Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/608448
"I can promise you that the prepara- tion will be there and the heart and the passion that we have had all year will come out again. Hopefully, we can leave this team and this legacy with a W." On the issues in the red zone: "I have no idea. We'll evaluate it; we'll go back and check it out. I know some of the decisions I made down there weren't obviously the best. We ended most drives, other than the last one be- fore half, with a kick, and scoring was our ultimate goal. "We understand in a game like this that field goals are the separators, as we can see at the end of the game. To go down there and reach the red zone and end up with points, it's good. "We want to score touchdowns, but the object of the game is to score more points than the other team. If we're kicking field goals we're win- ning as well. "Now, once we go back and evalu- ate how these last couple games have been in the red zone, we're going to try to put together a better plan to end up with six points at the end of the drive rather than three." Junior linebacker Jaylon Smith … On third-down struggles: "They executed better than we did on those third-down situations. It's hard to de- feat them when it's a lot of third-and- shorts, a lot of third-and-ones. "We were able to figure it out at the end, it's just sometimes things can be too late. They made one more play than us. That's what it came down to." Stanford head coach David Shaw … On the game over- all: "Heck of a college football game. Out- standing. Two really good football teams. Two teams with a lot of really good foot- ball players. "Big plays on both sides. Resilience on both sides … at some point in this game it was going to come down to making a play to win the game. Didn't know if it was going to be offense, defense or special teams. But we kept our minds in it — we got up; we didn't change. We got down; we didn't change. "They scored late at the end. Great. But we had time. I challenge anybody to find a better two-minute quarter- back in the nation than what Kevin has done this year, at the end of halves and at the end of the game. It's been outstanding." — Jordan Wells Fifth-year senior quarterback Kevin Hogan repeatedly made the plays when most needed against the Irish defense, includ- ing driving the Cardinal 45 yards in just 30 seconds to set up the winning field goal in Stanford's 38-36 victory. PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA