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NAVY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 2, 2013Ken NiumataloloNAVY – 34 COACH NIUMATALOLO: Congratulations to Coach Kelly and the entire program. Great win. It's a hard fought game. Super proud of our players. And I think‑‑ like I said, I think everybody in this room can rest assured that we just‑‑ those are the type of young men that are going to be protecting us, tough, hard‑nosed kids. Yes, we would have liked to have won the game, but I couldn't be more proud of a group of young men that just continued to battle at the end. But like I said, give props to Notre Dame. They made enough plays to win. But having said all that, I'm still proud of our team. Q. [ No microphone ]. COACH NIUMATALOLO: We might have taken a tad too long on the reverse there. We felt like it was open. I've got to go back and look at tape, but I think we're one block from breaking. You know what I mean? We were a little bit‑‑ maybe a step too slow on our mechanics of it, where it normally should have been a fraction of a second earlier. That block shouldn't have been an issue because we should have helped flank it. We were a little late on the pitch, in our pitch relationship there, but I thought it was a great call by Ivin. They made the play. Again, you've got to give Notre Dame the credit. They tackled us for the win. Q. Speaking of Ivin, can you just talk about the offensive game plan. Because you rolled off 400‑plus yards against that defense. COACH NIUMATALOLO: Like I said, it wasn't good enough. We didn't win. I thought Ivin and his staff did some good things. We struggled against Notre Dame the last couple of years. I just thought our kids played well but still wasn't enough. Q. Your thoughts on Keenan's performance. Three rushing touchdowns and threw for another one. COACH NIUMATALOLO: I thought that kid played great. I thought Keenan played well. I thought we had the perfect scenario. We got the ball to the 50 yard line, all our time‑outs left. I didn't want to give them the ball back. If we were going to score, I wanted to score with basically nothing on the clock, and we had a chance. Like I said, we had a chance. Got to go back and look at the tape, but I think we're one guy away from breaking it, but we didn't get it done. I thought Keenan played great in a hostile, tough environment to play. This is a great, great atmosphere to play at. I thought the kids prepared well for the game. Just one more play. That's all it would have taken, just one more play. Q. Coach, did you‑‑ when did you get the sense that this might be the whoever has the ball last wins game? And did you try then to pace yourself to get the ball last? COACH NIUMATALOLO: Well, it's hard to do that, but we were trying to go slow. I mean, we were going no huddle, but it wasn't a fast no huddle. You could see a couple of times we snapped the ball with one second, two seconds left on the clock. We were trying to keep them off the field. Our big thing was try to limit their possessions. They're very, very good on offense. They're very good on defense, but we felt like our chance was to limit their possessions, keep them off the field. We were fortunate to get some turnovers. They had a couple passes there that they dropped, but for us to beat them, that's what's going to happen. They had a couple of turnovers. We didn't have any penalties. We got to play it almost perfect to even have a chance, and I thought our kids played well. Again, it wasn't good enough to beat a very, very good Notre Dame team. Q. And, obviously, Air Force does things different than you, but seeing them playing option principles the week before, did that help you find some holes and find some things you wanted to attack? COACH NIUMATALOLO: I thought Coach Kelly said it best early on. I thought it was an advantage for both sides. It allowed them to get a couple of weeks of practice with the option, but it allowed us to see what they were going to do. It's not like Coach Diaco didn't know what we were going to do anyway. Like I said, we haven't been able to score any points the last couple of years. We're just fortunate to know we executed a little bit better. We made some short plays, and we found a way to move the ball against a very good football team. We were happy with the 3 1/2, the 4 yard plays because, again, it kept the clocks moving. It kept the sticks manageable in down and distance, kept them off the field. Q. Folston had a good game. What did you know about him coming in, and what were your impressions of him? COACH NIUMATALOLO: Good player. Just they got good players, and they got good coaches. Just played well. Just‑‑ I mean, what can I say? They had a heck of a game. Q. With the way the team played today, you have to be encouraged for the rest of the season because all your goals are still in front of you and you're still going to accomplish everything you want to. COACH NIUMATALOLO: I think Notre Dame goes through this every week. I mean, everybody gets up for Notre Dame. For everybody that plays Notre Dame, it's the Super Bowl for that team. For us to come to the Mecca of college football, our kids are excited about it. So we played really, really hard. What we can't do is let this loss turn into two losses. We can't let Notre Dame beat us twice. They're a good team, but hopefully they won't beat us twice. Hopefully, we'll bounce back next week. Thank you, guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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