playing good defense and getting to the ball, and that’s what we did today. We just came out and played as best as we could and got to the ball.”
On his interception:
“They call that the `hundred route’, that’s the route that kills me every time. It is my nemesis so to say. We practice that all the time and we stress that in practice a lot. Then they came out and ran exactly what we practice, and I was just right there to get the ball.
On shutting down the passing
“It wasn’t really our plan. We just came out and played ball. We played our defense, and we really came out and played a real good game. The ran the ball really hard. Moundros is a tough back and he did a really good job. We got the win and that’s all we ask for.”
On the defensive series following 4th and 1
“You always want to put the last play behind you, whether it’s good or bad, you just want to come out and play ball. Our defense had a good series that time. They had to punt to us and we came up with the touchdown anyway.”
Transition from Forcier to Robinson
“We practiced them bringing in that quarterback, and we looked at the film to kind of see what would happen. He came out and played ball, but we got the win so that’s all we could ask for.”
On being 6-0 and going on the road
“We just have to get ready for Wisconsin.”
On the number of touches he had
“Yeah, that was a lot. I think the most since last year. When you don’t touch the ball a lot you really forget how to do all of the maneuvers and all of that. When I got the ball I just tried to get what I could get.”
On the second half defense this season
“The whole season it just feels like everything is going our way. I don’t know, but the only thing I can say is God is good. Things are just working out in our favor.”
Michigan Head Coach Rich Rodriguez
Postgame Quotes
On the quarterback change late in the game
“I wanted to get a spark…he did give us a little spark at the end but we just didn’t finish it off. I’ve said it for six games now, Denard Robinson will play. We were looking for moments in the game to put him in, it didn’t quite happen, but at the end we thought we had good field position and we had a plan putting Denard in there. End of story. I have two outstanding quarterbacks. At times they play like freshmen and at times they don’t, but they’ll learn.”
On whether he and Forcier exchanged words on the sideline
“Words? There were no words on the sideline. Are we trying to create something that’s not there? We were just coaching. Our guys are very coachable. Tate was right behind our guys in the final drive, rooting on Denard [Robinson]. He made some good plays and he made some plays he’d probably like back, but the only reason we made the change was to get a spark.”
On turnovers
“The turnovers really hurt us. Some of those third-and-longs were really frustrating. It probably frustrates the defensive coaches as much as me. It’s frustrating because you have a chance to maybe pin them back and get good field position. This is the second game in a row where it seemed like our average field position wasn’t very good. When we did have good field position, we were able to do something with it. When we have someone backed up, we have to keep them backed up because it helps us get better field position for our offense.”
On Denard Robinson’s game-ending interception
“He just made a mistake. He was just trying to make a play. He actually missed part of the signal and things were hurrying a little bit. He competed, but we’ll learn from it.”
On Iowa
“I thought they were a well-coached football team, they played hard, exactly what we thought coming in. They were a good football team. We knew we had to play well and not make some critical errors to beat them. At times we played well, but we made some critical errors. Sometimes it was their doing, but sometimes it was our own doing and that’s the part that’s really disappointing. Our guys haven’t quit.”