2018 Walk-On s Independence Bowl Temple vs. Duke

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1 POSTGAME QUOTES FROM TEMPLE Head coach Ed Foley: Thank you to the Independence Bowl Shreveport-Bossier City, you guys were awesome it was a good week the people here are unbelievable and blessed to be a part of. Everything you guys are about here, Shreveport is a about all the things that Temple football, it s about love and character there are so many unselfish people all week it was really a fantastic week for our kids and the treatment here was outstanding the outcome was not. I told our guys I said we have a great culture we love each other we re tough but you still have to go out and make plays and they found a way to make more plays than we did and ultimately they made more plays than we did. Since the team announcement party you have been ray of sunshine for not only Temple football but for the Independence Bowl everything going viral how have you been able to maintain this for six games: I have a great family in fact my wife she s been awesome she s been like a rock. My mother was actually here she came over from Dallas that helped. But I have two families It got a family of Temple football payers and I think when my mom came over here for the Christmas dinner I think every player on the team hugged her and it was really special. The Temple football team and Temple University helped me get me through it I am not going to lie to you and tell you it was easy. My brother called me about five minutes before I talked to the team last night and it was really, really hard and I just told the guys how I felt. But it was hard, but the people we have around our program and I have around me are really strong great caring people. You guys were rolling in the second quarter what did you think changed the momentum? They got going with those scores quickly in the third quarter. They had those two quick scores and then And then, we ve been making plays on special teams all year, so and I went to the well with the fake punt and we didn t execute it and that just gave them another score so really that was the turnaround right there. I told the kids at halftime, I said guys we have to come out and make more plays than they do lets go play like it is zero-zero. My hats off to coach Cutcliffe and Duke they came out and made plays the way I was hoping to come out the had a couple kids that came out and made plays. On meeting with coach Cutcliffe and him apologizing after the game: We ll leave that with coach Cutcliffe and myself. H s a class act he is been great all week, I don t know if any of you were at the FCA breakfast but he did a tribute to my mom and my family, he is outstanding, he is a class act, he was awesome.

2 DELVON RANDALL, SENIOR SAFETY On his reasons he did not skip the bowl game, 2018 Walk-On s Independence Bowl There was no chance that I would skip this game. I wanted to go off and play my last game with my brothers. I have been here for four years and there is no way I would leave them out to dry like that. I wanted to finish the whole game. I had it in my mind that I was going to play the bowl game before we even came to a bowl game. There is no way I would leave my brothers like that. On what Jones did to kill Temple over the middle? To be completely honest with you it was miscommunication over there. From me, coming from the corners and things like that, it s on us for not communicating. We didn t have max communication like we did all season so those couple of plays really killed us. On playing his last game at Temple? It didn t hit yet honestly. It was another opportunity. Everyone knows that it is my last game and I can further my career, so I was just trying to just give 100 percent for my team. Like I said, there is no way I would leave these guys. This is a bittersweet moment. I love those guys and I am going to miss those guys. I m definitely going to miss these two next to me too. Coach Foley has been on me since freshmen year. Its true love man. Russo, had overcome some adversity, but the way he handled it was a huge step for him. I keep telling him, next year it is his team. There is no starting over or backing up. But it is a bittersweet moment, I don t think it has hit me yet honestly. When I get on the plane while I am flying back it will probably hit me. On how big of a loss it was to not have Rock Ya-Sin? To not have him hurt us but like Coach Foley said, it was truly honest to God a medical reason why he couldn t play. He told us all week that he wasn t feeling too well, for medically reasons obviously. The same with Ryquell honestly, it was truly medical issues. I don t think those guys would ever leave us out to dry like that. Not having those two guys was a missing piece but we just had to come out and play. Next man up is our mentality here. ANTHONY RUSSO, REDSHIRT-SOPHOMORE QUARTERBACK On if they gave different looks in the 2 nd half? I wasn t getting different looks. They brought a little bit more pressure. That is on me and the O-Line to get that picked up. We just didn t find our grove in the 2 nd half. In the first half, we got some quick plays and some deep balls that got us into a groove. In the second half, we didn t do so well. We had the turnover by me, which can t happen especially against a great team like this. We can t put our defense in a situation like we did with that. We played a good team, we played Duke, so you can t have multiple turnovers today. I think that hurt us and put our defense in a bad position. On what he will do to this offseason to put this behind him? This one definitely hurts. These seniors, coming in as a young man, I have grown with these guys. They have shown me the ropes of college football and what you must do to be successful. These friendships will last a lifetime with Delvon and some of the other guys. It hurts having these guys finish their college

