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SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE


September 30, 2017


Christian Chapman

Jay Henderson

Kameron Kelly

Rashaad Penny


San Diego, California

Northern Illinois - 28, San Diego State - 34

Q. (On why the team did not lose tonight)
RASHAAD PENNY: That stuff shouldn't happen. I thought we were all more mature than that. I bounced back and I can't thank my teammates enough. It was all them and it was a great win. It was a great win.

Q. Christian did that moment change the game or change things for you guys in any way when that happens to a teammate?
CHRISTIAN CHAPMAN: When it happened I really wasn't sure what happened. For a second I thought he got grass in his eye, I didn't know what was going on. But then I actually got a chance to see the replay and I saw what happened. Something like that shouldn't be allowed on the football field. And I don't know what's going to happen, if anyone's going to see, it but I think like that shouldn't happen.

Q. Kameron, what effect did that have on you guys?
KAMERON KELLY: It got us fired up. I told the defense, I was like, before we even walked out on the field, we were in the tunnel and both teams coming out, talking to us, calling us names, and stuff, you know, that's football, you know it's going to happen, so we kind of let that feeling go when we got on the field and saw that they were doing some stuff after the whistle. So we just told them like that's their attitude, we got to have that same attitude between the whistles and start making them feel it between the whistles, so.

Q. (On why this was one of the stranger games:)
RASHAAD PENNY: That shouldn't have got me going. I should have been, I should have been going from the start. But I can't, I can't thank my teammates enough. They always encouraging me always, pushing me. But when something like that happens, you just, I mean, you never want that to happen. That's a play that shouldn't be in college football, in any type of football. You shouldn't pull anybody's face mask and try to eye gouge them. It's just bad. But it happened and after it happened, that's when I thought I found an extra gear. And I had to step up my game, because maybe if I was going that slow, maybe that's why it happened, because I was probably going slow or I was playing too tentative. So when I got it going, I felt nothing happened after that, so I feel better now. When it happened I couldn't see out of my right eye, and I thought honestly I was going blind. But other than that, I feel better now and I got to thank the training staff here. They do an amazing job getting us back on the field when we're feeling beat up. Just the little things. But I'm fine now.

Q. (On what Rashaad Penny's injury did to the team:)
RASHAAD PENNY: It's football. You can't do nothing when you're at the bottom of the pile. When you're at the bottom of the pile, you really can't, your hands are stuck to the ground, you're worried the ball more than anything. So you can't really do nothing on that play. You just got to fight your way through it, I guess.

Q. Has anything like that ever happened before?
RASHAAD PENNY: No, not, that never happened before. Honestly, I don't see why it happened today. That shouldn't even be a play in college football. I don't think anybody should go through that experience. I don't know what they're going to do to this guy. Whatever happens, happens. I mean, I'm just happy we got the win. The stats, everything else really don't mean anything. The eye gouging that doesn't mean anything, I'm happy we came out 5-0. We fought through their adversity and we kept pushing. But we got to have a better week. We can play better than this. They are a great team, so my hat's off to them. We know what we can do and we got to push through this.

Q. What was going through your mind in the fourth quarter, seemed like the defense kept coming up big.
JAY HENDERSON: I just have to make a play, because we was put into the position to make the play or they make the play and win the game. So basically that's it.

Q. Kameron, what do you think this says about this team? It's always like somebody else, somebody else who makes a play. Somebody comes from somewhere and Juwan starts the game the way he did.
KAMERON KELLY: It just says we're a team. Last year, like I say, I tell you all the time, last year was like Pumphrey and the rest of them. This year you never know who is going to make the play for us and I think that's the best thing about having a team like this. I feel like that's why we have made it this far, because each week, if I don't step up, I know Tariq's going to step up. And if Ron doesn't step up, I'm going to step up. If I don't step up, then Ron will step up. So we just got a whole bunch of guys that love each other, a whole bunch of guys that love this team, we love winning. I feel like we're starting to have an obsession with winning and we got to keep that going, we can't lose at all, we can't. Can't even get this close to losing again.

Q. Kameron, is this one of those games where you realized that the narrow edge of what you guys are all about as far as this season?
KAMERON KELLY: Being hunted. Yeah, exactly, we're being hunted. Life is all about learning from mistakes. Last year we went into South Alabama nonchalant and they were hunting us and we were acting like we weren't being hunted. And we got our butts kicked. This week same thing almost happened, but like I say, we have enough guys on our team that can make plays and guys that are giving their all. And it's just going to just fall in our direction sometimes and it did tonight, thank God.

Q. (Question about missing Chief.)
CHRISTIAN CHAPMAN: He's kind of the voice of the O line. He gets us going. Chief pumps everybody up. So losing somebody like that that's going to be an impact. He's our only senior on the line, so, yeah, it affected because you don't have that guy or leader there. So you come in with a younger guy and he's a freshman and he's taking a spot, so, of course, it's going to be some down a little bit. But Chief's going to come back and we're going to be good. And for Dom going in there, I think he did a good job for the most part, and he's just going to keep getting better from here.

Q. Do you guys now understand how fragile all this is, like maybe every team has tough times, but have you ever, but it never seems to enter your mind.
KAMERON KELLY: Talking about our winning streak? It's a thing that we kind of just, it's kind of just like a norm for us. We want to win, and we know that everybody else on the team is going to do whatever they can to win. So when we get out there on the field nobody's thinking about, oh, we can't lose. We're thinking about winning, winning, winning and doing whatever we got to do to win. So tonight I think that we kind of hurt ourselves earlier on in the game, but towards the end of the game we just made enough plays to win.

Q. Talk about the interceptions over the course of the last two or three years. What is your perspective on why you guys are so good?
KAMERON KELLY: Coach Long is a genius. He puts us in the perfect positions. I'm out there, he calls a play and I'm the deep cover. I can go out there, I know I can mess around with my alignment, mess around with the quarterback, and just know if I get back to where Coach Long will want me to be, the ball might come my way and I might have a chance to make a play. Then you have someone like Jay, he had three sacks tonight. So a lot of those quarterbacks get back there and he's not hunting anymore, he's not going to sit back there and try and find an open guy, as soon as he sees 46, he's letting it go. That happened to me, the quarterback threw it right to me. That had literally nothing to do with me. It was all the D-line, all the linebackers and everybody else being on their guy and the quarterback. He's just like, shoot, just throw it right to 7, and he did.

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