AUBURN COACH GUS MALZAHN
“First of all, I’m very proud of our team. We talked about playing and fighting for 60 minutes in honor of Coach (Pat) Dye. Today, we were going to do that and for the rest of the season. That’s really what we talked about. Our guys did that. The defense and offense complimented each other. We made some good plays on special teams. I really want to give a shout out to our students. They were extremely loud, specifically in the fourth quarter. We didn’t really know what to expect, but they made a big difference. As far as big plays in the game, I really felt like the two-point plan from the first touchdown that we executed. That gave us a shot in the arm and changed the dynamics of the game even after the scores after that. The penalties we’re going to have to clean up. That’s something we’ll work hard on. The defense getting three turnovers was huge. We didn’t turn the ball over, offensively. I thought that was great. I thought the play of the game was right there before halftime. They had the ball at the half-foot line, and we picked it. Of course, it went for six and was called back, but still, just the momentum and not giving up any points to still have the lead at halftime was huge. Then, of course, the fake punt that they tried. I think we scored a play or two after to put the game away. Things that we need to improve on is our third-down execution on both sides. In the fourth quarter, our guys really came on. A lot of things to work on, but I really think our team has a lot of potential. We beat a good football team today. Hats off to Kentucky and Coach (Mark) Stoops for what he’s done with that program. They are going to beat a lot of people. We were very concerned coming into the game. They led the league in rushing last year. They had four starters back and they’re very good offensive linemen. Our defense did a really good job of stopping them between the tackles. That was something that we really focused on, and our guys did a super job of that. Offensively, Bo (Nix) made a couple really good throws for touchdowns. I thought Seth Williams made two big-time plays right there to help us. I’m just excited for our team. It gave us a good measuring stick of where we’re at. Like I said, there’s a lot of things we can clean up, but we’ll work extremely hard to do that moving forward.”