On penalty yards
“It did surprise me. It’s not who we’ve been. From taking our helmet off in celebration early and changing field position a little bit. We showed those things that happened across the country in our Monday meeting. I think we’re 1st-and-7 on the goal line by the student section, then had a couple things transpire and end up kicking a field goal. There are a bunch of things that we have to be better at as competitors. Competitive composure, we talked about it before the game. Obviously, we were not good in those moments. Personal fouls. Occasionally, there’s going to be a plain penalty, from snap to whistle. If you compete and play hard, occasionally those things will happen. You don’t want them to as a coach or player, but things that you can control, you can’t do. It changes the way the game is played. You add up all those little things, there’s a lot of opportunities to change the scoreboard, both offensively and special teams too. I’m disappointed we didn’t take advantage of some of those opportunities.”
On the penalty on the field goal attempt that was returned for a touchdown
“I don’t know what the right rule is or what is should be. I don’t know if we were in the back or not at the beginning of the return, I just saw the end of it and thought it was clean. Obviously, it had an opportunity to be a big play in the game and change the momentum. It didn’t, then offensively I don’t think that drive we got anything going either. Throughout the course of it, early in the first quarter and defensively, we played really well and didn’t take advantage of some of the opportunities that we had on offense. Second quarter, the turnovers hurt you. It changed the way the game is played for the defense, just three phases of the game playing together. Simple communication stuff in the fourth quarter, where we ended up burning a couple timeouts early in the third quarter and beginning of the fourth, where you know you’re going to need those in the fourth quarter and try to get a stop to give yourself one more chance.”
NEXT: Josh Heupel recaps Tennessee-Pittsburgh (continued)