UCF Head Coach Scott Frost
Opening Statement:
"I don't know what to say about that game. I'm brokenhearted for our kids; they worked their tails off. I told them before the game they were poised and ready to knock off a team very few people thought they could beat. We had our chances in this one and give a ton of credit to Maryland trying to do the same thing we trying to, rebuild a program. I think DJ has done a great job, but we had a lot of chances to finish it, to score early and make it a different game. I'm hurting for our kids that we didn't get it done."
On final throw by McKenzie Milton that was ruled a fumble:
"I think he was trying to throw it away and it slipped out of his hand and when he released it, it went backwards so it's considered a fumble. That's the biggest thing we need to go back on. We're beating ourselves with turnovers - had way too many today. When you have a bunch of young guys playing that's going to happen, but we have to better."
On Milton's first start:
"I got about what I thought from McKenzie. He was calm, cool and a heck of a lot of fun to watch and made a lot of great plays. There were some first game mistakes. Just looking at the first half, we're up seven, gets the ball on the 50 and fumbles on the play. We need to take one of those first half drives and get ahead of [Maryland] and we weren't able to. Ton of great plays but we have to clean up the mistakes."
On if Milton had any first game jitters:
"He doesn't get jitters. I've never once seen him nervous. Maybe on a couple read zones the guys weren't used to him, but we do hundreds and hundreds of reps and have to clean that up."
On the defense:
"Defense did great. I thought they were a lot more sound than they were at Michigan. They hit and ran to the ball as well. There weren't as many breakdowns on defense, not particularly in the pass defense. They're tough team to defend; they have different plays at the line and you have to take care of your assignment. For the most part, we did. The one drive in the third or fourth quarter where the lead changed was the only time they seemed tired. I maybe should have called a timeout there."
UCF Wide Receiver Tre'Quan Smith
On his team's performance following a lost:
"It's never good coming off a lost. You know, of course, everybody was down, but we have to look on the bright side you know. We have to take something from this. We have to execute better. But overall, a lot of teammates were down but we have to cheer each other on because we always got next week."
On feelings in the locker room despite the lost:
"Yeah, very different. Like you said, last year was a very upsetting season. We couldn't compete well. But now, we competed. We showed people that we can compete with Big 10 teams. Only problem today was poor execution. We were basically shooting ourselves in the foot, and we can't do that with a Big 10 team like Maryland."
On McKenzie's performance tonight:
"Well you know he's a freshman, so of course everybody on the offense knows we have to help him and cheer him on and make him feel comfortable. He was well prepared this week you know. He was frustrated because he didn't know what to do some times but we came to him and talked, saying 'calm down its just a game'. We're all brothers, we here, we're here for you whatever you need."
On his chemistry with his QB's:
"I try to build chemistry with all my quarterback's. I tell them, whenever it's a bad pass or a drop ball it's on me, it's always on me. It's never your fault, it's on me. You're doing your job; I'll do my job. I'm going to make you look better. That's my job to make you look better as a quarterback."
UCF Linebacker Demeitre Brim
On how testing it felt to play Maryland:
"Maryland's a good team. We knew they were going to come in and compete and give us a test. We just tried to come up with a game plan to do things to stop what they do, to make them uncomfortable. For the most part I feel like, as whole team, we did that. We had a couple big plays on defense; we had big plays on offense. Overall, we lost, but at the same time, we have a lot to build on and look forward to in the future."
On being fatigued on defense:
"Honestly, we prepare well in practice for the kind of tempo that Maryland runs. I feel like overall we were good, breathing-wise. They just kind of ran plays that we weren't, well we did go over at halftime. We just didn't stick to the game plan and got out of whack for the system. We went over those plays and it just shouldn't have happened. At the same time it's just learning curve that we should have picked up on in the game."
On McKenzie Milton:
"He looked real comfortable. We have a lot of confidence in McKenzie. He came in early in the summer, willing to work and willing to do whatever he needed to do to help this team, whether he played or he didn't. He was always in the film room, trying to get better. As a unit, we were all confident in McKenzie going out there, playing football because we know what he can do."
UCF Quarterback McKenzie Milton
On starting:
"I found out Thursday morning and I was really excited. I mean I love playing football, I love my team. It's exciting."
