Washington Coach Steve Sarkisian Washington Head Coach Steve Sarkisian Opening Statement: Proud of our kid s focus. There was a lot going on and a lot of potential distractions. The game, the rematch, the stadium. I just thought our guys came out really focused. They came out hard, disciplined. I wish we had performed a little better in the red-zone, offensively, in the first half. But we were able to be very effective in the second half of putting the ball in the end zone. Our defense was bending but not breaking there for a little while and then started to really get thirddown stops, which I thought was very impressive. I really like the way Keith Price spread the ball around tonight. I thought there were a variety of guys making plays. Jaydon Mickens had a really good night, John Ross and Kasen Williams on one drive went bang-bang two plays in a row. Bishop Sankey was Bishop and our offensive line performed really well tonight. It was night to see Dwayne Washington competing. It was great to have all of the guys back that were coming off of ACL injuries. You think about Colin Tanigawa, Deontae Cooper, Jesse Callier, Hau oli Kikaha. All of those guys were back and they performed. It was a cool night. I m happy for our fans. I feel like our players represented what Husky football should be about. We knew it was going to be a dog fight, that was a good football team and our guys performed. On the atmosphere: I tried to tune it out. We have been talking about it for a month now, about how the stadium is great, we love it, and the fans are amazing but what was going to make tonight special, and what will make future nights special in this stadium is the way that we played the game. We have been talking all along about having quiet minds and focusing on the task at hand. We can go back and watch the TV copy of the game to see what the fans look like. That was not our focus. Our focus was on the next play. And taking a deep breath and focusing on the next snap. Our guys really did a good job of that tonight. On Keith Price s first throw/pick of the game: It was something we thought we could get them on. We set it up with the first play and thought we d get them with it on the second play. He might have under-thrown it a hair, but the kid made a good play. It was one play of many, I m not sure how many final plays we had. But I thought Keith did great tonight. He made good decisions tonight. There will be some plays that he will want back, like we all do after games when we look at calls and plays. I thought he was for sure efficient and he threw the ball well down the field, which is something we wanted to do. We wanted to create more explosive plays for our offense and he was able to do that tonight. And he used his legs; that one touchdown with the one pump-fake and avoiding the guy and finding Joshua Perkins in the back of the end zone was quite a play. A couple other scrambles, a couple other times on runs we pulled the ball. He played like a point guard tonight, and in this system I thought he was shooting the ball really well. On the tempo of the game:
It is just where it went tonight. At the end it was kind of weird to slow down. We had been going so fast for so long. I thought our guys responded really well. We looked very well conditioned. I thought we did well with fatigue. And that s the point of doing what we re doing. I thought our guys went really fast and we wanted to go really fast but yet it wasn t just fast, we executed.
Washington Players RB Dwayne Washington On first game of the season: It felt good coming out here and competing. Everybody stayed healthy. It was good. On scoring TD late: That was my first experience of that at and it felt great being with my Dawgs. On the atmosphere: It was crazy. Getting loud on third downs and helping our defense out. It was great. OL Mike Criste On winning first game: It felt good. It s only the first game, so it s definitely easy to see the things we need to work on. We ll watch the film, we ll see what was good and what was bad, and we ll change whatever we need to prepare for next week. On coming out strong in the second half: We just came out with a mindset that we needed to put them away. They don t belong here, there s no reason they should be here. We came out with an attitude to put them away and show them who they were up against. On the impact of the crowd: I loved it. I can t even explain how much I ve been missing playing at. CenturyLink was a part of Seattle and a part of us, but it s just something different. There s nothing like being at home and seeing everyone with the new stadium. It couldn t have been a greater setting for us to beat the Broncos in. DB Sean Parker How did it feel to play in the new stadium? It was tremendous. It was good to see our fans in the brand new stadium, just to go out their with my brothers and play again and get this competitive win. Did you play with a chip on your shoulder? How did you come into this game differently? Absolutely. My mind has never been clearer for any game. My preparation for this week was excellent and I just concentrated and kept my mind clear and came out hear and played good defense. On the first interception of the season. It was tremendous. I am a leader to the young guys we got in this group, and that right there was a real moment for me, and it showed that im out there and I play with passion.
