Colorado Interim Head Coach Mike Sanford   Opening Statement “This is all for the players and all about the players. This is all about their response, their resolve, all of the stud that I said here ten days ago, everyone thought I was crazy. We talked about how unbelievable of a group of resilient fighters that we have in our locker room. I think everybody had a chance to see that on full display today. I'm just really proud of these players. I told them after the game, that's a great moment. It's a moment we're going to celebrate but we talked about a fresh season, a new season. What I told them is that the best part about being 1-0 which we are in our new season, post bye week is that you have a chance to be 2-0 and that's where our attention turns 24 hours from now. We're going to get back to work tomorrow and we're going to practice we're going to add some Sunday work and we’ve just got to keep our eyes straight ahead. Enjoy this, it's one of those days that you'll never forget, but at the end of the day, we’ve got a job to do and we believe in our abilities to go do that and that's where eyes are going to be fixated.”   On Deion Smith’s Injury “I just wanted to first off address Deion Smith's health. That was that was an emotional moment and more importantly, we've said that this thing is going to be all about our players, our student athletes and there's positive updates on Deion’s status. He's standing up and walking around so a lot of the fears that everybody has when somebody comes off on a stretcher, I think that I was able to assure that the team that that's nothing that that we have to be concerned with. Deion is up and walking and I think he was emotional because he didn't have a chance to celebrate on the field with his teammates, but he was a huge part of that victory, both in his play and more importantly, just how much this team loves him and shows their support for him there. That was a moment I'll never forget in my coaching career, just the brotherhood that was shown through that moment.”   On the students rushing the field “This week was really interesting. I think starting back on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the bye week, there was so much work that had to be done and I think I just buried myself in the work and then I had a chance to go recruiting in California, that's where I'm from. A lot of our players had a chance to touch base at home and reconnect with their roots. The joy of football. For me, it was at Los Alamitos High School. I was down in Southern California and there was some really clear thinking that I was able to do with regards to where I wanted this program to go this coming game week, and in doing so, It was weird over the course from really Thursday on I've had, I would call them dreams or whatever. I actually dreamt specifically about the student section rushing in the field and I really believed it. I know it sounds crazy, but I really believe that. I had visions in that light sleep, I had visions of Montana (Lemonious-Craig) making plays. I'm not obviously saying I'm a prophet, but there were just a lot of visions of guys making plays and I told the players about that. That wasn't just a motivational tactic, I saw that. My wife was asking me this morning, why are you not nervous? I was like, I just believe in these players. I believe in the work they're putting in and I had a peace about what we could do today and I also have a peace about what we can do going forward. I'm just really excited to go back to work with these players and for them to understand that the process that we put in place, process is always going to be greater than results and what they believe in now is that the process yielded a result? That's what this thing is about going forward is how we practice, how we go about our business on a daily life, how we care for a locker room. Those things are really important and that process has to continue.”   On Gerald Chapman and the defense “I believed in in Gerald and Rick George believed in Gerald. I knew that I believed in him because most importantly, this is about the players. I knew that they were going to rally behind him and then I knew that that our defensive staff was going to work together tirelessly to put our players in the best position and do so on a unified front and that's what we saw. It was a blast beyond the defensive headsets. I just can't imagine calling my first defensive game ever. I don't even know if he's called the scrimmage before but with that type of atmosphere, sold out Folsom. There was a lot of crowd noise. There were times I was trying to get the crowd to quiet down because the defense communication. I was listening on the headset and it felt like you were out driving out east to Frederick where I live and getting the AM signal. I was just proud of most importantly, how our players played, how they flew around, the belief, you saw it, it was tangible. I've known that was there since I got here in January. I looked at our defensive squad and I was like, we have some dudes here. We have Jamar Montgomery and Guy Thomas. These are guys that I knew had the ability to make plays. Na’im Rodman, the linebackers Quinn Perry, T Lang (Terrance Lang), Chance Main. I see these guys, these are guys that I've coached against these types of body types and athletes that I've coached against, at the highest level of my career. I knew that these players were capable of doing that. It was just flipping the script in terms of their belief.”   