Sept. 17, 2006

Recap |  Final Stats |  Notes

Head Coach Scott Downing

On the win

"It was a great win for our players and coaching staff. These young men have done a great job of sticking together and being a family. I think you saw that out there on the field tonight. We went through a lot of adversity, and I was so proud of them."

On players stepping up when Jason Hildenbrand went down with an injury

"It was tough when we lost a guy like Hilde (Jason Hildenbrand) at the end, particulary because of his role on defense and as the punter. We were fortunate Michael York came in and made two great punts that helped us pin them down and give them a long field to play with. D.J. Craft and Michael York stepped up big time when Hilde went down."

On holding Texas State to 13 points

"We did a good job of containing their option early in the game. I give Texas State a lot of credit. They're an explosive team. The thing we told our players all week long was play hard. I wanted everybody in the stands to understand that win, lose or draw our guys played hard. What helped us was our guys played the whole game with maximum effort."

On how they will savor the win

"I think we're going to savor this for a little bit and see what kind of momentum we'll get out of it. I hope they'll enjoy this win for about 24 hours and then start to focus on Western Illinois."

On not committing any turnovers

"After the first two games, it was amazing."

On the importance of the blocked punt

"I know this. If you can block a kick and score off that block, I think over the history of football 90 to 95 percent you win the game. For us, it was a touchdown without a possession and that's huge in football."

On how Rafael Mendoza was on the mind of the team

"The guys mentioned him not only in the pre-game prayer, but also the post-game prayer. I noticed a lot of the guys had `RM' written on their arms. He was close to our hearts today. He's a great kid, and we know he'll come back."