FLORIDA COACH URBAN MEYER
“I learned today that I might be a young coach,
but I’ve just got to eat this loss and go in and
watch the film tomorrow morning. That team in
red was much more prepared than the team in
orange.”
“The first three series set the tone for the game.
We didn’t execute well enough and we crumbled
early.”
“Croyle’s passes were right on the dot. He’s an
NFL quarterback and he played like it, too.
Fifteen of 18 for 286 yards are very good
numbers.”
“We are a man coverage team and we were
exposed. We lost a lot of one on one battles.
They are a very fast team. They looked a lot
faster than we did today.”
FLORIDA PLAYERS
Brandon Siler:
“We expect to win and when that (the loss)
happens, it’s real tough on all of us. It’s hard.
You play so hard and practice so hard and it
don’t come out. You don’t know what happened.
It was a couple of miscues, but we’ll find out.”
“We don’t expect to lose. We never expect to
play as bad as we did.”
Chris Leak:
On Alabama’s Defense:
“Alabama is definitely a great team and they
played great today. We tried to come out and
play and they did a great job.”
“Their D-line did a great job of getting up when
our line would cut. They did a great job getting
their hands up.”
On Alabama’s Offense:
“Credit to Alabama coaching staff, they did a
great job of executing and taking advantage of
their opportunities.”
On getting behind early:
“We can’t have that. We got pinned back early
and we can’t do that.”
On play in the SEC:
“When you play in the SEC you’re going to
have to play against great teams, and they just
played great.”
Jeremy Mincey:
“We didn’t play well. We could have played a
lot better. We just had a bad game, that’s it. I
wouldn’t say we were talking trash though.”
On what he thought the problems in Florida’s
defense might have been:
“Our field position. Our back was against the
wall the whole game. They took advantage of
that. Our team knows what we need to work on.
They’re a talented team but we could have and
should have won.”
ALABAMA HEAD COACH MIKE SHULA
“Obviously this is a big win for us, watching our
football team get off to such a good start, our
defense holding their offense, keeping them
backed up. Unfortunately we had the fumble on
the punt return. Our defense came right back out
and stopped them from moving the ball. The big
play right away from Brodie (Croyle), it started
with our protection. He was able to hit Prothro. It
is something you work on a lot in practice and all
of a sudden it was there. We just have to execute
it that way. It just got us off to a great start.
Things went our way early. We got a couple of
batted balls; the second Chris Harris got the ball
and almost scored himself. But it got us in there
and we were able to cash in and the momentum
never left. I’m proud of our players for the way
they prepared and the way they played.
I would hate not to mention the way our crowd
was into the game. Our players feed off that. The
crowd gets you going early but it’s up to us to
keep it going. We did that today.
Every win is big. But to win games against
ranked teams, most are ranked in SEC, is bigger
because it’s later in the season and we’re
undefeated. (Florida) is a talented football team.
There were questions with how we would match
up but we answered some of those questions
today.
ON OPENING SECOND HALF WITH TD
We’ve been a good second half team so far. We
got the ball and made couple of big plays and got
it into scoring position and it was just another
good job on third down there when Brodie
(Croyle) went to (Tyrone) Prothro against bump-
and-run coverage and that helped take a little
more wind out of their sails.
ON ALABAMA’S DEFENSE
We talked to the defensive line about how
important it would be to rush the passer but also
stop the run up inside to allow a lot of our
linebackers to do nice job and not over pursue
because they can get you in so many ways when
you start over pursing on their misdirection. with
the talent that they have and I think that was big
keys for us on defense.
ON TYRONE PROTHRO
Prothro has open fracture on both bones, tibia
and fibula. He’ll probably miss rest of the
season. It leaves you with empty feeling to see
the nature of the injury. My heart goes out to
him. He’s been a big impact in every game, even
if he doesn’t touch the ball. It was good to see
him have a great game but sad to see the injury.
ALABAMA PLAYERS
#12 Brodie Croyle, quarterback
On beating a Top five team in Tuscaloosa:
“It was big it was definitely big. This is all we
talked about all week. We made history. This
had never been done in Bryant-Denny before,
beating a top five team. We fully expected to
come in and handle business.”
On the fans:
“It was loud, probably the loudest it has ever
been. It seemed like every situation in the game
they had a reason to cheer. It was a fun
atmosphere to play in. All week it’s been crazy
around here.”
On setting the new career passing touchdowns
record:
“It’s nice. It was a fun way to get it against
Florida. But I am not concerned about records.
If I get them, I get them. If I don’t, I don’t. As
long as we win football games, I don’t care if I
throw for 120 yards or 330 yards.”
On losing Tyrone Prothro to injury:
“His family is in our prayers. It was a tough
deal. I know what he is going through and I told
him that it is not the end of the world.”
# 35 DeMeco Ryans, linebacker
“Our plan was to keep pressure on Leak. We’ve
seen him get sacked in previous games. We did
a great job disguising so that he didn’t know
where we were coming from.”
“Our fans were fantastic today. They were the
12th man today on defense. They kept us
pumped up.”
“We’ve come a long way. There have been ups
and downs. The seniors stepped up and said that
we are going to put Alabama on the top when we
leave. We just try to keep focused on each game
and not get to far ahead.”
# 34 Kenneth Darby, running back
“We came in as the underdog, everybody was
against us from what we had read and seen. Our
focus was to come in here and get a big win. It
meant a lot to us and a lot to our program.”
“We knew the corners like to press. It was like
they were challenging us to see what our
receivers can do. That opened up the passing
game.”
“We are well prepared for every game. We were
just more locked in and focused because this was
a big game. We knew what they liked to do.”
Quotes courtesy of UA Sports Info.