Courtesy: Appalachian State Athletics
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RAYCOM MEDIA CAMELLIA BOWL POST-GAME QUOTES
Appalachian State Head Coach Scott Satterfield
Opening Statement
“First of all, I tip my hat off to the University of Toledo and coach Candle and his staff. We knew they were an outstanding football team. We knew that coming in and it proved to be true on the football field. They have some great athletes. The quarterback is outstanding. The running back is a great player. We knew that coming in so I just give my hats off to those guys. They’re a really outstanding football team.
“I’m really proud of our guys. We have so much fight and so much integrity in our football team. They do things right on and off the field and I think you can’t win close games like this if you don’t do things right on and off the field. They believe in each other. Our whole motto this year on our bracelets is we ride together. Everything that we do, we do together. Whether we win or we lose, we’re going to do it together. I’m just so proud of those guys. We’re giving game balls to our seniors because of what they’ve been through. Our fifth-year guys won the Southern Conference five years ago and now they’re Sun Belt champions and two-time Camellia Bowl champions. What they’ve been able to do, they transitioned us. Maybe the most successful team in the history of a transition to FBS with what we’ve been able to do the last two years. I’m so proud of them and our coaching staff, everybody that’s involved with our program from the top to the bottom. From our chancellor, to our athletic director, to our coaches. All the way down through. We all pull in the same direction. You can’t have success like we’ve had if you don’t do that. It’s imperative that you all pull in the same direction. Our support staff, our equipment, our trainer, our strength staff, our video staff. Everybody’s pulling in the same direction. We don’t have any egos. People want to know why we’ve been so successful. That’s why. I’m so proud of this group and this organization. It’s been a long season; it’s been a long three weeks and I’m a little bit tired right now.
On team bouncing back after Toledo big plays:
“Every time we scored, they would answer. That’s the mark of a champion. That’s the mark of a great team and they were able to do that. When we returned the kickoff back, I said ‘now we got the lead back.’ Then they marched right back down and scored again. It was really a wild game, a very entertaining game for the fans, and for ESPN and everybody watching the game. It was a great college football game. When it comes down to the end like that, it takes the small things to win. Our kids never quit, never gave up. The great thing about it is we always were on top. I don’t think we trailed at any point, so that was good. We were always on top, then they would answer and we would have to go back and answer again. That back-and-forth kind of game. We’ve been in some tight games this year and we’ve been able to win most of them. I’m just proud of the resiliency our guys showed.
On kicker Michael Rubino:
“He’s come a long way this season. Our first game against Tennessee, we missed an extra point and we missed a field goal in that game. He’s come a long way. He’s continued to work just like the other kids in our program. They keep working. We don’t give up on them. They keep working. He came out here tonight in pregame and kicked the ball beautifully. That right there to win the game with a 39-yard field goal, under 40, I don’t think he missed this year. He’s perfect under 40 and I’m really proud of him for that. We were down there the drive before and we tried the fake. We thought we had it looking at the way they lined up on us. We’re an aggressive program and we’re always going to keep pressing. We went for it on fourth down maybe three or four times. You’ve got to be aggressive if you want to win close ballgames. I was proud of Michael to come back and make that kick. That was awesome. Then our defense held up good enough. They didn’t get in the end zone and had to kick the field goal, wide right.”
On energy this year:
It was different this year. It was a clean ballgame. There wasn’t the turnovers that we had last year really out of both teams. Both teams took care of the football. We’ve been excellent this year at taking care of the football. I think we finished number one in the Sun Belt in turnover margin. One of the reasons why we’ve been successful. It was a different feel this time, but I think because we never got behind, we always felt we were right there. Even if that guy would have made it, I felt good about it because we had about two minutes on the clock to go back down and kick another field goal to win the game. I loved the game. It was a fun game. It was a back-and-forth game. It was exciting. I enjoyed this one because we never were behind. You can enjoy those when you’re not behind.”
On Taylor Lamb rushing:
“We thought coming into the game that we’d have the opportunity to run our quarterback. In that league, there’s not many offenses that run the quarterback, which we do. Taylor’s a very effective runner in our run game. I didn’t know he’d have this much success. He was very effective in the run game, broke off some big runs, some big first down runs throughout the game. The touchdown run was huge. He’s one tough cookie. He got hit hard tonight several times. I love when he broke off that big run and he jumped right up and got our crowd going.
That’s awesome. That kind of stuff right there is what gets your team going. You don’t see our quarterbacks in the history of our school slide. We don’t slide. That’s the toughness we have and this guy right here is as tough as all of them. It’s unbelievable what he was able to do. Our kids feed off of that. That’s what leaders do. That’s why he’s a winner and that’s why the record that we have right now is because of guys like Taylor and the rest of the guys. They’re so resilient. They refuse to lose. I’m really proud of him and the rest of the guys.”
