Nov. 22, 2003
GEORGIA TECH COACH Chan Gailey
We got three stops in a row at the beginning of the second half, and we scored on two of them. That got us back in the game, but we didn’t get the stop we needed after that. Give Virginia credit. They executed and we didn’t. We turned the ball over and they didn’t.
(On trying to stop Heath Miller)
We emphasized that all week, as you logically would, but a few times we lost sight of him.
We knew tackling was going to be important, but we didn’t wrap up. It seemed like 33 and 18 were breaking tackles all day.
Those turnovers were bad. When we don’t turn the ball over, we win. When we lose the turnover battle, we don’t win.
Virginia’s defense did a good job to keep contain on him (Ball). That was a good part of their game plan.
(On pressuring Schaub)
He’s not going to hold the ball. They give up the fewest sacks in the league, and the biggest reason is him.
VIRGINIA COACH AL GROH
(On the Virginia flag carried throughout the game on the sidelines)
Every organization that accomplishes something, somebody’s got to carry the flag, and it’s got to be more than one. … We had a lot of guys do that literally and figuratively today.
(On the play of Marques Hagans)
He really showed a tremendous amount of heart on some of those plays, just fighting and twisting away from the guys that had him. He showed a lot of spunk.
(On the play of the Virginia defense)
We were able to do some things — a few of the coaches came up with some really good ideas. I thought we did a pretty representative job against this running game. That kid (Ball) is a really good quarterback and I think he’s going to be one of the dynamic players in the league in the years to come. We tried to make it difficult for him.
I thought Connor (Hughes) did great for us again. … The teams that get something done with their seasons every year, one of the ingredients in that, you can look around and see that their field goal kicker had a really good season. He won’t be the recipients of one of the field-goal-kicking awards this year, but obviously no kicker in college football has kicked the ball better than Connor Hughes.
(On Jonathan Smith’s punt return for a TD)
I thought that was a very poor play. A poor snap forced the kicker to punt the ball out of rhythm — a low kick to a dangerous guy. I didn’t like the look of the coverage from the start. That’s the down side of a good day. You take those seven off, and I think it adds an exclamation mark on what the defense was able to do.
