California Head Coach Sonny Dykes
Opening comment…
“It was obviously a big win for us against a really good football team and a good football program. I have a lot of respect for Coach Riley and his program that he has built here at Oregon State and just the kind of person he is and what he's all about. Anytime you have a chance to compete against him, like I said I always have a lot of respect for him, I was really proud of our team tonight to come in here and get a win. Wins are hard to come by in Corvallis. They do a great job playing here at home.
“Our guys battled. I thought we played a pretty mistake free game in the first half and then things got a little wilder in the second half, and we got on our heels a little bit. Our guys really did a good job of answering back and making key plays down the stretch. We got a little bit of a pass rush, got a turnover and made some key stops. And then we made some key plays offensively. It was a good win for us against a good football team.”
On losing the 27-10 lead and worrying about his team being able to regain its composure…
“The good thing is we've been in enough games like this where we've been able to preach 'hey, just keep playing', you know 'just keep playing and don't worry about the scoreboard whether we are ahead or whether we are behind.' You know we did lose the momentum and the crowd got involved. This was a good crowd. It was loud, there was lot of energy in the stadium and I was proud of our guys for just keeping their wits about them and continuing to play hard and do their job. It certainly paid off for us.”
On how the Cal defense was able to get a second wind after giving up 21 straight points…
“We gave up a couple of big plays on those drives. Those two touchdowns we were blitzing out of our gaps a little bit. I think the key, honestly, is we got a pass rush, a little bit of a pass rush down the stretch. (Sean) Mannion is such a good passer that if he can sit back there without any pressure, he's going to pick you apart; he's going to complete balls to his guys. We were able to get a little pressure on him, make him a little bit uncomfortable and I think that was probably as important as anything else to winning the ballgame.”
Junior Running Back Daniel Lasco
On how the run game was so successful...
"We knew going into the game that we needed to run the ball. Our front five, the receivers, everybody knew we had to run it. Our offensive line has been able to step up a lot lately and they were able to progress even more this week. I'm so proud of them. I wish I could have all of them up here with me right now talking to you all instead of just me. They played a great game tonight. I can't even express my feelings enough towards them."
On how important this game was...
"Every single game is important. I'm excited right now, but come tomorrow, we start focusing on USC. This was a huge one. We all knew it was this big coming into it. We were sitting at 4-4, but I kept telling the team we were 0-0 and it was a whole new season about to start. It feels good, it feels real good; but this train is not going to stop right here."
On how the offense was in complete control of the game...
"Our offense knows what we can do. It all just comes down to knowing our offense and every single person on our offense knows the great potential that we have. Once we're all clicking on those cylinders, anything is possible. "
Sophomore QB Jared Goff
Thoughts on Beaver lead during game…
“It didn't really bother us much offensively. We play from behind so much and have so much character in getting through adversity like that. When they took the lead at the end, it really didn't affect us – we just went out there and did our job. Fortunately, we made some big plays and came out with the win.”
On Cal's offensive strategy…
“The running backs did a great job today and I'm always ready to throw when I need to, but being able to run like we can – like we did tonight, especially Daniel [Lasco] – just helps our team so much; just to be able to have a different dimension to our offense. [Daniel] is a stud and he's going to continue to do great things this year.”
On the meaning of this win…
“It's big for us. It was definitely a turning point in our season. To come out on top like that is big. Definitely a big thing for our program right now and the conference level that we have and that's going to be good with USC coming in a few weeks.”
On Beaver's defense…
“They did a good job defensively – mixing it up and doing different stuff. They are a good team, I mean they have good athletes on that side of the ball – really good pass rushers – and they played a good game tonight.”
Oregon State Head Coach Mike Riley
General thoughts on the game
With a team like Cal it is never in hand as we found out. We did a lot of good things in all the different phases of the game but we just had too many lapses. We'd have a couple good series on defense and then boom. It didn't look like we could stop them. The same thing happened offensively. Two drives late we had scored just about every time we had the ball and then two drives we stalled out. That wasn't the kind of game you could go with the ebbs and flows. You needed to be more consistent. They were more consistent than we were.
On Cal's balance
“They are a very good offensive team people think about them as a passing team but I was telling everybody all week (Lasco) is good and they like to run the football. The picture of what they do was tonight. They were just about perfectly balanced and when you are balanced it makes it difficult to be consistent on defense.
On OSU's offense
We weren't bad we just had too many lapses. We didn't do well enough on third down, we didn't keep drives going. We were not consistent.
On 3-of-11 on third down
Tonight it wasn't because of long situations. Tonight we just didn't execute. We dropped balls, ran the wrong routes, we messed it up early like that in particular in the firs thalf and that is why we were so sporadic. You have to be able to covert better than we are doing we are just not playing well enough on third down.
On Sean Mannion setting the Pac-10 career passing record
It's a big day for him and for Oregon State. Been a lot of great QBs in the conference over the years to be that guy who has that record is pretty special. The history in this conference is awesome and for Sean to have that record is an unbelievable accomplishment.