3 careers like that, but they are going to go on and do great things. As soon as we get back from break, I can promise you that we are going to be right back to work. We are going to get the things fixed that need to be fixed. We are going to continue to do what we do and work our butts off. Seven days a week, 24 hours a week. I promise you we are going to come back next year with some vengeance. We will become a stronger team and a closer team. We are going to do everything we need to do to come back and win our conference. POSTGAME QUOTES FROM DUKE BLUE DEVILS HEAD COACH DAVID CUTCLIFFE Opening Statement: I would be remiss if I didn t start with Temple. They ve got a good football team in a very difficult circumstance. It wasn t easy to do what they did. Coach Ed Foley did a great job of holding that all together under extremely difficult circumstances, so I congratulate them on an incredible season. Next would be our friends at the Independence Bowl. Missy, Trey, wow! I ve said it, and I mean it. Twenty years ago, I sat here or stood here or did whatever I did in that era, and to see the growth and commitment level this bowl has, this community has, Shreveport-Bossier, our kids had a great time. I talked to some of our parents who plan to come back. People had a great time across the board, so we re very appreciative of that. Getting to the football, these assistant coaches and these players just took this and did it. It was very evident in Durham what their intentions were. We did not have a bad minute of practice. I was a little perplexed to start with in the game because I thought it might be like that from the start, but we hadn t played in a while. We hadn t played a lot of live football. No matter how hard you try to simulate live football in practice, you don t do it. We had the six starters out on defense, and we had two DBs go down. That s pretty unique. Our staff did a great job there. When we came in at halftime, our offense was hot. It was just a matter of time. Our defense was just right there time after time of making plays. I told them, We get five big plays in the second half defensively and do what we do on offense be relentless on offense. We re not going to back off on anything. We ll win this football game big. Lo and behold, we won the game big. It s players. It s teamwork. It s the Walk-On s Independence Bowl. I don t know if y all saw our kickoff coverage team made up of walk-ons when we kicked the ball out of bounds. I was hoping we would kick it short of the goal line for you guys to see what they do in coverage. We use it from time to time. Our kickoff coverage, we call it Attack, because it s not for everybody. When those walk-ons go out there, we call it Nuclear Attack. I m very proud that we came pretty close to getting everybody in the game. Thank you again, Trey and Missy and all your people for an incredible time. If you want to bet on a sure thing and I m not a betting man but when we come to Shreveport, don t bet against us. I ll say that. On his I-Bowl success: Good people. Good people bring out the best in you. I think we come down here and we get in good

4 spirits. We have good people at the hotel. The people who we were with serving us meals were incredible people. The entire Independence Bowl staff and volunteers, really good people. Probably any business, any industry, the secret is good people. I think it gives us good energy. We love to participate with the folks here. I really mean that. It puts you in a positive frame of mind. How can you not go to Holy Angels and not be lifted and feel better and feel like you can defeat the world? Those of you who don t know what Holy Angels residence facility is, and you re local, you need to go. It s incredible. On his postgame conversation with Ed Foley: We were throwing the ball there and had our starters in. Left Daniel (Jones) in the game. T.J. Rahming was nine yards away from breaking an ACC record. I got that word, and you love your players. It was a tough decision, but when we gathered in our huddle, I told them, We have to do this. We re getting T.J. this record. Temple s defense played so well we almost didn t get the nine yards. He fought on that screen and got it. I was hopeful he would get it on the first play, and we would sub 11 players in the game. I felt like a dog doing that. I told him, Great job, and I hope you understand we weren t trying to do anything other than get a young man a record. On the performances of QB Daniel Jones and WR T.J. Rahming: When you play together long enough, and they re both great players, we felt like our offensive staff had a great game plan. They re a multiple coverage team, but I think we got a bead on them. Daniel set protections and got routes adjusted, and I thought our coaches did a great job of it. T.J., when you have a slot, he s in the center of all the things. We felt we could attack them in the middle of the field, which we were able to do. On scoring twice late in the first half and the momentum gained: My favorite thing in football is to score late in the first half and I m always going to defer except in rare weather circumstances and get a 14-point swing where the other team hasn t had a chance to do anything with the ball. You can become dominant. That s what we talk about the blend. The defense had that big play the first series of the second half. Then the offense answered that great play. I call it a blend. That s how teams win games. Special teams, offense, defense. Once we were able to do that, momentum was so powerful that you sensed Temple knew the momentum had shifted away. On the second-half defensive performance: One of the things that was obvious, and I went in and talked to the defense about was third downs. They were 6 of 8 on third downs (in the first half). That led to scores. Each one of those led to a score. (In the second half), they didn t convert a third down. We picked up the heat a little bit. We weren t getting there with four. We didn t come here to play conservative. I thought we did a great job of dialing it up. Players came up with some big rushes. Victor Dimukeje got a big sack going one-on-one in a fourman rush. I think that s a good a job I ve seen of a young defense, and the coaches turning around in a half. That was amazing. On winning his fourth Independence Bowl: I don t want to be self-serving at all, but there is a great deal of emotion. This is the place where I coached my first game as a head football coach not knowing where that was going to lead. That was

