Post-game quotes and thoughts

Published 1:19 am Sunday, September 23, 2007

Sorry for the lack of second-half blogging, but with a night game I had to spend the second half writing to make deadlines for Sunday’s paper. And because the game went so late (it ended just past 11 p.m.) you won’t see any quotes in that Sunday paper, so apologies for that.

Here are a few highlights from the post-game press interviews with coaches and players.

The mood seemed a little darker than after the Ohio State loss, and quite frankly, it probably should have. UCLA piled up 333 rushing yards and 537 total yards, while holding the Huskies to just 124 yards rushing, with 92 of that coming from Jake Locker.

“I wasn’t happy with the run game,” offensive coordinator Tim Lappano said. “I still don’t think we’re generating near enough run without Jake, and we’ve got to get that fixed somehow. We’ve got to be able to run the football, and we’ve got to be able to get our tailbacks going.”

Lappano seemed to be blaming the line more than Louis Rankin for the lack of rushing yards.

“It doesn’t look to me like there’s a lot of room in there,” he said. “I’m not seeing a lot of big seams in there.”

The best thing the Huskies can take out of this game was the fact that they didn’t roll over and die.

“We were still in the game, we still had a chance,” said Locker. “That’s one thing we can take away from this. We fought until it was over. No one can say we quit and gave up, so that’s definitely a positive.”

Locker’s night had plenty of good and bad. He completed less than 50 percent of his passes for the second straight game, and was picked off twice, but he also threw some impressive second-half passes and finished with four touchdown passes.

That’s all for tonight (well technically it’s Sunday morning). They’ll be more Husky coverage Monday to follow up on the game.