UCF Head Coach Josh Heupel
On the correcting mistakes…
“There's nobody here that wants to give up the yards or the points that we did in the first half. We will go back in tomorrow morning, we’ll work on that, and we will get things corrected. At the same time, you go 1-0, it's hard to do in college football. We are going to enjoy this one tonight and come back to work tomorrow.”
On not taking advantage…
“It probably helped our defense. I don't think we took advantage on offense. I think that’s a drive where we end up. We bust a scheme on second down, go backwards, and don't take advantage of it. Maybe pinned them deep on the punt. I thought our kids just kind of settled into the ballgame after that play. That was a great individual effort by Nevelle.”
On atmosphere…
“Huge; got them in some extra long situations, got ourselves off the field. I thought for a Thursday night our student body was absolutely fantastic, again. I appreciate everybody that showed up. As we go down the rest of this month, it will be critical that we create a home field advantage that will help us go 1-0.”
On communication…
“We busted coverage a couple of times, communication between the corners. Their technique, getting back on some of the switch verticals. For more particulars you are going to have to talk to Randy on that.”
On the physical play…
“Typically guys get nicked up when they have played a lot of football and start getting tired. We roll up in piles or whatever it might be. They are a physical football team. We are too. I think there was good hitting on both sides of the line of scrimmage tonight.”
On Milton’s interception…
“Little bit off on three or four vertical plays that had chances to be touchdowns. Did he have some time off? Yes. Am I pleased that he performed the way he did? Yeah. Are things going to be corrected? Absolutely.”
On the offense…
“Balance, we strive for. There are some things that we can be better at, in the pass game and the run game from tonight. At the end of the day they just kept coming after them. I thought they imposed their will in the second half, played with great pad level. I thought our running backs ran with great pad level. They make plays vertical. It was good to see those guys get out in space a little bit. Did a really good job in communication just as far as guard tackles and star guards with the movement that Temple does."
On competitive nature of team…
“One, I think our team is competitive calm. They are willing to come out and continue to play and compete. I think we have smart players that, when we make adjustments as coaches, they're able to go out and execute those things and do it at a really high level. That's important.”
UCF Redshirt Senior Tight End Michael Colubiale
On Temple…
“They [Temple] were really well coached. They play really fast and really hard every snap.”
On physicality of Temple…
“Yes, they play physical. I think their motto is ‘Temple Tough,’ so they really play like that. I think Coach Collins does a good job with that defense.”
On Greg McCrae…
“He runs really hard and I think he helps our offense out a lot. I think one thing that helps our offense be a lot better is the offensive line. They open up some big holes for him to run through. He just does a good job getting those extra yards; he does a great job running the ball.”
On the space uniforms…
“Yeah they were pretty sweet. The pictures didn't really do them justice until we put them on. I really liked them.”
On positivity...
“We never really get down on ourselves. We stay positive because we go in each game every single week expecting the win. The attitude of this team is amazing. We show that we can fight every single week and we'll continue to go 1-0 every week.”
On McCrae..
“It's finally shown for him, He does a great job every single week preparing. No on can tell he's walk-on out there. How hard he runs the ball. He's deserving of everything he gets, every accolade that he'll ever get. He is really deserving.”
On Milton…
“Whenever McKenzie is back there, he does a great job and we always know the offense is going to roll in no matter what. It meant a lot tonight he showed he could throw the ball down the field a lot."
UCF Redshirt Senior Defensive Tackle A.J. Wooten
On the physical style of play…
“I mean football's a physical game. It's how it is; Temple’s tough. They did play like that and hats off to them. They gave us a good game.”
On halftime adjustments...
“We have great halftime adjustments and we kind of just come together as a team, as a defense. We realized that the things that penalized us is ourselves. Going against good offenses, we can't kill ourselves. We realized that and fixed it over halftime.”
On getting the best of every team…
“I just think that every team is going to give us their best. We just have to match their effort, match their energy and just play UCF Football the best that we can.”
UCF Junior Quarterback McKenzie Milton
On playing after the bye week...
“I don't think more so than any other game. It came off as a short by week as well. I think everybody wanted to be out there and play. That's actually every game – you always want to play. We call it ‘pay day’ because you work up all week to get paid on Thursday night, but usually Saturday night. This is a lot of fun out there.”
On missing throws…
“No, I don't think so. You know you are going to miss some shots and you are going to hit some shots. That is football. Tre Nixon is so fast, sometimes it’s hard to judge where he's going to get to. I think the second one he stumbled towards. Those are shots that I missed by a few inches. You miss some and you hit some; this is just part of it.”
On adversity…
“I don't think there is much difference if we are up or down at half. Our team doesn't flinch when things get thrown at us like that, when adversity hits. They threw their best punch at us. We took it and we threw it back. They took it. We just kept trading back and forth. It was a great football game. Hats off to the Temple; they played a great game.”
On Greg McCrae...
“I’ll play Greg McCrae. His speed should at least be a 95. He got caught towards the end, someone clipped his feet. They definitely need to bring that video game back so I can play with Greg and Adrian Killins, Tre Nixon.”
UCF Sophomore Running Back Greg McCrae
On offensive line helping…
“If it wasn't for the o-line, a lot of those lanes wouldn’t be there. I set them up a little bit, but they really are providing very big lanes for me to run through. Once they give them to me, I've just taken them and been getting as many yards as I can, taking advantage of what they give me. So that’s all there really is to it.”
On the crowd…
“They were lively. (Temple was) backed up; they were getting false starts and things like that. They really came out, showed up and I think they made it tough for Temple today.”
On preparation…
“We come out every week and prepare for each game the same way. We’re worried about this week, not the next week. Not the outside noise or anything like that. We just keep our head on straight, keep pushing forward and worry about each week one day at a time.”