Postgame Quotes

Sept. 8, 2001

,AUBURN HEAD COACH TOMMY TUBERVILLE
''That is a pretty good character builder after dominating the first three quarters. We let them back in the game and couldn't get a break for anything. I thought Jason Campbell grew up and played better. We needed to play down to the end and put our backs to the wall and make some plays. Casinious Moore had an excellent day. He actually played with a concussion part of the game. Defensively, it was just a great three quarters. We just dominated from the beginning of the game to the end of the third quarter. We will take this win. We have a lot to learn from it. As James Callier said, 'It takes four quarters to win, especially on the road.' It was a good learning experience. I would have much better had it 27-0, but they are a little bit better football team than that. They played hard.''

(On Auburn's offensive line)
''We felt like we could run the football. They slanted early and after we picked that up, it was pretty easy to run the football. We made some mistakes in the red zone and should have been up 21-0 midway through the second quarter. I am pleased with the win, but we have a long ways to go to win a tough game, especially on the road.'' ,

(On Carnell Williams)
''Carnell just wasn't ready to go. Especially in a game like this, I wish we could have played him. But, it wasn't worth it to take a chance on getting him hurt. When we started running the ball north and south, we took the game over. For some reason, the game got close. I still don't see how it got close. We could have thrown the ball a little more, but once we got up 20-0, 27-0, we decided to run the ball.''

AUBURN PLAYER QUOTES
,RB CASINIOUS MOORE
On the game
''I just wanted to come out and play hard and do anything to help the team win, but scoring three touchdowns was completely unexpected. The offensive line blocked wonderfully for me today. I give all the credit to them.'' On next week
''Going down to Baton Rouge is going to be a hostile environment, but we are going to be ready to play.''

,OL KENDALL SIMMONS
On the game
''We blocked wonderfully today. Facing the Ole Miss defense is a lot different than what we faced last week, but I think we handled it very well. We protected well for Jason Campbell and gave him plenty of time to throw. So all-in-all I think we played great.''

,QB JASON CAMBELL
On the game
''I took a big step from the first game to the second game. I feel like I am getting better each game. I am continuing to get comfortable and getting back into the game situations. The Ole Miss defense moved around a lot quicker, they are a lot faster and more physical. I guess that is why they call it the SEC because of the good defense.

,On next week
''Baton Rouge can be a tough place to play. There will be between 90 and 100 thousand people there and at eight at night it is going to be a loud place to play, but all we have to do is stay focus and trust the 10 guys on the field with you.''

,DT SPENCER JOHNSON
On the game
''We played really hard on defense. We did a great job coming out and running down the clock. We stopped the running game the entire time. We played great right up until the end of the game and overall I am glad about the win. We came out hard in the fourth quarter and that is why we came out with a win.''

,LB DONTARRIOUS THOMAS
On the game
''It was a tough game, very physical. The offense did a good job showing their capabilities. The D did a good job containing Eli Manning. We made some mistakes at the end of the game and had some big penalties. We do have the capability of shutting down a good quarterback. We have to get back and look at film.''

,On next week
''It is going to be really tough next week. They are picked high in the SEC West.''

,DE JAMES CALLIER
On the game
''It is over. I feel our offense is coming along and they are maturing, which will help us toward the end of the season. My defensive brothers, we stick together through thick and thin. We gave a little taste of just what we are capable of. We have got to remember that we are in a growing process too. We have not played together yet as far as the long haul is concerned. It was a good test for us. The only thing to make sure we do is to be consistent.''

OLE MISS POSTGAME QUOTES
HEAD COACH DAVID CUTCLIFFE
,''First of all I would like to state the obvious and a little bit of the unfortunate, in that we didn't wake up until the second half, and we played so erratic early that it gets really tough on the road to come back like that. We dropped some passes and had some fumbles that really got us down quick. We can learn from this, though. I am not happy with a loss by any means, but I am glad to see that our players and our staff remained focused and competitive throughout the game. There at the end I chose to go for the punt block instead of dropping back into coverage, because I wanted to risk it and go for good field position. I knew they had a good stand up kicker and I didn't want to be pinned back in our end-zone. I think we should have blocked it and if I go back onto the tape and look at it, I think it was pretty close. It looked as if we were playing conservative in the first half but we really couldn't get anything going because of field position. We couldn't run on first down and got backed up after that. We only 19 snaps in the first half, and there really isn't anything you can do with that. We also wanted to minimize the any disaster there in the first half. If you get cute sometimes down near your end-zone, things could get bad quick. We passed the ball well in the second half, but I still want to be a balanced team, and Monday on practice I want to work on our running game, because that will make our passing offense that much better.''

OLE MISS PLAYER QUOTES
,Syniker Taylor, CB
''I loved to see the team didn't give up without fighting. Even our offense came back and played hard in the second half and I was just happy to see we didn't give up.''

on his interception)
''Coach told me of the potential of No. 86, that he was a nice-sized player and he might run some fade routes. Really, I was expecting the fade route anyway. I just got up there, me and him. He's a real good player and I just felt they might try him on me and I was looking for the fade and just made a play.''

Eli Manning, QB
(on first half)
''We just didn't get things working really. Auburn played great and came out ready to play. We just couldn't get things going in the first half and couldn't get in a rhythm. With some young people going out there playing and the first time being in an SEC game and seeing things full speed it just took some time to get used to it.''

(on second half)
''We finally got things going and got comfortable, just really settled down.''

The University of Mississippi Athletics

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