5 20 years ago. No idea where it would lead. Texas Tech had a fine football team. I still think about Spike Dykes, who was one of my favorite people in the coaching profession. May he rest in peace. That emotion, I tried to push it back, and you just stirred it up asking that question. It s been 20 wonderful years since that time. I ve got so much of my family here, who was able to be here 20 years ago, still living, still here. I want y all to realize the amount of family we have here. Make some noise! Yeah! Don t say anything bad about me, because we outnumber you. (Laughs). On his role as a veteran coach to other young coaches: Previously at the Chairman s Reception, I really had a chance to talk to (Foley) about circumstances he had faced. We had a private moment, and I went up and asked him some questions about his brother, about his father. He lost his father in There s his mom without him there. I said, Ed, you define coach. I know it s the hardest thing you ve ever had to do, to think whether I should be with these young men or whether I should bolt and head over to Texas. I said, you re a coach. Your dad knows that. Your mom knows that, and your brother knows that. You re a pretty amazing man. At the FCA Breakfast, I asked him if I could ask everyone there to pray for his brother, Cliff, and his mother, Suzanne. It s a football game. We all know that. There s a lot of things going on in this world, and it all starts with family. You ve got me emotional talking about that. Our family went through a lot of tragic things, loss of life when I grew up. It s a difficult time. I hope those young men from Temple and I believe they do they understand his commitment and what he did for them. On the evolution of the Independence Bowl and its place: I don t know if this one would be mentioned as too many. This is a longstanding bowl with a great history and a great tradition. There are a lot of new kids on the block. I would tell you there are not too many bowls. When young players get to experience culture, different geographies they would never see, players get to spend holiday time together. That creates a closeness among them. These guys are going to be best buddies and be in each other s weddings for the rest of their lives. So bowl experiences are much stronger than people might think. When they re run like this one, it s critically important to have them. Dr. (Kevin) White (Duke AD) is in here, and I ll tell you when selection day started coming, this 1,000 percent was our wish. Nina, our deputy AD, Dr. White and I all were talking, literally praying this was going to be it. Number of reasons for that. The biggest part of that is we knew who the people were here. Missy Setters runs a big-time show. She keeps surrounding herself with great people. Hey, if you invite me back, I ll keep coming, you know that. I don t know if you ll get another team to come. On anticipating the offensive explosion: I m going to be honest, nothing Daniel Jones does every surprises me. When he has that much time to practice, great things can happen. You don t ever count on 56 points. Obviously, we were concerned with six players out. We had some matchup concerns against their offense. That was great team defense. When you think about this game, think back to how many balls our secondary got their hands on in the second half compared to the first half. I went up to Josh Blackwell, who hadn t played a whole lot. I went up to Damani Neal. I went up to all of those guys. Brandon Feamster s a senior, a veteran. Just

