HEAD COACH SONNY DYKES
Q. (No microphone.)
COACH DYKES: I thought it started with protection up front. I thought we protected well. That's what always begins for us is for the offensive line. And I thought they gave him a chance to complete passes and get the ball out. It's just one of those -- I thought he performed well. He missed a couple of passes here and there. He dropped a couple of balls here and there. We would like to have, we would liked to have played better.
I told the guys, I thought we played very hard, we just didn't play quite well enough to win and we couldn't overcome some of the things that were out of our control.
Q. Would a run game have helped in the red zone?
COACH DYKES: Yeah, any time you run the ball, it's good. That's a good thing for you. You're winning the line of scrimmage. And when you typically win the line of scrimmage you typically win the game.
So, we ran it okay. I think Tre averaged over six yards a carry, so we ran it good. We ran empty a lot. We thought that was a good set for us. You're not going to get much run in when you don't have a back in the game. We felt like that was a pretty good formation for us. But overall, I thought we ran the ball decent.
Q. You converted two red zone chances for touchdowns pretty consistently this year. What was the difference here?
COACH DYKES: Dropped the ball the first series, missed a throw, one of them Kenny was open in the end zone and we missed him. Maurice dropped a pass early. Just little miscues, that was the kind of difference really for us is we had opportunities to make plays, to give ourselves a chance to win and we just weren't quite good enough tonight there to do it.
Q. Was there anything Stanford's secondary was doing to get the receivers out of rhythm?
COACH DYKES: Not really. No, I thought that we executed pretty well throwing the football. There was some times when we had some guys open, Jared did a good job getting them the ball. I thought that -- overall, I thought the offense played pretty well. But it came down to not finishing drives.
Again, the penalties killed us. We were moving the ball real good, we converted a third down and they called an offensive pass interference. That really hurt us. Huge. We had five series in the first half and two of them were stopped by penalties.
Q. Kenny played just that one snap?
COACH DYKES: Yeah, he played very few snaps. He's banged up. Yeah, he just didn't play. We thought Lasco might play. He didn't feel good in warm up. So he didn't play either. Khalfani didn't either, so I don't know. He was going to be very, very limited if he ever got into the game.
Q. Any of those field goal attempts in the red zone, did it ever cross your mind to go for it or were you always thinking field goal?
COACH DYKES: We wanted to get points. We went for it a bunch on fourth down. We went for it early in the game because we felt like we had to. We were trying to play aggressive. But at the same time we didn't want to get -- we didn't want to miss opportunities to get points. We felt like if we could keep getting field goals, that was better than not getting anything.
All of a sudden we looked up in the third quarter and we were back in the ball game. We didn't get a couple of stops we needed to get down the line to give us a chance to win.
But it was -- I thought our guys really played hard. I was proud of how hard we played. I thought -- defensively, I thought we really did a good job containing the passing game. I thought our guys were aggressive, broke on the ball well, made some plays on the ball.
When you have almost 500 yards of offense, against a good defense, it's a little bit frustrating when you score 22 points and don't win the game. But as I said, the penalties really, really hurt us. It killed numerous drives.
Q. Is McCaffrey any different in person?
COACH DYKES: He's obviously good. Even though he's a physical runner. I think I think that's the thing that, you know, after you play him, he bounces off runs and runs behind his pads very well. It's not hard to see on film either.
Q. When you sent the offense out on fourth and short and then wound up having to punt it. Usually you said you like going for it when it's fourth and short kind of middle of the field. What was the thinking there?
COACH DYKES: We went for it, like I said, the first second or second possession of the game. And converted. A lot of it had to do with it was a check with me and if we get a look we like we're going to play and if we don't we'll punt the ball. We lined up, we looked at the look, the look wasn't what we wanted to run a play into, so we punted the ball.
JUNIOR QUARTERBACK JARED GOFF
Q. Five possessions in the red zone, how difficult was that to not score?
JARED GOFF: Missed opportunity, I think. We normally score in the red zone. Today we didn't. We ended up with a field goal which is still a score but normally we like to punch it in there. For some reason we didn't tonight and they played very well defensively and couldn't punch it in there for whatever reason. But, yeah, it's three scores there could have changed it.
