Quotes from Stoops, Bradford, and Harris
JOHN HUMENIK: Bob?
COACH BOB STOOPS: Just first, my congratulations to the University of Florida, Coach Meyer, his team. A well-played game, just again, congratulations. I thought it was a heck of a game.
I want to also say that I’m very proud of our players, their efforts, the way they fought and played today. We had some opportunities I thought early in the game in the red zone where we’ve been, as ironic as it is, we’ve been so efficient the entire year in the red zone, we came up short on two different occasions. Had another occasion where we had the football to Jermaine Gresham down to about the five-yard line and get it called back on a holding play. We had some opportunities to make a difference in the first half, came up short.
And then in the second half, down the stretch, down in the fourth quarter there, we came up a play or two short, they made them. But it was a heck of a game, and again, I’m just proud of our players. They’ve been a great character group all year. They fought hard tonight, played another really good football team in Florida, and they made a few more plays.
JOHN HUMENIK: Nic, your thoughts?
NIC HARRIS: As Coach said, all credit to them. They’re a great team, got great players and made great plays. At the end of the day we didn’t come out and do what we expected to do. We wanted to come out with a win, which we didn’t, and down the stretch we’ve got to make the plays that are presented to us. We just weren’t as opportunistic as we thought.
Q. Nic, just curious, congratulations on a great season. What is it about Tim Tebow that makes him such a special player?
NIC HARRIS: He’s a great guy, a great character guy, and he can beat you with his feet, obviously, which you just saw. He’s one of those guys that you give him your best shot, he’s going to get back up. He’s one of those guys.
Q. Nic, I know your mantra you said to us in Kansas City, "Win the last game." How disappointing is this for you in your last game?
NIC HARRIS: Extremely disappointing. It’s the last game of the season for the team. I was the captain on the defensive side of the ball. I wanted to get a win and took it primarily upon my shoulders, and that’s something we didn’t do in the long run.
Q. If somebody had told you that you’d hold Florida to 14 points through three quarters, did you think you would have won the game?
NIC HARRIS: Yes.
Q. How surprising was it you didn’t get more points from your offense?
NIC HARRIS: Like I said, I don’t play offense. They’ve been putting up a lot of points throughout the course of the year. We had to play defense, and we knew at the end of the day it was going to be a dogfight.
Q. How much of a factor was Percy Harvin coming into the came? He said he was 90 percent. You played against him tonight. How much of a factor did he turn out to be?
NIC HARRIS: He was a great guy. He made some tremendous plays. Ultimately we just didn’t make the plays that we needed to make.
Q. You don’t win, and when you look back at it, though, do you probably look back at it and say, hey, that was some pretty good defense out there? And as I just mentioned a minute ago through three quarters you were in pretty good shape, and if the offense had done their part you’d be in good shape.
NIC HARRIS: First of all, we’re not going to place blame on the offense. That’s something we’re not going to do.
Secondly, we as a defense knew what we were capable of doing. It was the critics and the media that didn’t believe. We within the locker room, within the white lines, the 11 guys that started knew exactly the type of defense that we were capable of being.
COACH BOB STOOPS: I’d even chime in there that in the end you win and lose as a team. You need to make plays together. Some games are going to be high scoring and they’re won different ways. So I would say, no, the defense needed to play better to win. Regardless of what the score is, you’ve just got to find ways to make an extra play or two to win the game.
JOHN HUMENIK: Nic, feel free to leave, head across the curtain. All questions towards Sam right now.
Q. Sam, just your thoughts on this game tonight and how it played out.
SAM BRADFORD: Obviously it’s very disappointing to end the season on a loss, especially in a game that we felt like we had a chance to win. In the first half we squandered some opportunities to score points; that really hurt. But in the second half when we needed to make plays, we just couldn’t do it.
Q. Why do you think you weren’t as productive tonight as you had been most of the season? What was Florida’s defense doing that limited you guys offensively?
SAM BRADFORD: You know, obviously they’re a great defense, and I don’t know if it’s one thing that they did tonight. I think there were a couple times where we got ourselves in trouble by getting ourselves behind the chains, forcing ourselves into bad situations.
Q. Tim Tebow seemed to put Florida on its back in the second half. Was he more impressive to watch him in person than maybe on TV or on film?
SAM BRADFORD: I mean, to be honest, I hadn’t watched a lot of him on film. I really wasn’t paying attention a whole lot to what their offense was doing. But Tim is a great player. He did a great job tonight when his team needed him.
Q. At the end of the first half, it looked like when you guys went for one play there with ten seconds to go, the one thing you probably couldn’t afford to do was throw an interception. Could you go through what your decision-making was on that play?
SAM BRADFORD: Obviously I wasn’t trying to throw an interception, but yeah, we called it, and it actually wasn’t the coverage we were expecting to run that play. But that’s what got called.
You know, I tried to force one in there, but I probably should have just thrown it in the back of the end zone and taken the three points.
Q. Talk about the mindset because you guys have been so great in the red zone. It didn’t work out in the first half. Coming back in the second half, can you kind of set the mindset going into the second half. It’s still a tie ballgame.
SAM BRADFORD: Yeah, I thought our mindset going into the second half was as good as it has been all year. We knew we had 30 minutes left and it was a tie ballgame and we still had a chance to win the National Championship. I don’t fault our attitude at all. I felt like when we took the field in the second half we were as ready to play as we were in the first half.
JOHN HUMENIK: Sam, thank you. Please head over to the interview area with the other players. All questions directed toward Bob, please.
Q. When you look at this game, where do you think you lost it? At what point in the game? Was it that last touchdown drive you gave up?
