UConn Paul Pasqualoni
On the number of turnovers:
"In a game of turnovers, we made one turnover too many, and you can't go on the road in 1A football and make the number of mistakes we made. It's very, very hard to overcome the number of turnovers, although our defense did a good job with creating some turnovers tonight. You just can't go on the road and do that."
On sticking with Johnny McEntee at quarterback:
"As the game went, I stayed with Johnny just to have some continuity. We put Mike [Nebrich] in, and put him in at the start of the second quarter, which we did a week ago, but it's just hard to get into the flow of the thing with what they were doing. There were a few things they were doing on defense that were a little different, so in an effort to have just a little continuity in the game, to try to create some tempo to the game, we went with Johnny and just stayed with Johnny. That was the reason. It wasn't necessarily Mike, just the issue of keeping one guy in the game."
What happened with the third down play at the end?
"Talking about the critical third down at the end, the one that was returned for the score, I think it was a four seam route, and they blitzed, and whether he's going to the inside guy or the outside guy, the ball got compressed, got squeezed, and the DB just squeezed it and made the play."
"We discussed about three different plays in that situation, and felt like we had a good safe play, but it didn't turn out that way. The combination of the squeeze and the blitz kind of got us."
"It was a great effort, just needs to be a little bit more consistent. You know, you're playing great defense, at the same time you're playing a great defense, you can't give up a big play like that, especially at that point in the game. It's a 21-21 game, and all the other side is trying to do is get in position to kick a field goal at that point, so it's unfortunate, because they played hard and we made some plays."
What adjustments did you see Vanderbilt make in response to your game?
"They probably at the end of the day played just a little bit more base defense, their movement style of defense. If there was an adjustment they made, it was probably playing a little more base and getting another defender down in the box. That was probably the adjustment they made. But what we're doing is designed to handle that too, so at the end of the day, we've got to execute that stuff."
UConn Linebacker Sio Moore
On the game tying interception return:
"We didn't execute when we needed to. We need to go back to the film and look at what went wrong. We're a good team that can make plays; we just need to make the plays that give us a better chance to win."
On the extra pressure on the defense coming out of the half:
"We knew the game wasn't over, and that we didn't lose it in the first half. We knew we had to come out and make plays in the second half, but we left some plays on the field."
On coming up short after the second half comeback:
"The game came down to the fourth quarter so were pleased about that. We just left plays on the field and come next week we can't do that. We need to go look at the film and get it corrected right away."
UConn Quarterback Johnny McEntee
On the turnovers and the game outcome:
"We had a good game plan coming in and I just wasn't able to execute it. That's all there was to it.
"I read it out wrong and threw a bad ball. That's what happens sometimes."
On the aggressive approach on the fourth quarter interception:
"It wasn't that right approach and I feel bad because it lost us the game and my teammates don't deserve that."
