Al Golden Postgame Quotes

Courtesy UM

On what it felt like to have offensive lineman Hunter Knighton back on the field...

“Just really good. He started for us on our punt team, and then obviously played a lot of football for us. He’s part of the rotation, he’s had a good camp, and obviously [we’re] incredibly pleased for him and his family. What an incredible journey, and incredible young man. Just blessed, absolutely blessed."

On first-quarter injuries to Braxton Berrios and Stacy Coley, who did not return...

“I don’t want to speculate on those guys. We think they’ll be alright. We’ll just leave it to the docs and see what they say.”

On what he learned about the team tonight...

“I think we played hard. It’s hard to get a shutout, no matter what. I think our defense played hard...we put them in a tough spot there and they responded. I thought we were physical, we tackled well. Obviously having a play like that on special teams was big, we haven’t done that in a little bit. We played a lot of guys. We played three running backs, a lot of offensive linemen, and I don’t know how many freshmen we ended up playing, but - between redshirt and true - probably somewhere between 20 and 22. I thought Rashawn Scott looked just about how he has looked in camp. It’s a good first game. We have to learn a lot from ourselves, kind of regroup and get better this week.:

On Corn Elder, who had one punt return for a touchdown and another called back...

“He’s done a good job. He’s so laterally quick. He and Braxton [Berrios] were No. 1 and No. 2 coming in, and he did a great job with the football. Corn is that kind of kid. There’s not much that he can’t do, in terms of what you ask him to do. Very smart kid, I thought he read them really well, and he hit it with a lot of courage and that’s what made it happen.”

On how concerned he was about weather and its ramifications on the game...

“I was concerned, because we had a couple of hamstrings and we ended up going to 10-mintue quarters...I think that was the best for everybody involved. I don’t know if that would have been the case if we didn’t get that spurt right before the half – that was big, and gave us a chance to regroup with the [FAU] game a couple of days away. Again, was it perfect? No, it wasn’t perfect. But we’re going to learn a lot as a team, we played a lot of guys, and we have to find out where we’re at and go from there.”

On the performance of sophomore quarterback Brad Kaaya...

Solid night. Nothing crazy, but he’s going to learn a lot. Obviously two of the guys that he had been throwing to went down early. We just have to get a rhythm there. Chris Herndon and David Njoku, we have to get those two and Stan [Dobard] involved. I think [for a] first night, the ball was sailing a little bit early. I think they were all jacked up. We had to get them to calm down a little bit. But overall, I thought [there was] a good attitude on the sideline, good job finishing the game. I thought [Trayone] Gray came in and finished the game really well, defense was really getting after it late in the third and fourth. Good attitude and mindset.”

On the importance of playing that many younger players...

“It’s good. It’s going to give everybody an indication of where they’re at, and then we’ll plot a course from there and just to get everybody better. Just be honest and be open with everybody. We don’t have a lot of time, so we have to get everyone rested up and go from there.”

On the performance of sophomore linebacker Trent Harris...

“Trent’s doing good. Trent played a lot obviously, and Demetrius [Jackson] too. But I think Trent is one of those guys. He doesn’t make a lot of errors, he’s sharp, he’s tough, plays with great energy and effort. I’m pleased with his performance.”

On if he would classify his running back group as a “committee”...

“All I can say is I’ve never met a football staff that calls anybody a committee. At the end of the day, it is what it is. We rotated three guys with the [first team], I think all three of them did good things tonight against a really stacked front. It was obvious early that they were going to play eight or nine men down early. Whoever grows out of this, if we
need a [No.] 1, we’ll take a 1. But if not, overall they did a pretty good job rushing the football in a shortened game – close to 200 yards in a shortened game. That’s okay.”

On the return of Rashawn Scott, who missed all of 2014 due to injury...

“He’s playing smart. We missed him last year. I’m glad to see him back. We missed him...Rashawn played big. He played strong. He’s a 205-pound receiver and he played like it. He caught the ball in stride and burst, he ran away from some guys. He has good, long, speed and he’s strong. I wish we had a couple more guys get touches, but we’ll be alright. We’ll just go to work this week and see where it goes.”

On the performance of his defense on third down attempts...

“We rushed the passer well, I thought we were physical up front, we tackled well and we had multiple hats at the ball. At the end of the day, we haven’t’ had a lot of shutouts. We just haven’t.”

On the way the weather delay interrupted the game...

“It was loud. It was good. I appreciate everybody that came out. It was a tough night to stay. I appreciate those that came out and those that stayed. And obviously I’m just very thankful to the Dolphins organization and to Mr. [Stephen] Ross. It’s a phenomenal venue right now, and it’s only going to get better in the next year. That was fun. It was an odd night, but we’ll learn a lot about our guys, and we’ll regroup tomorrow and go from there.”

On where he saw a need for improvement as a team...

“I think the turnover was right in the beginning of the third, things like that. The adversity of having to sit inside - if you don’t have leadership through that, you come out and everybody says, ‘Let’s get out of here.’ We didn’t have that mentality – we went out and played, even at the send of the second quarter it was a 10-0 game and guys were playing, playing, playing and went out and had a little spurt there. There were a lot of other ones. They had all kinds of movements coming down, they had some guys unblocked early. We had to adjust to some of that and get the running game going there. We had some drops, a couple penalties we have to clean up. But other than that, I thought we’re going to learn a lot from it.”