There are some interesting quotes from last nights game. Particularly about the long bomb that Pete unleashed at the end of the game. Obviously, there are two things to understand when reading these...1) context and 2) honesty. I don't think we will get the real story on both.
Rick Neuheisel's comments betray that he gets it...the coaches always do. But it also betrays the one thing I knew would happen...that this is bulletin board material for ucla. They will have a year of being pissed off.
Anyway here are some quotes from the OCR...
Coach Rick Neuheisel
(On the touchdown)
"I was trying to make them punt. It’s our job to cover. They have every right to throw the ball deep. People draw their own conclusions. It’s our job to stop the play. … I had three timeouts. It was first down, I called a timeout. If they run the ball on second down, I call timeout. I’m trying to get the ball back. If they fumble I got a chance. I don’t blame them for doing it. It’s our job to cover it. I was just trying to keep the game alive."
Like said in the comments earlier...the game goes for 60 minutes. If RN thinks he has a shot then it means he wants to play. Bruins fans who are complaining need to get over it. RN was doing what they wanted him to do since the day he signed on...
Try. To. Beat. USC.
He can't do that if he doesn't have the ball and he can't try if he doesn't try and get the ball.
Like I said, he gets it. And it puts him a box. If he is lying whats that say about his character? If he understands it and would do the same thing what does that say about his character? Bit of a Catch-22
This was Pete's way of saying we heard you! Strong message follows...
Safety Rahim Moore
(On the touchdown)
"I just couldn’t believe it. I just said, Wow. I was speechless. It’s all good. You lose some, you win some. You just got to move on. Of course we were offended. They ended up scoring. We were losing so of course we all were mad. We were shocked how they disrespected and took a shot on us. It caught us off guard. We thought they were going to kneel the ball."
I get this too...this is how Taylor Mays felt when Harbaugh went for two (even though the situations are vastly different). But if Moore has a problem with it, do what SC did on the 2-pointer....DEFEND IT!
All this talk about being disrespected is just that...talk. Mays didn't like it but USC stopped it, regardless of the reasons why Harbaugh did it.
Moore knows the drill...
This one is my favorite...
Linebacker Reggie Carter
(On the touchdown)
"In a way it’s disrespectful but then again their job is to score points, our job is to stop them from scoring points. They did their job, we didn’t do ours. How mad could you be? We called a timeout, we kept the game going, so obviously we wanted to keep playing. We obviously didn’t play hard enough."
Right...this from the guy who said this...
"I don't hate people, I just want to beat them up. I don't hate them (the Trojans), I just want to beat them real bad. It's not hatred, I just want to beat them up real bad. We're just gonna keep throwing punches even if they're knocked out, we'll just keep punching, it don't matter, we're going to keep punching until we cant punch no more."
How does feel when the shoe is on the other foot pal?
Don't be fooled...he gets it too. And if the tables were turned he would not apologize one bit.
All these guys get it...regardless of all their bluster. This is big boy football. Neuheisel hasn't exactly acted with a lot of class since he got to ucla. Pete has pretty much kept to himself unless he has been poked by some of the crap that Slick Rick has pulled.
Pete didn't jump in the mud to wrestle with the pig...he did all of his talking on the field.