On confidence:
"I feel like throughout any game you start to get more comfortable as the game went on. That is how I am. We need to start a lot faster coming this week."
On first start support from teammates:
"Yeah, absolutely those guys have my back with full support. They gave me advice when I came to the sideline. They helped me with what might be open. With the couple of mistakes I made they helped me with that. They have been fully supportive."
Coach Frost's words before the game:
"He basically told me to play ball. He told me to go play the game and that is what I try to do every game."
On nerves:
"Of course you have butterflies, it was a packed house in the Bounce House. I don't think I was nervous, but just excited."
On grading his performance:
"I thought I made a couple plays, but I think there were too many turnovers."
Maryland Head Coach D.J. Durkin
Opening Statement
"To go on the road in college football and win games is not easy. I mean, how many upsets were there today elsewhere? We talked about it all week, we believe that was how this game was going to go; not double overtime, but we thought it was going to be a close game. They are talented. Their pride was tested last week. Coming off of that, obviously, their focus was on high alert.
"I'm just so proud of our guys. There were so many times when they had to dig deep. The offense had to pick up the defense and the defense had to pick up the offense, special teams and everything. There was a lot of swings (of momentum) in that game. I think more than anything, when you look at our team we held strong through all of that, to me that's a great sign for us. To me that's not been indicative of what we have done. So that's our first sign of adversity and how we were going to respond and we responded the right way."
How crazy and bizarre was the finish?
"It was wild, that's college football. I think (Tyrrell) Pigrome has ice in his veins. There's nothing big about the moment for him. He stood in the huddle and said 'ok what do we have here? Let's run it.' I'm sitting there talking about ball security and he's probably looking at me like, don't worry about that, because I'm going to score. Then, he just went and did it. He's calm and cool about it and did a great job. The guys blocked quite well for him. That's us and that's our team."
What happened to Perry with his shoulder?
"I'm not sure how bad it is, but Perry is a tough guy and I think he will be fine. It times up well with the bye week coming up obviously. He'll get looked at by the doctor."
Senior Linebacker Kenneth Goins
On Pigrome's TD Run in 2OT
"No doubt at all. He's a great player. Whenever he gets in I, I have faith. There's no dropoff. Next man up. You've got to be ready."
On the Second-Half Adjustments
"Just run. Just keep our heads down and keep running. Whatever Coach calls, just execute as best we could."
On the Environment:
"We were ready for this type of game, the adversity. We just stuck together. We believed we were going to win from the beginning. We just had to make adjustments and execute."
Junior Linebacker Shane Cockerille
Thoughts on win:
"It feels great. Coach always talks about sticking together and fighting through adversity with all of the work we put into the offseason. We prepared for everything and we're proud of the way everyone played offensively."
Thoughts on containing UCF's running backs:
"He's a great athlete the big thing for us was staying in our rush lanes and later in the game I thought we did better."
Thoughts on their backup QB coming in to win the game:
"It was huge. I don't think anyone over there thought he was going to come in there and do that. Busting off a huge gain and scoring the touchdown."
Thoughts on UCF's Milton getting first start:
"It was nothing out of the ordinary for us. We were prepared for anybody to be in the game. He's a tremendous athlete as you can see, but we stuck together and played our hearts out as a team."
Thoughts on watching Milton's high school tape before game:
"We talked about it. We didn't know who was going to start until earlier this morning. Coach told us he was an option kid in high school, obviously a dual threat guy, came out and surprised us early, but everybody did their jobs and covered it."
Senior William Likely III
Impression of Tyrelle Pigrome at the end of the game:
"We've seen him in practice all the time so when he got in everybody was comfortable and everybody knew what he could do."
Defensively was it a bend but don't break type of approach?
"They made some plays, and we knew they were going to make some plays and they are a great team. They have a great coach, so it was just more of displaying our defense and as long as we stop them from scoring then we'll win."
What happened in the play during overtime when it looked like you took a shot in the face?
"Yea the receiver ran out of bounds and I don't know if they reviewed it or not, but he ran out of bounds when I forced him out. So my understanding was that he was ineligible, the quarterback threw it out there and going for it the safety came and hit me. So it was kind of a friendly fire."
What kind of win does this do for the program?
"Feels good. You want to win every game especially going 3-0 that's pretty good. We have a bye week so we can get healthy and get ready for the next team."