Little Caesars Pizza Bowl Post-Game Quotes

Western Michigan Coach Bill Cubit

"I don't know what to tell you.  You go out there and the kids' effort was unbelievable.  What our kids did, despite all the stuff we did, we ignored the kicking game which has been really solid.  We had two onsides against us and the kickoff return.  Alex (Carder) has been really good not throwing some of those picks and he picked a tough day.   Give (Purdue) a lot of credit.  Effort-wise, when we stopped them at the end I thought we would walk out of here with the trophy and everyone would be happy.  I thought we showed a lot of heart.   I want to thank Ken (Hoffman) and his staff.  It was a great experience.  We'll be back real soon."

On going for it instead of kicking a FG early in the game

"He (Alex Carder) is such an instinctive-type guy, he had so much confidence out there that he thought we could get that thing done.  You have to score a lot of points and that's what I thought we had to do.  On the 4th-and-1, you think your kids are going to go get it and you have a lot of confidence in your kids.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't work.  Unfortunately, neither one of those decisions worked out there.  I still thought we were going to win out there.  That's just the way we play football.  We go after it, we go at it 100 miles per hour.  We rev it up and go and see what happens."

(on the two onside kicks against WMU)

"The guy just froze.  The first one I think what he was looking at was it wasn't going to go 10 yards.  He wanted to get away from it.  All the sudden it took kind of an odd bounce. The second one I think he tried to attack it, he just didn't get it.  These kids are doing everything they can to win the game.  Nobody does it on purpose."

(on the defense being on the field for over 21 minutes in the first half)

"With the two onside kicks, I thought that really hurt us because at that point there, you sit there offensively and say now we have to hold the clock and try to help (the defense) out a little but they never got a break in the first half.  I thought that was part of it.  You try to get them all the fluids.  But everyone thinks its December so all the sudden the game is not going to be that hot.  But, you are playing indoors and it's going to be hot and it was."