On matchup with Toledo tight end:
“I’m just glad they quit throwing the ball to him. He’s hard to defend. What a big target. You saw that in the first half when he caught the touchdown. We had two guys on him. He just swatted them off and ran into the end zone. He’s an outstanding player. They have a lot of players. Their quarterback is really good and they have some skill kids that can run. Number four can run. He reminded me of the guy at Akron, the slot receiver Akron has. And then the running back, he’s an outstanding player. Really proud of Marcus too. Marcus going over 5,000 yards for his career, going over 1,000 yards. We had two 1,000 yard rushers in a season. That’s outstanding. Jalin Moore, he’s tough too. I think he went over 1,400 yards for the season.”
On if he ever rushed for 126 yards as a quarterback:
“I probably did. I was more of a running quarterback. Don’t look at my passing stats because they were awful. I was a little more of a running quarterback. Taylor’s trying to catch me though. He keeps on running like that, he’ll pass me easy.”
On kickoff return:
“He was really, really close all year. Akron game kind of showed what he could do. He is a great human being. I love him. He doesn’t say two words, ever, at practice or anything. He just keeps working. For him to take that, what a huge play in the game for a true freshman in his first bowl game, first time here to take a kickoff back the distance for a touchdown. The future is bright for Darrynton Evans. We’re going to find ways to get him the football. He gets in our offseason program, he’s going to be so much better next year. I love the kind of person he is. I love what he stands for.”
On John Law:
“John Law. He played tonight. He played awesome tonight. We always talk about in our program how are you going to finish and what are you going to be remembered for. Well this is what John Law is going to be remembered for. How he finished tonight in this bowl game. He was hitting tonight. He didn’t get to play in last year’s bowl game, so he was so pumped and excited. He’s finally fresh. Over the last three weeks, he’s gotten healed up. He wanted to lay it all out there and he did tonight. I’m so proud of John. I love him, his family, and what he stands for as well. He’s a guy that’s got the three rings. SoCon championship, Sun Belt championship, and two Camellia Bowls. What a great leader for our program.”
On overall season:
“When we set out this season, our goals were to number one win the Sun Belt, number two to get to a bowl and win the bowl. We pretty much did everything we set out to do this year. We got double digit wins again. Back-to-back double digit wins. Back-to-back Camellia Bowl champions. I don’t know what else you can do. We did about all we could do this year. It was unbelievable. What’s great about this is in our program right now, we got a lot of great players coming back. Our defense is going to be outstanding next year. We got our running back. We got our quarterback. All our receivers are back except for Jaquil. We’re going to be really good again next year. This right here is going to snowball into recruiting. We’ve already got a great class committed right now if we can hang onto them. We’ve got to get a few more that’ll come to us in February. It’s going to continue to snowball and we’re going to bring in some great student-athletes in this next class and have a great offseason and we can’t wait for Georgia. That’s our first game next year. We’re excited about it.”
RAYCOM MEDIA CAMELLIA BOWL POST-GAME QUOTES
Appalachian State Quarterback Taylor Lamb, Bart Starr MVP Award Winner, on if he was disappointed when Marcus Cox went past him in yardage late on the game:
“No, I just wanted yards. I wanted a first down. It’s easy to hand it off to Marcus Cox, Jalin Moore and those guys. That makes my job easier.”
On play where he got the crowd into the game:
“It was a third-and-long. We had a QB draw on. They had a light box. They had a five-man box, so we could block them all. I stepped back and I just tried to find a hole through there, and all their guys were in pass coverage. We did a good job of blocking up that linebacker and I just got down the field and I felt the energy from the crowd. The turning point in the game was that because it was third-and-long and I tried to pump up the crowd and get the guys going.”
On why he didn’t slide at the end of the play:
“I don’t like sliding. You can get more yards when you’re going forward. Sliding is kind of going backwards.”
On picking up leadership left behind by this year’s seniors:
“They make it easy to pick it up. They’ve done a great job of leading this team all through their career. Learning from Marcus (Cox) and John (Law) on how to lead a team, what things to do to lead a team to get the guys focused. They left it in a great spot for our senior class to step up.”
On touchdown keeper on fourth down:
“We were reading it and all 11 guys on defense went to Marcus (Cox). I just went around the edge and there was nobody in sight.”
On Toledo continuing to come back:
“That’s a great Toledo team. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy. It was going to be a four-quarter battle. I think we embraced that. We’ve embraced it all year. The Akron game, we embraced it. You just got to play those four quarters and I think our defense did a great job shutting them down there in the second half. We went down there and should’ve scored a couple touchdowns, but we only got three points out of it. That’s kind of frustrating, but we’re the champs.”
On offensive lineman Parker Collins:
“Parker’s a guy that you want on your team, not the other team. Sometimes. His penalties kind of hurt. I try to calm him down out there, but he doesn’t listen very well. He’s a very emotional leader on our offensive line that we’ll miss next year. It will be a hard gap to fill. Parker Collins is one of a kind.”
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