Postgame Press Conference
Texas Tech vs. North Dakota
North Dakota Quotes
September 5, 2009
North Dakota Head Coach Chris Mussman
On whether the team executed tonight:
“Well, the thing I told our team throughout the game was to compete. They were not intimidated by the atmosphere. They weren’t intimidated by the quality opponent they were facing. They just went out there and just worked hard every snap. That is really all a coach can ask no matter who they are playing.”
On his secondary containing Tech’s offense:
“We knew our secondary would be tested, but it is his (Tech quarterback Taylor Potts) first start. Joel made three great plays on the ball. I don’t know if he saw the safety over the top, but the one on their sideline was unbelievable. I was pretty proud of today of our secondary. We’ve only got one senior in the bunch, and we rotate a lot of guys in and out of there. Like everyone else, they played pretty awesome.”
On the game atmosphere:
“It was great. I loved it. We walked out of the tunnel, and we were getting harassed. They had all these kids lined up on the side dressed in black that spelled “A Boy Named Sioux.” I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I know our players had a great time.”
Defensive back Kris Ankenbauer
On the team’s performance tonight:
“We just came out focused on playing our game. We have to take care what
we can control and just come out and see what happens. We played our
hearts out. You have to give Texas Tech all the credit in the world.
They are definitely a BCS team. They came out and showed it tonight. We
just wanted to come out, compete and show them that we belong on the
same field.”
On rotating defenses and throwing different stuff at Texas Tech:
“We were just rotating. We have a lot of guys with experience, we got a
lot of guys who are confident that can take care of business. We just
wanted keep fresh legs out there so we rotated in and kept fresh legs
and really I think it helped us in the third and fourth quarter.”
Kicker Brandon Hellevang
On the team’s performance tonight:
“The game was announced before the season last year and I remember some
of our practices being more exciting for this game than I was for even
that first game last year. It has been something that obviously, for a
lot of us that came in five years ago, a Division II program, playing in
a stadium like this was not even a thought. This was another level, this
was something we watched on TV and that was it. To have the opportunity
to play in a place like this is just phenomenal. I think all of us,
especially the seniors, we took it upon ourselves to step up and kind of
be like we’re the D-II products, the D-II recruits and prove that ‘hey
we’ve got some recruits here’ and show what our talents are at the D-II
level here but here at the D-I level.”
On the 52-yard field goal:
“I was not sure if I had enough on it. I got underneath it a little bit
and was just hoping that the wind would keep carrying it.”
Defensive back Joel Schwenzfeier
On what you take away from a game like this
“I think just confidence that we can play with anyone. (We can) light up
a Big 12 team and we stood toe-to-toe with them for a little while.”
On whether he imagined intercepting three passes against a Big 12 team
“No (laughing). You know that it’s real, but you could never imagined
that it would happen. You would like to say that it will happen.”
On whether there was anything he noticed out of Taylor Potts that lead
to the interceptions
“He’s a new quarterback, so he went through his checks and everything,
but you begin to lock in on his receivers. No. 17 (Detron Lewis) is
obviously his main man for reckless sole because he is a good player. I
just locked in on him and read his eyes most of the time.”
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