Postgame Quotes: Michigan 38, #18 Notre Dame 34
9/12/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
Michigan Head Coach Rich Rodriguez
On the game ... "It was a great ballgame. Some big time plays by both teams. I'm glad we came out on top. Wow, I've been in a few games like this, but this thing you can almost sense it was going to go down to the last play, and it did. It was a game that we could never get comfortable, because they were moving the ball. [Jimmy] Clausen made some tremendous throws. They've got some big time receivers. I was worried about their running game, because I think so much of Armando Allen. Our guys hung in there. In the first half, we didn't play well, but we were still in the game. We just thought if we could get some possessions and make them play a little bit, then maybe conditioning would be a factor. Thankfully in the second half, we had a few more plays."
On defensive play in the second half ... "Two things happened. We made some adjustments defensively, and the other thing is that we got our offense on the field. The whole second quarter, our defense had to play, and then we scored on the kickoff return so they were right back out there. We talked about it quite a bit on offense that we had to get some plays and some rhythm to give our defense rest. When they got a little air underneath them, so to speak, they made some adjustments and did a great job in the second half."
On Tate Forcier's poise in the last drive ... "I've really seen it the last four weeks; it's all really since he's been here. He's kind of a unique individual. Everything around him may be going crazy, and yet he's still calm in the middle of the storm. Some guys have that quality and he's one of them. A lot of guys make some plays for him, and I was proud of the way he hung in there."
Notre Dame Head Coach Charlie Weis
On his message to the team ... "They win together, and they lose together. There were plenty of opportunities on offense, defense and special teams to win that game. We can't pout and say we should have won the game. We had a chance to close it out on offense and on defense. But we gave up a home run on special teams. Basically it's time to say where you're going from here."
On Notre Dame's last offensive drive ... "We ran it first of all and then we ran again. But what they decided to do after that first run was load up the box and not let us do that. We saw that on the second run. They had a change of mentality, and they weren't just going to sit back there and let us run the ball. So we went to a quick, three-step drop -- the same pass we had been hitting all day. But then we threw an incomplete pass, and now it's third-and-long. So then you have two choices -- you run the ball just to make them use their timeouts or you try and win the game. When it got to the third-down call, we threw the ball over to the right-hand side over to Shaquelle Evans, and we were just a little off on it. He was open, and we had an opportunity to pick up that first down and try to run it out from there."
On the last play of the game ... "The plan was to try to get the ball to about midfield and get out of bounds so we could take a shot at the end zone. Of course [Golden Tate] could have fallen down and we have one timeout left, so of course I'm yelling, 'Get down, get down.' But as an athlete in that situation he's thinking that he might have a chance to take it to the house right there. It's just one of those situations that you practice. If you have one second left you have a jump-ball play and try to throw the ball into the end zone because we had a timeout left that we were trying to spend right there. The clock runs out -- there was zero or one second left and you're not going to get that with it being so close."
