Golden blames players execution; players disappointed Golden with their play:
Miami head coach Al Golden:
Opening statement:
We’re obviously disappointed in the outcome of the game. The kids played hard. We made some mistakes that we couldn’t overcome. Obviously, the two missed field goals early hurt us. At the end of the day, give South Carolina a lot of credit. They made some explosive plays that obviously changed the game for them. They converted a touchdown after a turnover there, which I think were the only points they had in the second half. I’m not disappointed in our fight and resolve and the way the guys went after it just disappointed in some of the execution and penalties we had hampered us.
On how team rallied to come be competitive at I-Bowl:
They played hard; they practiced hard. Going through the bowl experience this week, a lot of guys mentioned how much they learned from a year ago going forward and we had a lot of maturity. We had good focus and good practices. A lot of the younger guys here brought that energy you’re talking about. We had a lot of guys play here tonight. We didn’t play well enough to win but we played hard.
On ending to Duke Johnson’s career:
Duke played really hard. Again, he’s a competitor. I just wanted to see all of those guys go out with a win.
On change of momentum on Gamecocks’ 78-yard touchdown pass:
We were playing really good defense. We had a post player that was over rotated and wasn’t where he needed to be. If you’re in position, you tackle him and live to fight another day and we didn’t do that. We gave up an easy one there. The same thing on the other one towards their sideline. You can’t give up explosive plays.
On when realized Duke Johnson fumble was being reviewed:
It was late. Not that we weren’t caught off guard because it took a long time. Give South Carolina credit. We needed a stop there. I couldn’t tell you what transpired there. I didn’t see it. Obviously, I didn’t have a good look at the replay. It didn’t seem like it was going to go our way because the length of the review.
On if it feels like a 6-7 season:
We are what our record is. In so many ways we’re better than that. This is a team that runs the ball really well. I thought we defended the run so much better tonight. We got to be better; we’ve got to improve in all facets but at the same time so many kids have grown even during this bowl practice. Our quarterback is going to be so much better from this whole process.
On translating experience on the field:
I have no doubt about it. It will. We’ll go back to work tomorrow. If we came out here and laid down, I would have been concerned about a lot of different things but we had so many guys that fought. We were down at halftime. Things weren’t going our way. Guys had the resolve to come back and fight and keep competing. At the end of the day, with three timeouts and the way our defense played in the second half, I made a decision to kick it deep. I thought we could stop them. Clearly, we gave up five or six yards right off the bat on an out route. Again, I think we’ll learn a lot from this and our confidence will translate especially having a quarterback that meant to much to this entire season.
On Independence Bowl experience:
It’s really hard to ask me in the state I’m in right now but as I said, we’re very grateful to the people of Shreveport and the entire experience our organization had; how kind everybody was to us and how our guy’s operated. They made it a pleasure from the hotel to practice facilities, everything. I really feel like we grew so much as a team this week; just disappointed we came up three points short.
