Murray State University Athletics
Weekly Press Conference
9/15/2003 11:00:00 PM | Football
Quotes from head coach Joe Pannunzio during the weekly football press conference on Sept. 15 following the Racers' loss at Southern Illinois on Saturday night. MSU will next host Indiana State on Saturday at 6 p.m. CT at Roy Stewart Stadium.
On the Racers' loss last week at SIU:
"After looking at the film, I'm still very disappointed with the way we played. We didn't come out ready to play and I have to take the blame for that. We didn't play with any emotion, and that was very disappointing. Obviously, we're struggling on offense, and defensively, SIU found some holes that we've got to get corrected. Whenever you can't gain a yard on fourth down, as we haven't been able to do this year, there are some concerns. Our lack of discipline and our penalities were things we had to address and we did that. Our kicking game also left some things to be desired, so we've got a lot of things to address, but we started doing that with a good practice yesterday."
"I don't want to take anything away from Southern Illinois. They've been waiting a whole year to get us and they did. They were a better football team than we were on Saturday night."
On the Racers' lack of emotion against SIU on Saturday night:
"We normally do a good job of getting our kids prepared to play, but we didn't do a good job last week. Of all my years in coaching, that was the least amount of emotion any team that I've been around has ever had and it's nobody else's fault but mine."
On the importance of this week's game with Indiana State:
"We're going to sink or swim this week. This week will say a lot about our football team. We've got to show some heart and emotion. I hope we have enough in us to prove that wasn't our best team out there last Saturday night."
On Indiana State:
"We're playing a good football team this week in Indiana State. They played a very respectable game against Indiana. They've got a really good defensive front, and they have an offense that will really test us as well. We have our work cut out for us, but they're not the enemy this week. We are the enemy, and we've got to do things better, regardless of who we're playing."
