Nov. 3, 2008
Recap | Final Stats | Notes
Head coach George O'Leary
On overall performance
"What can you say, we had our opportunities and we came up short. As far as the game is concerned, I thought the players gave good effort. They did some good things. The execution in the fourth quarter hurt us, and the ball security. That was the difference in the game. It was a good win for ECU and a tough loss (for UCF). You can't turn the ball over like we did at the end and expect to still win the game. I thought the kids still went out and played extremely hard. It is a tough loss and we will have to regroup with a short week and get ready for the next game."
On the offense in the second half
"ECU didn't change anything (on defense). It was more of a lack of execution. We dropped some passes you have to catch. Those are first downs. I think our margin of error on offense is very small, and when we have opportunities to make plays we have to make them. "
On quarterback Michael Greco's overall play
"I thought first half he did some good things. Second half I think there were some balls dropped. Again there were some critical plays out there that involved him that you would like to see him make some better decisions on. The more experience he can get, the better he will be."
On the interception in overtime
"It was a go route. The guy sat there and Kamar (Aiken) was right, and Mike (Greco) was wrong. Kamar just ran by the guy and it would have been a touchdown. A hitch was called and a conversion off of that based on the coverage."
On defense's performance
"Defensively we played well against a good East Carolina team. Offense has to get something done to help them out and we didn't get that accomplished."
On recovering from a tough loss
"It is tough. As I told them, we play Saturday. I think a lot of the kids played their hearts out and we have to regroup. Hopefully that is where your senior leadership comes in and really takes charge of your team. We have a lot of young players and a lot of positions that need to understand that you line up each and every weekend, that it is a 12-game season and each week is another season. I would expect our senior leadership to help us in that area."
On closing out close games
"I think it comes with maturity. I see our defense playing very solid, and I have been pleased with the way that they have acted. They have been out there in situations where they have been playing well enough to win games. That is why it is a team game. All three phases have to play well as in offense, defense and special teams. Right now we just didn't execute as well as you would like to see them execute. You just have to continue on. We have four games left and each one is important because they are (Conference USA) Eastern Division foes. We will just go from there."