WMU at CMU - Post-Game Quotes

Head Coach Bill Cubit

Q: Coach, how did you prepare your players for this week's game?

A: "We talked all week long about leaving a legacy. The kids came out and I am so proud of them. We talked about adversity all week long and our kids definitely showed it today. Obviously, this game is so important not just to us but for the fans and everyone associated with the University. I can't express how happy and proud I am of how our kids played today. There were a lot of times where things all of a sudden weren't going our way but we just counted on these guys to get key stops and make big plays. Tyler (Van Tubbergen) did a great job all day getting the ball where it needed to be. The way Tyler and (Eric) Monette played is a great example of how you need to step up for big games like this. We talked about establishing legacies and the way those guys played is how you do it. "

Q: Can you tell me about the tempo changes during the third and fourth quarter and how you guys finished the game strong?

A: "We tried to shorten the game a little in the third quarter because we lost a few guys, but, in the fourth quarter, we went to the four-wide and five-wide sets and I thought that really helped us out late in the game."

Q: Tell us what Central did that made this win such a grind today

 A: "I thought that they did a great job offensively. They were moving the ball very well. They had no problem moving the chains on us. I though that their kicking game was pretty strong too. They have a great kicker and luckily we were able to get a block. I thought the block was a big moment early in the game that helped us get things going."

CENTRAL MICHIGAN

Head Coach Dan Enos

Opening statement

"First off, you want to just say congratulations to Western. They did a good job, and made more plays than we did, but ultimately I thought we had a lot of chances to win the game. As you look back on it, you are going to see some dropped passes in the first half in the red zone that resulted in a missed field goal and a field goal attempt, and you are going to see our inability to get a stop in the fourth quarter probably as the keys to the game. I thought our guys played with great effort and there was an unfortunate fumble on the kickoff. We would have had the ball on the 50-yardline, first and ten. We were moving the ball and felt good. I though that Ryan Radcliff played outstanding and thought for the most part our offense played very well, but obviously inconsistent in the red zone. Back to work tomorrow."

Q: Your defense was very good in first and third quarter, why do you think it was such an up and down day?

A: "Well I think their offense was good. I think they played well and made plays. That's been kind of the story of our defense the entire season. We play well in spurts but we don't play consistently well. As soon as we lose momentum a little bit, we seem to take a step back. We have to continue to work on that but, when you are playing young guys, that has a tendency to happen.

Q: Titus (Davis) had a career day, was he a first option more today? Can you talk about this performance?

A: No, Ryan (Radcliff) can tell you, we don't force feed the ball to anybody in this offense. When we call a play, there are options. The quarterback has to be really smart. He has to understand what he is doing and it just so happened today there was a lot of man coverage. We thought they couldn't hold up on him and it turned out to be true. So, what we did is we had more down-the-field routes to Titus this week based on all the man-coverage and everything we saw. I thought Ryan did a good job of finding him and I thought our offensive line did a good job of giving him protection. But I know Titus is also going to look at it and say he had two drops in the end zone too and those were crucial. We expect a player of his ability and his caliber to make those catches and he will continue to work next week but Titus is capable of doing that every week.

Q: Coach, it seems like you had all three phases of the game working today but still came up short. Could you talk about that?

A: Well, it's frustrating. We are still not where we need to be on defense. We're not there because they had 500 yards of offense and scored 40 points. So, when you get in games and we're scoring 31 points, 38 points, 34 points, we've got to start winning some of these games. That's the frustrating part because when our defense was playing well, they're pretty good, but we have too many lapses and we gave up too many explosive plays.