University of Tennessee Athletics
Postgame Quotes
October 03, 2004 | Football
Oct. 2, 2004
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TENNESSEE QUOTES
Auburn vs. Tennessee
Oct. 2, 2004
Head Coach Phillip Fulmer: "This was obviously a disappointing loss. Hats off to Auburn. They did a really good job. I take full responsibility for this loss. I didn't do a good enough job getting this team ready. If you give up five turnovers, you're probably going to get beat. If you give up that many big plays, you're probably going to get beat. We'll put this one behind us as fast as we can, but learn our lessons. [Carnell Williams and Ronnie Brown] are really good. Jason Campbell and his receiving corps did a really fine job. [Auburn has] done a good job of not asking [Campbell] to do a lot of things. We played the run pretty well for the most part, and he made us pay. There just was no continuity - nothing happening for us on offense all day. I would have liked to establish the run early and throw off the play-action pass."
LB Kevin Burnett: "We made too many mistakes tonight. It's not hard to run an offense from the 35-yard line going in. Your chances of scoring are 65-70 percent from right there. [Auburn] came out and took advantage of our mistakes."
OT Michael Munoz: "Field position is huge. When we give up the ball and they're starting on our side of the field, it's easy to score. We've got to learn from this game. [Auburn] handed it to us tonight, but we'll feed off of that. [Auburn has] a great defense - always swarming to the ball and playing hard. They fought hard and played the whole game. Tonight, they were the better team."
On what the team leaders said to the freshmen QBs: "You can't hang your head. Come back and learn from your mistakes. It's a long season. This was one game. We've got a long way to go. We still control our own destiny."
DB Jason Allen: "We shot ourselves in the foot. We made a lot of mistakes, not to take anything away from Auburn because they're a great team. You're young the first ball game, but from then on it's an excuse. We're not going to do that."
WR Jayson Swain: "We beat ourselves. We had six turnovers. They're a good team. You can't make mistakes. When you play a good team like Auburn you have to execute every time. Tonight we got it handed to us. We want to see them again when it counts [SEC championship game]. We had chances but chances don't mean anything without points."
OG Rob Smith: "It's tough to get behind. I wish I would have played a little better. We've still got to pick each other up and be there for each other. They're a good team, and we didn't come out ready to beat them. They're definitely tough physically. If things go right, we may get to play them again [SEC championship game]."
AUBURN QUOTES
Auburn vs. Tennessee
Oct. 2, 2004
Comments of Auburn head coach Tommy Tuberville: "That was one heck of a performance in all phases of the game. I thought we dominated both sides of the ball.
"I had heard about how good their quarterbacks were, but I wouldn't trade either one of them of them for ours. e controlled the crowd. He did an outstanding job with his mental preparation. He executed, particularly ner the end of the half.
"It was a tremendous effort y the team. We bent, but didn't break. They're a good football team.
"I thought we came to play. We got better and stronger with each snap. We kept our composure and focus. I thought we were mentally and physically ready.
"Jason doesn't make mistakes. He was tough. We hadn't decided about letting him check off and decided to go with it Thursday.
"We wanted to get Ronnie Brown the ball more, in or out of the backfield. He has the best hands on the team. They've been keying on Carnell.
"Our offensive coaches did a great job. Junior Rosegreen is a gamer and is confident. I didn't know he had four. I don't think we had four all last year. It's fun to see Junior have success.
"This makes our next conference game more important. We'll get better next week and push them through nit. This is a good start and we'll play them one at a time. We'll have our hands full next week. We'll get better and play our game."
Jason Campbell QB: "Coming into the first half we knew it was very important coming on the road to get off to a fast start, especially at a place like Tennessee with their record crowd. We knew it was going to be loud. The main thing we wanted to do offensively and defensively is to make plays and get their crowd out of the game."
"We saw some opportunities to get some deep balls, especially with our speed on the outside, and then trying to use Ronnie Brown out of the backfield. I think we did a good job of creating problems for them by mixing it up."
Junior Rosegreen SS: We knew that if we contained Brent Schaeffer that we would be alright. We knew with (Erik) Ainge that we had to put pressure on him because he has a good arm. We wanted to get after Ainge because he was talking trash all week long in the paper and that hurt us. And we knew he signed a big check that we knew he couldn't cash. We had to make sure he couldn't cash that check."
Comments about the four interceptions: "My daddy had been telling me all week that there would be opportunities for me to make some big plays tonight. And I just went out there and made them. He was showing us where he was throwing the ball and that gave me the chance to make a jump on the ball and I made the plays. I was telling everybody before the game that I was going to get three, and when I got two, they kept telling me I could get another one, and I did."
Carnell Williams RB: "We never expected this. It was overwhelming. They have a nice atmosphere here. It is a nice stadium, the fans and "Rocky Top," and it all just made for a great atmosphere. We just came out and played a heck of a football game tonight. Last year we had never dealt with the hype like we had, but this year I think we are more prepared. You can't worry about the rankings and things like that. You have to go and prove it. We know every Saturday that we have to come out and play."
Marcus McNeill LT: "It is always nice to go on the road and get a win. You know Tennessee does not lose too many games here at home. So for us to come up here and get a victory on Tennessee is big. That was one of the things that we had on our list of objectives to come up here and do, and we accomplished that.
Devin Aromashodu WR: "We really just wanted to come out and execute our game plan and try and score early. We knew this being an away game that we wanted to execute our game plan early, and just try and stay in the game and execute. We knew we could be effective against their man-to-man because they could not key on us because of our running game with Carnell and Ronnie. So we just tried to make plays when we could on the outside."