Q. (No microphone.)
JARED GOFF: I obviously didn't see it. I saw his hands up high and kind of turned around and so didn't see the end of it, so I don't know.
Q. (No microphone.)
JARED GOFF: I don't know. Missed him by about a yard. Missed everything by a yard.
Q. How much did it hurt not to have Lawler and not to have two of your running backs? Did it change things at all?
JARED GOFF: Kenny is a great player and Montez is a good player, we would love having them. But today I felt the guys played great. I didn't -- not to say that he's not great, I didn't notice he wasn't out there. Maurice played great. Everybody played great. Obviously it was a great performance by all of them. There was not really a drop off. They played really well. The whole offense, we for the most part of the game we played pretty well and shot ourselves in the foot with a lot of penalties, can't do that. If you want to win. We had eight penalties for 63 yards. That's not going to do too many favors for you. Gave up a couple 15 yarders, too. So it's stuff like that that keeps you from winning.
Q. The question of field goals is sort of obvious, but the third time you're trailing, did you want to go for a TD there or I mean you have no call, but what was your thinking there going for the third field goal?
JARED GOFF: I don't have much say on that. I think we made them all, so it's a good decision there. I think it would have made the decision a lot easier if we scored the play before and didn't have to worry about it. But for whatever reason, couldn't punch it in. On the first one, rolled out and threw a very poor ball to Kenny on that quick out he had. Same thing to Tre. Kind of just led him too far up the field. And it's on me. I need to be better than that in the red zone. If we finish those drives in the red zone, obviously it's a different ball game.
Q. Does this feel like night and day from you guys against these guys the previous two years?
JARED GOFF: Like to get the win. It's the same result the last two years, but I think we definitely, like I said, we played better. We definitely played better on all facets of the game. I thought the defense played pretty well and the offense, we made a bunch of yards, we have just couldn't finish drives, like we have been saying. I think, like I said a couple times now, if we finish those drives, it's a different game. But that's credit to them, they're a great team, they're a Top-10 team. They're that for a reason. It's something that we strive to be and keep continuing to work and we can get to that point.
JUNIOR LINEBACKER HARDY NICKERSON
Q. What did you think of your team's tackling today?
HARDY NICKERSON: They had the long screen pass where we missed a few tackles. We got to get better at that. We got one more game against Arizona State. We got to send the seniors off right on Senior Day, their last day at Memorial Stadium. So we're looking forward to practicing hard this week and getting after it.
Q. What do you think about the progress that you guys have been making so far?
HARDY NICKERSON: We made progress since last year, but at the same time, we had some third downs, third and shorts where you got to get off the field. They were extending drives, 12 play drives, controlling the clock, and so any time you get in a situation like that you want to get off the field as fast as possible.
Q. You heard a lot about McCaffrey. Facing him, what did you think?
HARDY NICKERSON: Great player. Very patient, waits on his blocks and can explode in his space and make people miss. That kick return too, elusive and can run.
Q. Was it frustrating that despite all the progress, when you're done it's sort of the same result as the last two years?
HARDY NICKERSON: Yeah, it always hurts losing, especially when you try to play as hard as you can. Big game, we wanted to get the Axe bad as bad as possible. It hurts. But we got one more game in the regular season and we're looking forward to bouncing back with that.
SOPHOMORE RUNNING BACK TRE WATSON
TRE WATSON: We let it fall short and there was nothing we could do. We got to move on to next week and focus on ASU and get this W.
Q. Going forward what's kind of going to be your message for your teammates?
TRE WATSON: Just focus on the little things this week in practice. Everything technical, blocking, from the blocking, the catching, to the can you tell us and just getting downhill and attacking and being more aggressive. Really that's our main thing. We just got to clean up the little things and we'll be able to go out next week and put on a show and get this W.
Q. Does it make it more frustrating knowing that it's little things that are really getting you?
TRE WATSON: It hurts. This is a big game and it really hurts. Every game's a big game, honestly, but now we know we can beat one of the best teams and we have been knowing that so now we got to go out and just do our thing and focus on us and stop worrying about all the outside things going on.
