*** DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR BUD FOSTER
ON WHETHER HE'S DOING OK AFTER THE BC LOSS: "Why shouldn't I be? What the (bleep)? We played a helluva football game. A couple plays. A couple plays. We're going to move on and go to the next one. If everybody wants to know, there was no prevent defense. There was no (bleep) prevent defense. We played the defense we played for 57 minutes, and the quarterback made a couple plays. Bottom line. He made a great throw in the corner, he made a couple plays down the stretch. Bottom line."?
BUT THERE WAS A THREE-MAN, NOT FOUR-MAN RUSH LATE IN THE GAME: "There was! And we did that all night, too, if everybody paid attention. We did that all night, on about 12 occasions."?
ON WHETHER THEY COULD'VE PLAYED ANY BETTER IN THOSE PREVIOUS 56, 57 MINUTES: "No, we couldn't have played any better. We played a helluva football game. They got 300 yards total offense, threw the ball 52 times. They couldn't run it. The quarterback had been sacked six times in seven football games. We knocked the piss out of him, did whatever we wanted to do. The quarterback is a helluva football player. He made a couple plays that I didn't think he could make down the stretch. And he did it."?
ON HIM CONGRATULATING RYAN ON THE FIELD AFTER THE GAME: "Yeah, the kid made a helluva play. I went over and told him that.'
ON WHETHER, IN HINDSIGHT, HE MIGHT'VE GONE TO THE FOUR-MAN RUSH, NOT THREE, IN THOSE FINAL MINUTES: "Well, in hindsight, yeah, maybe one last call. There's a lot of things that go into it. It wasn't a prevent defense. It was third-and-20 ... and we were going to hopefully make him, and we did it all night, make him have to check down. We stop them and then we have a chance to block a field goal or it's going to go into overtime. He scrambled, we lost contain. That's the biggest thing: we lost contain. It wasn't that it was prevent defense, we lost contain."?
ON BEING SURPRISED THAT RYAN COULD NOT ONLY SCRAMBLE THE WAY HE DID, BUT THROW WELL ON THE RUN: "That was the one thing, if you go all night, we were able to make him move and he wasn't very good. The guy is a great football player, we played a great football game, and I'm not going to take anything away from our kids. They played their (bleeps) off. We had plenty of opportunities to win the football game and we didn't."?
ON WHETHER HE'S EVER HAD A DEFENSE PLAY THAT WELL AND LOSE: "Yeah, you take Syracuse in '98. That same game. We knocked the piss out of Donovan McNabb and he had a helluva drive the last drive."?
ON ALL THE CHATTER FROM FANS ABOUT PREVENT DEFENSE: "They don't know what the hell they're talking about."?
ON WHAT PEOPLE SAW THAT MAKES FANS THINK IT WAS PREVENT: "Because they saw us rush three people. But we did it all night long. The kid made a helluva play. Give him his credit due. Give our kids their credit due. And let's move on, OK?"?
ON WHETHER HE WAS DISAPPOINTED BY 10 POINTS FROM THE OFFENSE: "I'm not going to get into that. All I'm going to say is we had plenty of opportunities to put the game away, whether it's offense, defense or special teams. We could've done it in any facet and didn't get it done. That goes back to show you the game's not over until it's over. You've got to play every play. That's one thing about defense: every play is a critical play. You can screw up one time ... that can cost you a football game. Offensively, they get four plays."?
ON WHAT HE SAID TO HIS DEFENSE AFTER THE LOSS: "I told them in our meeting I was never more proud of a group. They executed the plan. You played your tail off. And the guy made some plays. We made a lot of plays. To do what we did, I'm proud of our kids. Nobody died, and we're still in the hunt."?
NO TROUBLE MOTIVATING THE TEAM NOW: "I hope not. Everybody's going to be hurt, but you define yourself by how you respond to a setback or a little adversity. I'm not dwelling on the past, I'm moving forward."?
ON GIVING HIM A CHANCE TO RESPOND TO HIS CRITICS AFTER THE GAME: "Why should I have to? Why do I have to explain myself? I don't have to. We executed a helluva a football game plan. I'm proud of our coaches and proud of our players."?
ON THE PROSPECT OF PLAYING BC AGAIN IN THE ACC TITLE GAME HELPING THE HURT A LITTLE: "Yeah, I told Matt (Ryan) after the game ... you played a heckuva game, you're a heckuva a football player, and he told me we beat him up ... and I told Matt I hope we get a chance to see you again."?
ON WHETHER HIS UNIT IS READY TO BOUNCE BACK: "I hope so. We'll find out Thursday night. That's the good thing, in athletics you get to do it again. This wasn't the last game of the year. If we have any character about ourselves, we'll respond and go out and play a heckuva football game."?
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