On Players’ spirit It's kind of been an internal thing this week, because, you know, the word joy is and probably isn’t the most football centric term. You know, it doesn't really equate to, hard hits and tackles for loss and in passing touchdowns, but we established it on the first day that we met, and we said that for these next seven weeks, our culture is gonna be defined as joy. And that's exactly what we've we've made the mission of what this net means next week. are about. I said it when I was had the opportunity to have this press conference, this isn't about me. This is about them. And joy is something and I've talked to the players and teaching them the different levels and different definitions of what joy means. But joy is something that is completely independent of your circumstances. It's how you wake up every single morning, it's how you come to this facility. It's how we practice and and I've seen a team that bought into that vision and we got to continue to bind to that vision. And this is a new challenge, you know, for us in this 2022 season it is how do we bring joy, but also humility after a big win? That's the challenge and already in the locker room we move on to Oregon State”   ON OWEN Owen took a pretty significant hit. I want to say it was in either the first or second quarter. It was one of those kind of of abdominal lower kind of mid mid section type hits. And, you know, I've played the position I've been around the position my whole life. I kind of knew what he was physically going through. And I you know, for me, I just felt like it gave our offense the chance of having a healthy JT you know play in that moment. Owen and had nothing to do with the play. I thought both players played exceptionally well.”   On Hyping Up the Team “I grew a son of a college football coach that coached some of the best programs in America and I love the traditions of football. I love the pomp and circumstance, the stuff that predates you know my time on even Earth. And so that was really important, but I also felt like the Buff walk was kind of anticlimactic. I wanted to have some type of moment where we could all come together and envision visualize what we're going to do on that field. And I wanted to show the team  the images on that screen of what they've done, of the culture of joy of being on that screen of how we've practiced. Then also showing them the plays that we've made this year. You know, the plays to win football games. We just haven't pieced it together. And I think that I saw that today. And I think that that was one piece of it. But really at the end of the day, it has nothing to do with me hitting the right buttons. It has everything to do with the players and how they played and I fully believe that.”   On Complete Passes “I think that it was a belief. I think what we saw in practice all week and during the bye week is very competitive. I kept talking about how we had very competitive periods. When we were going against Cal’s defense it was hard. And that's a good thing. Like when you can face a defense daily. That's tough to move the football against as an offense. That helps you. It's like it's like a doughnut on the back. Right. I felt like we were swinging with a doughnut on the bat. We stepped in the batter's box, shut the doughnut, and we could go out and play ball. And that's exactly what how championship football teams operate, is that it should feel very challenging against your own defense in practice, and then you get to game day and it's easier now. It wasn't easy Cals a good defense. They don't give up a whole lot of points minus one game.”   On Taylor’s Interception It was huge. He was huge and you know, I don't know if you guys know but the song that plays after every turnover, that's what we do in practice. So they have the players have a turnover song, takeaway song for the defense. So that that that song it was it was so awesome, Jalen Sami brought his little you know, Bluetooth speaker to the walkthrough and during the walkthrough this morning, he had that song played over and over and over because, you know, we associate that song with getting the ball and that set the tone for us defensively, and I think it sets the tone for the energy of the crowd. You know, energy, like I talked about is not just something that you go out and just run around and do jumping jacks and you know, it's backed by execution. It's backed by plays it that we talked about making an emphasis on, and that was really fun to watch that song. Come on, and it came on one time there's a penalty, so I had to kind of get everybody back to play the next time to play defense.”   