COACH BOB STOOPS: No, you lose a game through the whole process of the game. The two drives that were inside the five, one at the one, we’ve got two downs from the one-yard line, we don’t get it in. We’ve got the ball at the five there at the end of the half. We also have a ball, like I said earlier, we complete a ball to Jermaine Gresham down to the five or so and get it called back on holding. Those are all opportunities for production, for points, that we didn’t get. To me that’s part of the end. The fourth quarter if we could have had the one drive stopped, would have given ourselves another chance.
You win and lose as a team, and we played awfully well for a good part of the game. We stalled in the red zone, we gave up a play or two in the second half defensively, and it doesn’t take much to lose a tight game like it was.
Q. Tebow had like 172 yards in the final 25 minutes. He seemed to kind of take the game over. What is it about him that just makes him a cut above?
COACH BOB STOOPS: Well, I think the biggest thing is his ability to run and scramble, and their intention running the football of running him. So he’s a big part of their offense because you have designed plays that he runs the football. So as you see, they’ve got players going left, players going right, and then he keeps it. A lot of it is their design and a lot of it is him, his ability to run or at least stay poised in the offense to take—pull the ball or take it when it’s there.
And then a few, couple scramble plays, those were huge plays. The couple of scrambles were to me the biggest part of the game on 3rd downs.
Q. I was just wondering your thoughts on maybe the hostile crowd that you faced?
COACH BOB STOOPS: I didn’t notice that at all. I heard our people when we did something well and heard theirs when they did something well. My feeling overall, I don’t think that was a big factor. When we were moving the football all the way down to the one-yard line there wasn’t anything bothering us, and you don’t hear them a lot when you’re doing well. You hear them a lot when they make plays, but you heard ours when we made plays.
We didn’t have any problem at the line of scrimmage. I never felt that at all.
Q. Could you talk about the defensive performance tonight. You made some adjustments that looked like worked really well, especially with moving Gerald out to defensive end and playing the defensive end inside.
COACH BOB STOOPS: Yeah, we kicked into a 50 front a good part of the night, and it was good for us, a lot of it was. I thought how we handled the run game in the first half was great, the pressure we got was excellent, really up through three quarters, and then just a play or two in the fourth quarter. They popped a run, and that’s how it works when you’re defending the triple option. Every now and then you don’t close far enough, you don’t get where you need to be, and there it is. And then a couple scramble plays were big factors in the game on 3rd down.
Q. Put this season in perspective, what this team has done, and some of the guys you’ll be losing from this squad, what they’ve meant to your program.
COACH BOB STOOPS: They’re great kids, young men. I told the seniors in there I’m just incredibly proud of them. I thought they did a fabulous job this entire year of the attitude of our team, the way we took the field. The attitude throughout the whole season could not have been much better. I was incredibly pleased. I told them I was proud of them, and they’re on to other things as seniors. But they did a great job for us and represented Oklahoma great.
Q. I wonder if you’d just would talk about Sam’s performance tonight, a couple tough-luck picks that maybe were big plays for you guys.
COACH BOB STOOPS: Yeah, but Tim Tebow had a couple of turnovers, too. When you’re playing good teams, it’s going to happen. I don’t fault him, the one down on 3rd down. Manny has his hands on that ball. And to Manny’s defense, it’s contested. It’s just one of those things, the ball shoots up in the air. If the ball shoots down, we’re good. That’s just the way it goes. The same thing with the ball that’s intercepted down there. Juaquin has his hands on it, too, and the other guy has it, and they end up coming down and as they fall, he gets a better grip on the ball and there it is.
You’re in competitive games with other good teams, you’re going to have those plays, and they didn’t go our way.
Q. You probably felt like you should be leading at half. What were your thoughts? And what did you say to your club?
COACH BOB STOOPS: Well, just that we were positive at halftime, that offensively we were moving the football. We’ve been good all year in the red zone. We’ve been great all year in the red zone. We’ll have opportunities, let’s take advantage of them in the second half and just be positive. You know, those were big factors in the game, though, being down in the red zone in those two occasions or three occasions and end up with nothing.
Q. I was just wondering your comment on how Chris Brown played tonight?
COACH BOB STOOPS: Chris always plays great. I thought he did really well tonight. I don’t know what he ended up with. Do you have it there?
Q. I know it was about 35 yards receiving, about 110 rushing.
COACH BOB STOOPS: Yeah, Chris is a great player. Great feel, great feet in the hole, great patience, and he was great tonight. I thought he did an excellent job.
Q. Can you talk about the frustration of another Bowl loss, just a chance to end all that?
COACH BOB STOOPS: No, everyone will have their opinions on it; that’s fine. In the end, I’ll be glad to try it again next year. If that’s the biggest burden I have to bear in my life, I’ll be a pretty lucky guy. We’ll do our best to be trying again next year, and we’ll keep going after them, if it’s all the same to everybody else.
Q. Play of Jermaine Gresham tonight, seemed like he had a really good game.
COACH BOB STOOPS: Again, you’re talking about a great player for us, great hands, great ability to get away from people, and he did. I thought he had another excellent game tonight.
Q. Early on it seemed to be a lot of stoppages, whether it be a replay or it seemed the officials were out of sync —
COACH BOB STOOPS: I thought so, too. I thought they had clock issues, they waved off a flag. Anyway, whatever. It interrupted play quite a bit.
Q. Did Jermaine get hurt on that play where he fell out of bounds at the five or six? Because you didn’t have him in on that pass that was tipped and intercepted.
COACH BOB STOOPS: I couldn’t answer that. I don’t know if he was or not.
JOHN HUMENIK: Thank you, Bob, for your cooperation all week.