FLORIDA BLUE FLORIDA CLASSIC: FLORIDA A&M RATTLERS VS BETHUNE-COOKMAN WILDCATS

November 20, 2021

Terry Sims

Kemari Averett

Devin Black

Bethune-Cookman Wildcats

Camping World Stadium

Press Conference

Florida A&M 46, Bethune-Cookman 21

TERRY SIMS: You can say we didn't play hard, we just made too many mistakes and we didn't finish the way we should.

Q. Coach and Kemari, can you take us through that minute or so at the end of the third quarter? From your perspective as things unraveled, what went wrong and what you did to try to fix it and stop the bleeding?

TERRY SIMS: Well, I think the first thing was when you get a turnover for a touchdown, the momentum swings their way. I don't think we really got down. Guys were just trying to make plays, trying to give extra effort in situations where maybe we should have just took the 1st down and let's keep playing. So I think that's the start of it. And that's what finished it off. In that third quarter we had guys just going out trying to make plays, trying to make something happen, and it just didn't work out in our favor.

KEMARI AVERETT: We were just trying to -- coming from a player's standpoint, just trying to keep the players' heads up. We never really quit fighting. We just went down, like Coach said. It's hard to come when you get a pick six and then fumbles for touchdowns, it's really hard. We stayed in it. We stayed trying to fight.

TERRY SIMS: During the run, and then we had a personal foul after the score. We can't lose our head. I don't think it really did a whole lot with the momentum swing there or us getting down because we were still in the game and still fighting at that point.

Q. I want to get an idea of what you guys saw on film to attack vertically that first play and why you didn't go back to it later in the game.

TERRY SIMS: Well, I think that's what you do when you watch film. We saw how their corners were playing. We saw they had aggressive safeties and they may not have a whole lot of help in the middle of the field. We knew that was a situation that we could attack.

DEVIN BLACK: Me personally, watching film this week, like Coach just said, their safeties were really aggressive box players, so I knew that I had one-on-one coverage outside with my receiver in the corner and that they were going to give a lot of attention to Kemari. That was the game plan this week, attack them in the middle of the field.

Q. Florida A&M, are they a playoff team?

TERRY SIMS: Well, I mean, I would always love to see anyone from our conference have an opportunity to go to the playoffs. I think it looks good for us as a conference, and it'll add some validity to everything that's going on.

I'm excited about it. No, I'm not happy we lost the game, but I'm good with them getting a playoff spot and going and seeing what will happen in the playoffs for them.

Q. Obviously you guys' season is over and with the loss it hurts, but just this game, you look back throughout the season, what do you take from this team this year? What will you remember about this team, this group of guys you had this year? And you players, what will you remember about this team and this season?

TERRY SIMS: Well, I'll say exactly what I said yesterday at the luncheon: Resilience. These guys never quit. When you look at this football team, we could be down by 21 points or we could be up by 10. They're the same. They're playing. They're trying to go out and make plays and trying to make things happen. That's something that I'll take into the off-season and to recruiting and to spring, that this football team didn't quit. We're not going to quit. We're not built that way.

We just have to stop making mistakes and make sure that we're executing when things are in front of us and make the plays that we're supposed to make. I think that's what we'll take from this game. We're going to go back, watch the film and make sure that we're not doing some things as coaches to hurt ourselves.

Players take the onus when they know they made mistakes. I don't have a guy on this team that won't take ownership of what he did or what happened. I think that's a level of maturity by this team.

I'm not going to make excuses about playing a lot of freshmen. We did. But we had to. We had a lot of young guys that had to step up and play, and that's only going to make us better in the days to come. Our future looks bright, and I'm excited about it, and I think we'll add a few pieces to this football team and you'll see a successful football team from Bethune-Cookman University next year.

KEMARI AVERETT: For me it was the brotherhood. As you guys know, we was losing at first, but we all stayed together and we stayed down and continued to fight. We came out of the bye week, played Alcorn. That was the best team win I've had since I've been here. I've only been here for a year. Then we came the next final week and beat Grambling. Today we really had our out, but like I said, it was the brotherhood for me that stood out this whole season.

DEVIN BLACK: Same thing that Kemari said: The brotherhood. I take away just the stories that a lot of them guys in the locker room have, very diverse locker room, but we've got the same kind of attitude, same kind of winning attitude at least. A lot of those guys in that locker room haven't lost, so I take away exactly what Kemari said, the brotherhood.