Kansas State Coach Ron Prince

Kansas State Postgame Quotes
NU 21, KSU 3
Saturday, Oct. 14, 2006
Manhattan, Kan.

Opening Statement

“We faced a very good team tonight ? a team that’s dominant running the football, which we expected. I thought giving our defense that many plays on the field would really damage us and would be too much to hold up against. That’s really the story of the game. We were 1-of-13 on third downs, which resulted in way too many shots for the <?xml:namespace prefix="st1" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"?>Nebraska offense to take at us. They have a very good running game. Their front seven is significant ? they can stop the run. They are very good at it. Once the game became one dimensional, which we were fighting to not allow, their front is equally as good at putting pressure on the quarterback in the pocket. That was really the story in the second half. I thought that Josh (Freeman) and those players that he was passing the ball to were poised in making an effort to make some plays. There were some individual efforts that were outstanding. We just didn’t give him enough support to really let him set his feet and make some terrific throws over and over again. We couldn’t put enough of those together, in sequence, to put some drives together. We did have the long drive, but came away with no points. Defensively, we really gave up only 14 points. They took their best shot on the opening drive. I was very impressed with how the ball moved for them. We got down there, they lined up for a field goal and they faked it. It was a very well executed fake. We could have defended that better, and that put us behind 7-0 in the start.”<?xml:namespace prefix="o" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"?>

 

On the fourth and goal late in the game

“We have a number of situations that we deal with when we’re in the part of the field. We try not to give away too much. We had a similar one last week that turned out successful and this one didn’t. That’s obviously part of the execution thing that we have to get fixed.”

 

On Nebraska’s fake field goal

“We’ve been putting a significant amount of pressure on people with our blocks. We knew eventually someone would find a fake. We felt that one of the things we had to do in this game is that we were going to have to block a kick. If they drive the ball down there into field-goal position and we get a chance to block it, we could turn momentum early. I’m sure they were thinking the same thing, and the play was well executed. We didn’t defend it as well as I would have liked. We try to be very aggressive in the kicking game and that’s an example of what can happen when you do that.”

 

On K-State’s fake punt

“Yamon (Figurs) and Marcus (Watts) have been very dominant in covering punts this year. We’ve seen, in the last several games, each team’s very best attempt to try to neutralize them. Early on, we could tell that they were double (teaming) them at the line of scrimmage. That was obviously their plan for the game. To do that is a good plan. My concern is that if they double (team) them and neutralize them and you punt the ball, the return could come back to the same place if the fake would have been unsuccessful. It was my attitude to be very aggressive in the game.”