ON 37 Yard Pass “We had a couple of gadgets up our sleeve, you know, JUCO gadgets that come from Coach Patterson, Some D2 football down in south Texas. So you know, we’re gonna continue to explore all that. I like the timing of the call. You were a little bit honest. We were in a bit of a rut at that point in time. And, you know, when we went wide open, it was it was players making plays. And you know, Montana was phenomenal. Just just love the way that he just, you know, he embodied joy today in his play. I saw that from Montana and he just continued to do it throughout the course the game.” California Head Coach Justin Wilcox   On using more empty sets on offense “There was a couple of empty sets early in the game. The quarterback got hit twice. We didn't get the ball out. We kind of got out of that. So, we utilized it a little bit but the formation wasn't the problem today for our offense.”   On the expectations of playing Colorado “They have good players. Mike Sanford is a good coach. Congratulations to them, they deserve credit. We prepared like we do every week and last week we practice really hard, we practiced the entire week. We had a really heavy week of practice this week and we came out and had just as bad football especially offensively.  You can't win scoring one touchdown. It's very hard to win at this level scoring one touchdown. You have to put the ball in the endzone and credit to them. They did more than we did.”   On the Colorado Defense “The tape will tell the true story. But we didn't get much going at all. It starts upfront. The offense starts at the line of scrimmage. You can't run a run play or a pass play very effectively if you don't start up front. Once in a while you get in empty and cut a guy loose and let it go before the free rusher gets there. But generally speaking, you have to block the people up front in the run and in the pass game and we didn't do a good enough job of that today and their front got after our front.   On the offense being out of sync “You name it. There's not one thing. If it was one thing you just change that one thing and then all sudden everything solved. We have to block, we have to throw and catch, we have to hold on to the football. We have to play smart. It's just anything and everything. So, there's not one thing or else we would sit there and identify and solve that one thing and then you're moving down the field and completing passes and running the ball effectively, but it's not one thing.”   On the sack at the end of regulation “We missed the pickup. We missed the blitz pickup and we ended up having a guy in the corner. We could have got it off and we got sacked. “   On how tough this game was “Every week is hard to win regardless of who you're playing at this level and what their record may or may not be. It's hard to win. Our guys didn't have a lackadaisical week of practice. We didn't take the week off the week prior. We knew we would come in and they would have renewed energy. We'd get their best game and everybody at this level can play. We have to execute better. We have to block, run, throw, catch, move the ball down the field, put it in the endzone. On defense we got to tackle on the perimeter, you have to bat the ball down on the deep ball. When you have the opportunity to kick a field goal, you make the field goal. If you don't, you're gonna get beat. I don't care who you're playing. You're gonna get beat. That's what happened. Again, you gotta give Colorado credit they did a great job and Mike's a really good coach, so this is not about diminishing anything they did. You give them credit, but boy looking at ourselves, you just don't win football games playing like we did today.”     On allowing pressure “It depends on the run, depends on the front, depends on the front. We'll look at that on the tape. We see over and under an odd front all the time. There's not a ton of secrets at this level. You see these different fronts and different pressures. Some people do more, some people do them less. When we watch the tape, I could give you a better evaluation but obviously was a major issue.”   On coming back and being ready for a tough stretch “You show up ready to work on Monday you eat the loss and you internalize it.  It should feel terrible. You should be outraged about how you played. If you don't perform to your best, then you got to come back and go to work. You can’t put your hood on and hide from everybody. You stick your chest out you go to work and you own it. Everybody, coaches, players, everybody, the entire program owns it. It started with me. I take the responsibility for the performance and the team. That was not good enough.”   On how tough this was “What's tough? If we don't play to our potential in any given week, you can get beat. What we need to do is play up to our potential and we got to hold them accountable as coaches. We got to give them directions and answers. We got to do a better job of that on offense, defense special teams, and then the players have the shared responsibility of going out and executing on Saturday. Great practices are awesome. Effort in practice has been there. But ultimately, you got to do it when it matters and that's on Saturdays. We didn't do a good enough job of that today. People have tough days, whether it's in sports or every other walk of life and you got to rebound from it and it should hurt.”   