DB Gregory Ducre On the team effort tonight. Coach Sark told us to finish. Last year we weren t really a good finisher. WE always started the game off fast, but this year we are going to try to start off fast and finish very well On playing in the new stadium. It s loud, man. The atmosphere is crazy. Call them the 12 th man. This is a blessing. Ive never seen anything so beautiful, honestly.
Boise State Head Coach Chris Peterson Boise State Head Coach Chris Petersen Opening Statement: Hats off to Washington, they dominated us in all phases. We did some good things, but we just couldn t come together as a team. Our offense left our defense out there too long and they got tired. We didn t get off blocks well enough. We ran the ball efficiently enough, but had nothing going in the passing game. On struggling with Washington s spread offense: The main thing is we have to get off blocks. They are big and physical offensive line and we have some new guys out there. We ll improve, but I think that was the main thing I could see from the sidelines is we weren t getting off blocks. We need to be able to hang onto the ball and can t have three and outs. Those type of things. On Boise not having many big plays offensively and if that was taken away or missed opportunities: We missed opportunities. They did a nice job of cancelling our receivers out. Our wide receivers have to get off press coverage. We didn t get up field fast enough. It was a little bit of a combination of a lot of things. That is a good football team we played without question, but I know that we can play better than we did. I know that we need to get a lot better and we will. On spending all offseason trying to improve the offense and starting poorly: It s very disappointing. I think Washington could be one of the better defenses out there, I really do. We knew that going in. Without seeing the tape, I think the run game was fairly effective, but we need to have more off of it. We have to have more play-action and our receivers have to get down field. On not being able to make many of the third and short and fourth and shorts: We didn t capitalize. We d put ourselves in a position where you d think we d be able (to capitalize) and we didn t. I am anxious to put that tape on. On going no huddle and pistol most of the game: We ve done a decent amount of that in the past. We ve done a decent amount of no huddle. Our defense is going to see a lot of it, so we practice against it as well. Tonight, they held onto the ball too long. On the result of the game causing second guessing of the game plan: I think that is a really good defense and we just have to keep working to get better. That is the main thing; we have to play to our strengths and try to take the next step.
Boise State Players Broncos Players QB Joe Southwick You guys came in with a lot of confidence on offense, but just not able to finish things out there Yeah, we ll put the film on, see what we did well, see what we didn t do well, and have a good week of practice and hopefully we ll be able to finish better in the red zone. How surprised were you guys that it went that poorly on offense? I wouldn t say it went that poorly. We just didn t finish things, moved the ball up and down the field for the good majority of the night. We just got to finish those drives, get some more points. It seemed like it came down to some key third downs, where you guys moved the ball, but just couldn t make the key play Yeah, every game is going to come down to that. Playing a heckuva team in Washington. Those guys were every bit as advertised. Like you said, it comes down to those critical third, fourth downs. LB Corey Bell What surprised you the most defensively with what they did? I don t think it was even really a surprise. I think they did just about what we thought they were going to do. They came out and they gave the ball to Sankey. We just had a difficult time defending that and finding an answer and just really stopping the run. It seemed like they kept getting 7,8,9 yards on those swing passes out wide. What do you need to do to stop those plays? Me personally, I need to do a better job of getting out there and starting that tunnel. We ve just got to swarm as a defense, everybody s got to be running to the ball. You been through losses, but when you look at that score, how does that affect you guys? We re going to look at it the same as any loss. Our coaches are going to come in, they re going to get behind us, and they re going to help us get that attitude that we need to have. This hurts, but we re going to come back next week, and we re going to be fighting just like we always do. That s kind of the attitude we live by as Broncos, just get back on your horse and we re going to go.