Louisville Defeats Syracuse: Quotant Quotables

Okay, let's get to it.

Coach Shafer, how are you feeling after such a disappointing loss?

No despair, I’m the luckiest guy alive. I see ISIS is out there cutting peoples’ heads off – the real world has some major problems, some major problems -- and we’re lucky to be coaching and playing a sport and being criticized for not getting a call made with a couple seconds left or being criticized for not catching a dead pig with air in it. So to me, life is pretty damn good and I’m lucky to be fielding these types of questions.

Hmm...go on.

We’ll fight like a good family would fight to get back to where they want to be and it’s a blast. It’s extremely motivating. Yeah you beat yourself up when you watch the film and go through a little bit of depression until you turn on CNN and see what’s going on out there. Then you say you’re pretty lucky, because life is pretty damn good.

Like I always say, nothing cures depression like flipping on CNN.

Well that was...interesting. If you remember back from last year, it's not the first time Shafer has pulled the perspective card.  If you haven't read it by now, it is definitely worth reading Sean K. explain the problem with that point of view.

You can't bombard us with how important it is to invest ourselves in you and then scold us for being disappointed when you lose.

— NunesMagician.com (@NunesMagician) October 4, 2014

The problem with Shafer's perspective appeal and ISIS is that he's the one constantly mixing football with war metaphors.

— chris carlson (@ccarlsononSU) October 4, 2014

Moving on...

Shafer on losing:

I feel really badly about today – I feel horrible about today. I hate to lose, it makes me sick to my stomach. But we’ll fight our butts off to get to where we want to be, I promise you that.

On what happened at the end of the first half:

"You need three seconds to be able to spike it and we only had two. We rushed to judgment and tried to spike it and didn’t have time, if we had three we probably would have had a shot there but we came up short and didn’t get it done and that’s on me. Poor job by Coach Shafer on that one."

On Syracuse's execution:

I think there’s a huge misconception of what toughness is. Toughness isn’t just the physicality of it, toughness is the ability to get your mind in a very nice place where you can execute better and find that balance. That’s toughness.

On Syracuse's red zone offense:

"You’ve seen the same thing I’ve seen. We’ve pressed to try to get things done and came up short from an execution point of view. We try to be extremely creative. We came up short. We dropped a pass.

Bobby Petrino on how his defense limited Terrel Hunt's rushing ability:

"We owe all of our credit to our d-line. They make sure they stay on his low shoulders so he couldn’t get out and scramble, and they didn’t let him out of the pocket. We just did our job on coverage, and everything just went well."

Ben Lewis on his dropped touchdown pass:

"That has to be a play that’s made 100 percent of the time."

Prince-Tyson Gulley on wasted opportunities:

It hurts because we all know what we are capable of doing. We just need to rise to the occasion when we have opportunities. It’s very hurtful for us to not be able to capitalize on such easy opportunities.

Cam Lynch on forcing a fumble then seeing Terrel Hunt turn the ball over on the next play:

No panic. We just caused a turnover so we were pretty juiced on the sidelines. So no panic. We got back out there and tried to make it happen. We have to attack the field.

Julian Whigham on moving on from the loss:

"You have to scrap it and move on to the next one. That’s all there is to it. You have to learn from your mistakes, obviously. From there learn from your mistakes, come back to practice on Tuesday and work on those mistakes. Then prepare schematically to be able to do your job as best you can."

Lynch on the team's game plan for Jameis Winston and the Florida State Seminoles:

We are going to attack the week like we always do, execute the blitz like we always do, so next week hopefully we can get home and tackle him a lot.

You've been warned, Jameis.