On the offensive line “We always play the guys that we think give us the best chance to win. To say that there's a bunch of players sitting on the sidelines that we think are better than the ones playing. That wouldn't be an incorrect statement. We think we have the guys in there that give us the best chance to win. Do we need to make it more competitive, potentially?  But we see it in practice every single day. We've seen them the entire fall. So, we know what they’ve put on tape. Then we have to block better, move people, pick them up in protection, get the ball gone, break a tackle, throw and catch. We got to do all the things at the skill positions as well and it's on us as coaches, the offensive coaches myself to make sure that that happens.”       Colorado Players   G Casey Roddick FEELING ABOUT THE WIN – “That was huge. I mean, that's the first one of seven. I mean, it's been a long, long route through all the adversity we've had to face. We kind of balled it all up and put it into one game. I got to lay my hat to the defense defensive line, especially in Josh Chandler linebackers, Quinn Perry and all the DBs. Those guys are amazing. We really emphasize the turnover, scaling in practice and they did their thing today, so props to those guys.”   ON THE DIFFERENCE IN ENERGY - “Oh, that was that was purely based off Coach Mike Sanford brings to practice every single day. So, we just bottled that up to throughout practice, and we bring it into game day. So, we just got to keep that rolling. Energy is the biggest thing throughout every single piece of adversity that we face. So, the energy is the biggest part.”   ON DEION’S INJURY - “Anytime your brother goes down, a piece of you is taken. Obviously, Deion plays a huge part in our offense, also a huge part in our lives, some of our best friends. So, I think that whatever Deion's going through we pray that God lets them prevail through that and gets him back to full health, hopefully by the end the season. We may not know, but we just got to know what's going on with the person.”   ON BUILDING ON THE GAME - “Just another one, 1-0. You come in look at the film tomorrow and then you scratch it off and got Monday off and you're on Tuesday. So, it's just 1-0 every single day. That's the mentality I have to do.”   DE Terrance Lang DIFFERENCE IN PLAY FOR DEFENSE–“I credit that to Coach Chatman and the guys behind the defense buying in what he had to say it was such a quick change. I feel like we took what he had to say, and we played fast and free. So, credit to the defense and the guys around me.”   TAKING “FAST AND FREE” TO THE FIELD - “Taking that to the field and just putting the past behind us. We put a black board over the first five games that we lost. So, we just put the past behind us and the credit goes to those guys on that team. They were able to take in information. We've been through a lot of adversity and nobody ever folded. Nobody ever gave up. They bought what Coach Sanford and Coach Chatman we're trying to say and the result shows on the field.”   BEST MOMENTS WITH THE PROGRAM -“I have had some pretty good moments with this program, but I'll definitely put this one in the books. It was a hard-fought win and we deserve it. And credit to those fans, man. I love our fans. They show up every time.”   IMPACT BY FANS - “It made a huge difference. We got the most love and respect for our fans. Without them, we couldn't do it. The deserved the win at the end of the day.”   ON BUILDING ON THE ENERGY TODAY --“It's not really a major change. It's just to keep honing in on what these coaches are saying. Everybody keeping the right mindset and attitude going forward. And it starts at practice on Tuesday. We had a hell of a week of practice. I know all of you have heard that a lot this season, but this week we really did have a week of practice. It showed on the field today, it was a different team.”   ON WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE TODAY - -“The energy feeding off of each other. You see one guy want to make a play or go make a play, it makes me want to have to go make a play. It's just people feeding off each other's energy and that led to us playing a lot faster. And it was clear on the field.”   DL Justin Jackson ON IF IT’S A NICE PAYOFF TO HAVE AFTER ALL THE TROUBLES YOU’VE HAD THIS YEAR- “It is, it's good to win you know, but it's going to be more than just this one. We are looking forward to the next game where we're going to come out with a better game plan.”   ON HOW YOU WE’RE ABLE TO TAKE THIS RENEWED SENSE ONTO THE GAME FIELD- “But like you say, we have energy and coaches just preaching on joy and joy can be energy. So he's just preaching on being out there just going out there doing what we need to do, and execute it. So we were just out there having fun, and we haven't done that in the while.”   