Ole Miss at Memphis Postgame Quotes

Sept. 6, 2003

OLE MISS POSTGAME QUOTES

OLE MISS HEAD COACH David Cutcliffe
"Obviously, it was disappointing day. It's not an effort issue, it's a consistency issue. We didn't do everything poorly, but from a consistency standpoint, we're not even close. The picture is not all negative, but it's a picture of inconsistency. It's like a yo-yo."

"I told our team now about how we're going to practice. We can't expect to play as good as we need to play if we don't practice as good as we possibly can. We've got a lot of things to correct and that's my responsibility."

(on being 3-for-14 on third downs)
"One of the keys there is we had penalties and some other things that created long down-and-distances. You're not going to be very good when you have third-and-long. We had way too many third-and-longs."

(on Memphis' big plays)
"We did some things that were really good, but we did some things that were as bad you possibly could do. It's something we've talked about since last year, playing good defense and then giving up huge plays. Memphis plays that kind of offense and they did a good job with it."

OLE MISS PLAYER QUOTES
Senior QB Eli Manning
"Obviously, we're disappointed. Coming in, we thought we should win. We just have to forget about it. It's not a conference game. We just have to get better and improve as the season goes on."

(on the Memphis defense)
"They did some things defensively we did not expect them to do, and it took us a while to get adjusted. Penalties and stupid mistakes stopped us most of the time. It's still early in the season. We have a lot of games left, a lot of SEC games and we still have our goal of winning the West."

(on Taye Biddle's dropped pass in the fourth quarter)
"Drops happen. It's a physical mistake, and it's part of football. You've got to live with it. I was going to go back to him at the end. I trust him to make plays when we need to. Sometimes that happens."

Sophomore WR Taye Biddle
(on his dropped TD pass in the fourth quarter)
"I looked up too fast. I thought I had it, and I took my eye off the ball. You know what happened after that. It was all me. I feel that if we had scored there it would have been a different ballgame. But I can't let this bother me. I've got to get my head up and get ready to play next week."

Freshman CB Bryan Brown
(on the 92-yard TD pass from Danny Wimprine to Tavarious Davis)
"Wimprine was scrambling, and I glanced back and he (Davis) got behind me. I tried to make sure I knocked it down. I wasn't trying to intercept it. He made a good play and I didn't. There are no excuses."

Junior WR Bill Flowers
(on his 40-yard TD catch in the third quarter)
"I knew the ball was out there and it was going to kind of be a stretch. I got my fingertips on it and I said 'I'm not letting this one go.' I knew when it touched my fingertips, I had a grasp on it. It was a rush of a catch."

Senior DT Jesse Mitchell
"Like Coach says, you have to treat each game the same, win or lose. We have to go back out and work hard because there are a lot of things to work on. It's early in the season. We just need to wkr harder and fight harder. We need to step it up."

(on the 34-yard pass from WR Chris Kelley to QB Danny Wimprine)
"It was a big play because it swung the momentum into their hands. We didn't counter."

Junior FB Lorenzo Townsend
(on scoring his first career TD on five-yard reception in the third quarter)
"I was pretty excited, pretty juiced up. The result of the game takes all of that away, though. The win is the real important thing."

Senior WR Chris Collins
"We didn't play as well as we are capable of playing. Guys were dropping balls in practice this week and it kind of carried over to the game."

MEMPHIS POSTGAME QUOTES
Memphis Coach Tommy West
(On the team believing in themselves)
"This team listens to me. This is the first team I have had here, including as an assistant coach, that I thought they listened and try to do what you ask them to do. And they believe they can win the way we told them they can win."

"If we don't turn the ball over today and tackle their guys and not let them catch balls and run for touchdowns, we had to tackle, that we would get our shots offensively. We felt like coming in that we could score some points and that this game would be decided in the fourth quarter. I think that they believed that and that is why they never panicked."

(On the difference between the second and fourth quarters)
"Their O-line and backs did a tremendous job. It wasn't as much the coverage, as we couldn't get off the block and get any pressure and maybe they wore a little bit. Later, I thought we were able to get off some blocks and get more pressure."

(Coming back in the fourth quarter)
"For a young team, this is an awful, awful young team and to be able to keep their poise at that point (third quarter), I thought the air just went out of everything and our guys just stayed with it. They came back and made some plays."

The University of Mississippi Athletics

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