Postgame Quotes vs. Alabama

OLE MISS HEAD COACH MATT LUKE

On the loss:
"We had an opportunity with the turnover and didn't capitalize on it. For us to have the two early turnovers, bad calls, penalties, it was just not the way we have been playing offensively. It snowballed on us. We had our chances early and let it get away from us."

On the message going foward:
"Just that we are in this thing together. We cannot let this one game beat us twice. It's just one game, one of our twelve opportunities. We were outplayed and we were beaten, but we have got to find a way to come back tomorrow to learn from the mistakes and move forward. You want to find out why things happened the way they did, but you really just want to learn from it and move forward. It'll be a normal Sunday tomorrow. We'll watch the film and learn from it and move forward."

On the defensive performance in the second half:
"Yeah, we came out in the first half and weren't that good. They did get a turnover early that gave us an opportunity but we didn't capitalize on it. I am proud of the way some of the guys flashed. I am very proud of Benito [Jones]. He bowed his neck in there and they kept fighting and kept competing. I was proud of that. It is good to see some of the young guys growing up. But you cannot play against a team like Alabama and make the mistakes that we made."

On next week's game vs. Kent State:
"That's right. It is one game, we cannot let this one game define us. We didn't play nearly like we wanted to play on a big stage and that is disappointing, but we'll find a way to bounce back and win next week."

On Tua Tagovailoa:
"We went into the game with the mindset of being aggressive and trying to get after him. They made plays when we did blitz and credit to him on making plays when he had to."

On the problems in the first half:
"When we went up 7-0, we then had an opportunity with the turnover to try to keep it a game. I'll look at the tape as far as schematics but to me it was penalties, turnovers, and execution more so than the schematics stuff."

OLE MISS RECEIVER D.K. METCALF

On the emotions after the game:
"We came out with the mindset to not have a repeat of last year, and we did. However, we have to come together and like Coach Luke said, one loss does not define us."

On the early deep ball:
"I saw the DB pressing me and so I tried to bounce out. I was a little scared I was not going to get to it, but I stuck my hands out and caught it."

On the Alabama defense:
"They went to man-to-man coverage and they tried to challenge our receivers. They had two safeties sitting back there and made it hard for us to get the deep ball going. We had a tough time executing."

ALABAMA HEAD COACH NICK SABAN

Opening Statement:
"I think it was a great overall game. They came out with a 45-yard bomb. I think we showed tremendous resiliency to score on our drive and to not allow any points after that. These guys have a very explosive offense and very explosive receivers. I felt like my guys did a pretty good job on handling them. I'm sure there are a lot of things we could've done better.

On third down conversions:
"Well the quarterback throwing the ball in the right place and the receivers are catching it. The guys are doing what needs to be done and it works out well for us."

On the opening play:
"Well the guy got beat, I think that was obvious. He beat him down the field and made a good play. After that we switched up some things and put a bigger guy on him and then things got better."

On defending Ta'amu:
"I think we did a pretty good job overall. I think we did a really good job up front. We tackled him pretty well and kept pressure on him. Our coverage worked really well and we were able to stop potential big plays."

The University of Mississippi Athletics

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