ON HOW TO BUILD ON THIS WIN- “How do we take this? We're going to take this as we're 1-0, but we can also be 2-0. So we are just moving on to the next game, and we are ready.”   ON HOW THE LINE TODAY PREPARED TO BE SO ACTIVE TODAY- “It was just fun for us because you know now we get to actually do what we're coached to do from coach Chapman. He really had us out there you know, really stuntin 'and stuff like that so it was good.”   ON THE KEY FOR YOU GUYS TO STOPPING THE RUN FOR MOST OF THE GAME- “Well coach Chapman was like we're going to stop the run. He's making it as one of the points of emphasis. We got to stop the run, and when it was third down we're going to pass rush. And that's when we did we went out there and executed the game plan like he said.   ON HOW MUCH THE PASS RUSH MADE A DIFFERENCE TODAY- “Today well we just all dived into the game plan but we also was going out there and communicating and just having fun. You know everybody was dialing up, we're just dialed up.”   WR Montana Lemonious-Craig ON THE WIN AND GAME WINNING TD- “To start off, I knew I was in on the touchdown. I got up and told the ref, come on, give it to me, please. He didn't but we reviewed and they gave me the touchdown. We needed this win but I can say with this team, whether we're 0-5 or 5-0, we always come with the work mentality. We always come ready to play so I love each and every one of you guys like my brother and I'm just happy that we were able to go out there and get the job done today.”     ON THE MENTALITY AFTER THE FIRST HALF-“We knew that it was there but it all came down to execution essentially. It was more of when we go out there, the opportunities that we get, the plays that we have a chance to make, we have to make them. There can't be no grey area and that's really all it came down to because all the looks that we wanted we were getting what we wanted out of the defense and we just had to execute.”   ON MENTALITY OF TRICK PLAYS-“Nothing really. I view it as playmakers make plays and if I want to consider myself a playmaker, I see ball, get ball. I play wide receiver. I can't do nothing without the football. I wanted to make sure that I catch the ball. Other than that, there’s not really nothing else to it.”   ON QB SITUATION-“I'm extremely proud of the way Owen and JT played and the way, JT responded to Owen being named the starter. I feel like I'm comfortable with us rolling whichever quarterback in that room out. I trust each and every one of those guys. I love them like a brother. I know that we put the work in throughout the week to where whoever gets their number called will be able to step up and execute.”    ON PLAYING FOR COACH SANFORD-“I always start off by saying I love coach Dorrell and coach Sanford and what both of them have been doing for the team. I will say coach Sanford is a big energy guy. He's a little younger than Coach Dorrell, so he got a little more balance to him. I mean, you can see the difference through our practice. Coach Sanford is really flying around and getting the ball rolling in practice. As we see it translated to the game, and I'm just happy we were able to go out there with Coach Sanford and get the job done.”    ON CROWD’S ENERGY-“I mean we love Buff Nation. They stay with us through thick and thin and when they stormed the field it was just great vibes, great energy all over the place and we're just happy we were able to get the win for them because at the end of the day, our fans show up week in week out, no matter the record, no matter nothing. They come here and give us their all, so we’re glad that we were able to give them our all.”   ON DIFFERENCES OFFENSIVELY-“I will say the ball just found me. It was really the same game plan. The base stuff we do is just the game where the ball found me and I was able to take advantage of every opportunity that I had.”    ON FUTRE OF THE SEASON-“Like he said, we take one game at a time. We use it as great nameless, faceless guys. We really do. it doesn't matter who we're playing, we're gonna go in there with the same mindset and the same mentality, just going in there ready to give it our all with our brothers.”    TB Anthony Hankerson ON DEION SMITH GOING DOWN-“That gave us a lot of fire, not gonna lie. That is our brother. Deion is one of the leaders on this team, and definitely one of the leaders on offense. We hate to see that but we thank God just for him keeping his hand on Deion. We got a chance to talk to him and everything but that kind of gave us a lot of fire. That’s our teammate, our brother, that went down. Nobody wants to see that, and we had to respond. There’s no other choice.”   ON EXECUTING ON BIG PLAYS-“It's totally fine, especially as a running back you just get to run the ball and pound the ball. As a physical guy, you get to be physical as well. Sometimes you get to catch the DBS on their toes and you get to that secondary and you get to make moves, that's when you become playmakers like he said. Big time players make big time plays and a lot of us were able to do that. It was pretty fun out there.”    