6 be a fierce competitor. If they beat you, become more fierce. You should become so fierce that if you get a penalty, that s OK. We ve got to get our hands on balls, and they did that. It was fun to watch. On the decision to go for it on 4 th -and-1 late in the first half: That s a no brainer for me, y all should know that already. I was a little irritated. We should have made it on third down. We ll run the ball better next time we realize it s 3 rd -and-1. I ve already addressed it and can t wait to address it in spring practice. To run a quarterback sneak requires a center, and (Jack Wohlabaugh) came off the field. I almost lost my guts. I almost took a timeout. Quentin (Harris) did a great job of making it work. Players make coaches decisions work or not. On the play of WR T.J. Rohming: Great job with protection first. Daniel clearly saw him. When you re playing man coverage or playing brackets like they do a lot, what happens if you catch a ball in the seam, it s very difficult to stop a guy from making a big game. Daniel and T.J. had a lot of completions in their day. I had a meeting with T.J. two weeks ago, explaining we don t know what the future s going to be for a guy that small. He s on my NFL team, but I don t own one. He s had an incredible college career, one people dream about. He s done a great job at Duke University. He s a great teammate and person. I don t know what comes next, but I m proud of what he s accomplished as a football player and as a young man. On Daniel Jones future: I can tell you coming back what he means to this program. That s a better way to frame the question in my book. Daniel Jones to this point, has set the bar so high, not just playing well, but getting better as he goes. He s gotten better and better every year, every game. He s the most humble individual I think I ve ever been around. You cannot get him to say something good about himself. People want to play with Daniel Jones whether you re a defensive player or an offensive player. He s a two-year captain for us. It would be nice to have a three-year captain. I don t know if I ve ever had one. I ll be behind him. Whatever he decides, I ll be happy for him because it s his decision. He doesn t know right now. I don t know right now. God bless him, because it s a tough thing, but he ll find the right spot. CORNERBACK BRANDON FEAMSTER On beating a team from near his hometown: It was huge. I know a lot of guys on that team and have a lot of respect for that team and their coaching staff. It means a lot to beat a team I was once recruited by and is close to home for me. It was huge. I love it. On what changed for the Duke defense: Things weren t going our way in the beginning, but we ve been in this situation before unfortunately. It s all about trusting each other, trusting the process. At the end of the day, we told each other in the huddle that we weren t losing this game. We made it clear that it rested on our shoulders. It was huge for us to shut them out (in the second half). They re a great offense.

7 On his first-half interception: Our coaches have done a great job the past few weeks preparing us. We ve been in the film room constantly. Obviously, it paid off. I knew the kind of route he was going to run. I knew the quarterback doesn t like to float the ball. He likes to put it on a rope, so I took a chance and, fortunately, it ended up in my favor. CORNERBACK JOSH BLACKWELL On coach David Cutcliffe winning his fourth Independence Bowl: It signifies he s been a great coach. He led us in the right direction to get the win. Awesome for him to get the win here and it was cool for us. QUARTERBACK DANIEL JONES On what woke up the Duke offense: We had a lot of good stuff going into the game. We were prepared. We hit on that first drive then, like you said, we hit a lull. I don t think we lost confidence. We knew we could catch a few breaks, catch some momentum and keep it rolling. What happened toward the end of the first half and in the second half was we caught our groove and had enough good stuff to keep it going. The big thing there was not losing our confidence. On T.J. Rahming s performance: There s so many things he does on the field to help our offense. It makes my job pretty easy when you can throw a glorified slant and he takes it 80 yards to the house. That s not a hard thing for me to do, and it shows the special kind of player he is and what he can do. I have a lot of trust and am very appreciative for what he s done for me personally. He s a special player. On the second half performance offensively: They re primarily a man team, playing a lot of many coverage. We liked our matchups was one thing. I m not sure it was necessarily what they were doing. We knew we had enough stuff and it would work against a whole lot of looks. We prepared to use what we had against any of their looks. It worked out for us. On ending the first half with a touchdown: Toward the end of the first half, we got some momentum and caught our stride a little bit. We knew we were getting the ball back. They had the personal foul, which gave us good field position to start the half. With all of those things hitting, we were able to go into the locker room confident and energized for the second half, and it paid off. On catching his own deflected pass: I guess so (feeling like it was his day). It was an interesting play, kinda fell right to me. We caught some breaks in the second half. That was a product of our momentum and our confidence and us doing a lot of things right.

8 On his future: I ll have some time to figure that out. Right now, leading up to this, we ve been full speed ahead on the Independence Bowl. We ll celebrate that tonight. I m looking forward to that and then figuring it out. On scoring on seven straight drives: I m not sure if I can (think of a similar run). It reminded me of the Georgia Tech game in the second half where we caught some breaks and put some points up. We just did a great job of blending all three phases. The defense played huge, getting stop after stop. Special teams set us up. When we re at our best, we re winning all three phases. WIDE RECEIVER T.J. RAHMING On his record-breaking day: I was just trying to do my best. We had a good game plan coming in. It was tough coming off the beginning. I just tried to make every play that came my way. On the 85-yard touchdown catch: That first catch (a 62-yarder) was in my head. I feel like I let my team down getting caught at the five. On that one, I just wanted to finish the drill. On playing his final game at Duke: Those emotions have been running all week. We ve had time to think about it. Thinking about the guys in the locker room, my teammates, I m going to miss these guys. I just wanted to make a lot of memories and soak everything in, because you can t get this time back.