GEORGIA STATE HEAD COACH SHAWN ELLIOTT
Elliott: “The way we come down and have a chance to win that football game with the last throw – you'll write Georgia State is 2-6, but there's a lot of things we take out of a tough game. And this is a disappointing defeat. It's certainly a disappointing defeat because when you look at the stats, we had 59 plays for 521 yards - you would've thought we had a pretty good day. But it turned out we came out on the wrong end and Coastal Carolina made the plays when they needed to, and we couldn't get them off the field. They had 66 plays for 476 yards and the last kick there at the end certainly did not seal our fate, we had an opportunity to go down there and make a play to win it, but congratulations to Coastal Carolina for doing it.
The disappointment alone is probably the number one lesson that we're going to learn from this because we see a lot of guys in that locker room that have extreme care for playing this game and playing for this team. I don't know if that's always been the case – maybe I'm misspeaking on that – but there's been a lot of hurt in the locker room. There's a lot of hurt in me sitting right here.
It's a tough game. Every single day there's a winner and there's a loser, that's just how it is. Unfortunately, we came out on the wrong end today.”
On how he thought the three freshmen on the offensive line played today…
Elliott: “When you rush for 290 yards, somebody was blocking somebody. There was a hat on a hat. And it starts with those guys up front. I think for the most part they handled themselves pretty well. There early in the game they gave up a pressure on third down on a miscommunication but to go center-right guard-right tackle all freshmen in a college football game – I've been coaching for a lot of years, and I don't know if I've ever had three of my five be freshmen. And I've coached offensive line for a lot of years. I think they did pretty good.”
On the emotions of Penny Hart in the locker room after the game…
Elliott: “A lot of tears is what I saw. When you want something so bad it brings you to tears, and he lays it on the line – that's what it's all about. You get 115 guys on your football team to care like he does? Man, we're in for something. Stay around, because it's coming. That's what I heard from him.”
On what it will take to get off to better starts on the defensive end…
Elliott: “I think it's going to take a sound defense and it's going take tackling and getting people to the ball. There's some holes on the defense. It doesn't take a football coach to see that. We've got to reevaluate some things. And there has been a lot of that, but there's just got to be a little more.”
On his message to Penny Hart after the game…
Elliott: “Keep doing what you do. You think he woke up today and said, 'yeah, I'm going to drop a couple.' But he is everything you want in a football player. It's who he is. It went off his fingertips today. And you've got to lift a young man like that up, because he's putting everything on his shoulders right now thinking that it was all him. And it's not even close.”
Georgia State QB Dan Ellington
The one thing I love about this team - we never give up. I'm very proud of guys for battling back after being down 17-0. We knew one play wasn't going to get us 17 points so we took it one play at a time.
We just got to keep fighting and get better. Like coach said, there is going to be a lot of good to come out of this. We just gotta continue to get better each and every week.
[On the final throw to Penny Hart] “He ran a dig and I threw it behind him. And that's on me. “
[Positive Takeaways] We went 8/11 on third down which was one of our keys to winning the game. We had a chance to win the game we just didn't get it done.
COASTAL CAROLINA HEAD COACH JOE MOGLIA
“It was a nail biter and it was stressful but that's what happens when there is a 3-point differential and the other team has the ball. I was proud of the way our guys played the game, proud of how our offense started the game, the defense struggled a little but it turned out well and I am proud of the way special teams played.
[On QB Fred Payton] It seemed that he got a little more confidence the longer that he was out there and I had confidence in the calls that he was making. He is still inexperienced and still makes mistakes, some of his reads and decisions weren't really what they should have been. However, he played really well today and is a great athlete.