ON PLAYING FOR COACH SANFORD-“I would say a lot, a lot, a lot of energy. Practices we all base on competing. We compete in everything, whatever it is, running, whether it is 907, 707. We competing every day, every drill and that's kind of what he gave to us and basically that's what we've been running with. So just competing a lot, having a lot of energy and, just feeding off each other.”    ON REST OF THIS SEASON-“Yes, but we usually take one game at a time. We don't want to look too far ahead. We ready to go next week.”   QB J.T. Shrout ON WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE TEAM TO WIN THIS GAME - “We've been talking about joy since the bye week. [Head] Coach [Mike] Sanford's been preaching about joy and having joy and just really loving on your teammates and putting God first and it's just been a great environment the last two weeks. For us to go out there and get our first win of the year when we really really needed it, it was huge. I couldn't be more grateful for this group of guys that have been resilient and have been fighting their butts off all year. I wouldn't want to be here with any other group of guys. So I'm so proud of my teammates and my coaching staff and I'm just proud to be a Buff.”   ON TAKING THE ENERGY FROM PRACTICE AND TRANSLATING IT TO THE GAME - “I think it all started with our mindset through the bye week and going into practice we wanted to have good energy every day and not not leave anything on the field. We just wanted to give it our all for each other and our teammates and I think we did that. We fought our butts off all game and our defense did a heck of a job. Offensive line played great all game. [QB] Owen [McCown] did an amazing job while he was in there and I’m proud of his toughness and how he played. It was an all around team win and we played complimentary football.”   ON COACH SANFORD’S MESSAGE TO HIM BEFORE HE ENTERED THE GAME - “I’ve had conversations with coach [Sanford] and I've also been in this spot in my career before. I'm still going to prepare like I'm playing the first snap of every game and I always will until I can't play football anymore. I love this game and I love playing football so I'm going to be prepared and ready to go whenever my name is called.”   ON WR MONTANA LEMONIOUS-CRAIG’S GAME-WINNING CATCH - “I told him before the game, ‘Whenever you get your shot, go ahead and make a play. It's going to happen.’ He made two great plays. He made a great catch on a little trick play from [WR] Jordyn Tyson. He made a great play when the moment was the biggest and that's how Montana is. He's a gamer and when the moment is the biggest, that's when he plays his best football.”   ON HOW REWARDING THE WIN FEELS - “It feels great. We're going to definitely enjoy this one tonight. Then we're going to get back to work tomorrow and get ready for another one.”    ON BUILDING ON THIS MOMENTUM MOVING FORWARD - “I think everyone just got to see that we were capable of winning football games. I think we've been talking about belief and believing in ourselves and not not doubting any vulnerabilities or anything like that and putting it all on the line and giving our best efforts and I think we did that today. We know we can do it. We just got to build on that and clean up some mistakes and there's definitely going to be things we can do better. We left some points out there for sure, so we have some things to clean up and get better.”     ON RB DEION SMITH’S INJURY - “We had to regroup obviously, shake off that tough moment and get back to the business at hand. We basically just kind of said, ‘You know what? One of our brothers went down right now.’ We gathered around him and prayed for him. We decided we were going to go win this for Deion. And we went out there and got the job done. I'm praying that he's okay and hope it's going to be alright.”     S Tyrin Taylor ON THE SECONDARY AS A WHOLE AND LOOKING TOWARDS NEXT WEEK - “Obviously we got the win, but can’t hang our hats for too long. We have a 24-hour grace period to celebrate the win and then get back to the drawing board next week for Oregon State. There’s a new energy in terms of the whole team, not just the defense. The new coaches, they bring energy every day and that was the missing piece, basically.”   ON TURNING THINGS AROUND DEFENSIVELY THIS WEEK - “We kept looking forward. God does everything for a reason so we knew one day, we would end up turning everything around. We just had to be patient. We came out of the bye week and flipped the switch and you can tell the difference in practice each and every day.”   ON TAKING THE ENERGY FROM PRACTICE AND TRANSLATING IT TO THE GAME -  “It's just really a blessing. We’ve taken everything from the first four or five games and we take everything we do in practice and translate that into the game and our coaches really do a good job emphasizing that we're only doing this for game day. If you don't have that same fire burning inside of you for the game, it doesn’t matter what we do in practice.”   ON THE ENERGY IN THE LOCKER ROOM AFTER THE GAME - “It’s definitely a burden off our backs but we're just looking to build on this. We expected this, it was not really too much of a big deal. We're gonna celebrate the win, of course, but I'm ready for next week. I'm ready to get back to the drawing board and learn about my next opponent.”     LB Trevor Woods ON DEFENSIVE IMPROVEMENT-“We've talked about it a bunch, the buzzword is kind of like, joy or energy. [Coach was] standing up on the bench screaming to us, you know, just hyping us up all the time. They're just letting us play free and I mean, we're just having fun out there, like that was the most fun I've had I think since I've been here. That game right there, that was awesome.”   ON THIRD DOWN OT PLAY-“ The pass was kind of lobbed, because that’s not really where I was covering at the time. I saw the ball, just kind of lobbed in the air, and [the receiver] didn't really make an effort to try and go and get it or anything. So [I] just tried to get over that, I punched it as hard as I could. Yeah, I don't know if it was Nico or Ty, I thought they were gonna pick it off too, off the bounce.”   ON GAMEDAY ATMOSPHERE- “I mean, man, it's awesome. Just, you know, I'm sure you guys see us (the players) raising our hands, hyping up and trying to get the crowd even louder. There was a late delay of game or false start, I can't remember what it was, but, I mean, the offense, you know, they can't talk when it's like that, you know? Obviously it's a little bit harder for us to talk too but I mean, at the same time we know it's gonna be like that. The fans, when they come with [energy] like that, like I mean, that's one of the main reasons I came here. To play at a place where you're just completely backed. We were 0-5, and we had a full sellout crowd right there. That's so amazing.”   LB Josh Chandler-Semedo On DEFENSIVE IMPROVEMENT-“The last time we were here, I said we were gonna do some different things. Basically simplify, do some different styles and really just allow us to play fast, eliminate all errors to where we could really just go out and just play, like to where everything was on us and it showed. We put the work in over the past two weeks to learn a new scheme, and it showed today.”   ON DEFENSE FEEDING OFF EACH OTHER-“It was extremely fun. Like what Coach Sanford said, “every play we made today, defensively, we’ve made in practice.” Literally. So I mean, you can say it’s something that’s new, but not the way we’ve practiced these last eight, nine days. We’ve really put the work in so now it's normal. And now we've just got to create that norm every Saturday.”   ON MESSAGE TO TEAM AFTER OT TD-“The game was over. They weren't getting in the end zone. The game was over by then. A field goal, possibly tied but a Touchdown and the game would be over. “   ON REACTION AFTER GAME-“The monkey was off the back. I [haven’t] won a game since November 27th of last year. It's been a long day, the monkey was off the back. For me, being a leader, and being a fifth year guy, it’s a lot of pressure. You don't want to go out the way we were going out, and you could feel the pressure rising throughout the building. Like I said, the last time we were in here, it was kind of a relief system, but at the same time we still had the same pressure and we still had the same intensity. And now, we had no excuses. It was all on us. So to be able to get that victory the way we did, in a defensive fashion the way we played today, it was amazing. So I just had to take a moment of relief.”   “I'm never a person to doubt myself but at the same time, it did get a little gray sometimes. I kind of questioned the direction of some things, but overall you really just keep trying and you always want to make sure you do your part. Whether it was coach Dorrell, coach Wilson or coach Sanford now, they always preach: do your part. Make sure you do your part in everything you do. And I feel like we did that, and things just finally went our way.”   ON SHUTTING DOWN CAL RUNNING GAME:-“That's a recipe to good defense, on first and second down. On third down, of course we’ve got some very talented guys on the edge that can rush the passer. We’ve got a coach in coach Chapman that can pretty much dial a lot of things up that you’ve seen today. So, we knew we had to stop the run. We knew number six (Ott) was a very talented back, one of the best in the country. One of the best freshmen I've seen in my five years. So, we knew exactly what they were capable of and we had to limit him. If we didn't stop the run today, we wouldn’t be sitting here with a win.”   CB Nikko Reed ON THE COACHING CHANGES - “With the coaching changes we had to go against adversity and we just had to get something done. Instead of thinking of it as a negative, we thought of it as a new chapter in our season.”    ON TRANSLATING ENERGY FROM PRACTICE TO THE GAME - “Coach [Mike] Sanford and our defensive coordinator bring a lot of energy to the program. It starts with coach Sanford. He brought a lot of energy to practice last week and we brought it to this week too. We haven't seen that energy all year. It was a new feeling and we were able to take that energy into the game.”    ON PUTTING PRESSURE ON THE QUARTERBACK - “We just thought of it as like we have nothing else to lose. We hadn’t won a game yet so we had nothing to lose. We just had to let it loose. Everybody just had to agree on just playing fast, playing free and playing loose.”   ON FORCING TURNOVERS - “We played a good team. Cal is a good team. It just came down to whoever was going to make the most plays. We obviously made the plays when it mattered, but all we've been talking about is making sure we have explosive plays.”   ON THE DEFENSE GETTING A STOP IN OVERTIME - “When the offense got the touchdown we knew it was all on us. We’d been doing well all game on defense and we just had to do it one last time. A lot of times in our previous games our offense could get down there but wouldn't put points up on the board. They did that today and we had to take advantage of that on defense.”   ON THE FEELING IN THE LOCKER ROOM AFTER THE GAME - “We took so many losses this year. It just felt good to win. I feel like we deserved it and we worked hard for that and we ended up coming out with it. We got to celebrate, obviously, but the season’s still not over so we have to move on to the next.”    ON HIS SACK IN THE FOURTH QUARTER - “That was unbelievable. It was actually crazy because when they called the play I knew I had to be a big time player and make a big time play. I saw the quarterback was free and I knew it was my time.”   California Players   LB Jackson Sirmon ON THE LOSS- “It's very tough. It's tough to lose a game like that. We'll watch film and figure it out.” ON WHAT THEY EXPECTED FROM COLORADO- “I don't think we really expected anything different. They're a football team and it was a stadium with a lot of people in it. We do that every week. I don't think it was an environment thing. I don't think that's any excuse or a good reason to attribute any of it to that.” ON HOW DIFFERENT THE COLORADO TEAM IS- “Not very different. There's a couple of trick plays in there. They scored 13 points in regulation. Other than some of the trick plays and stuff, everybody's got that. Other than that, I don't think they really came out with a different energy, or different personnel, or different scheme or any of that." ON CHANGE OF QUARTERBACKS- “Nothing. I didn't notice anything.” ON HOW THEY WILL PREPARE FOR NEXT GAMES- “I think we'll practice next week and try to come up with better results.” ON HIS INTERCEPTION- “I saw where the quarterback was looking and just started going over there. He threw it and I caught it.” ON LOCKER ROOM FEELING- “I think people are upset, and rightly so. I would be concerned if people weren't upset. Being upset at something like that shows that you care. People are upset and we'll try to use it to our advantage and right the ship next week.” ON CONFIDENCE IN TEAM- “Sure, I was never not confident in the guys or our team's ability. There's no sense of give up. There's no sense of being sorry for yourself. There's no sense of not caring. We've all known that. Obviously, that's not an outcome we expected but the response is what it should be and we'll try to use that going forward." WR J. Michael Sturdivant ON WHAT STALLED THE OFFENSE- “It was just tough to get the ball moving. We weren't as successful as we wanted to be. But it was just it was just tough to get it rolling. Everybody saw that, we're just going to go back to practice next week and figure out ways to fix it. It wasn't clicking the way we wanted it to click, but like I said, we're just going to go back, watch the film and figure out ways to fix it for next week.” ON MOOD OF THE TEAM- “There's no trust lost. No love lost. We're still close. This is a tough one. We got to take this one on the chin. It's not the last game of the season. We're just going to keep pushing forward. We got a whole season ahead of us. We just got to keep going. We trust each other. We love each other. We got a lot of football left to play with each other.” ON MASON STARLING- “I know he’s a great player. We brought him in for a reason. We trust everybody in our room. It's just cool to see him come out and show what he can do. We still trust him. We love him and he's going to make a lot of good plays for us.”                      WHAT COACH WILCOX SAID AFTER GAME- “It’s locker room business. I'm not going to get too far into that, but we're just going to keep pushing. We got a lot of football left to play. This doesn't define us. We're just going to go back to the drawing board and figure out ways to win in the future. ON TEAMS PERFORMANCE- “I know this wasn't our best game, but not every week is going to be your best week. We've got to figure out ways to fix what didn't go right for us today, so they can go right for us in the future and we can keep winning.”

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