Maryland Football
Interim Head Coach Matt Canada Postgame Press Conference
vs. Penn State – November 24, 2018
Opening Statement
Great respect for Penn State. Good job, good win. We obviously left some good plays on the field. A lot of guys got hurt. As we always talk about how special our players are, the guys kept stepping up and stepping in. We just weren't able to make the plays we had to make today. I'm disappointed in that for our players. It's hard to watch that. It's hard to see that happen when we know how bad we wanted it for our seniors and for everybody. We had many guys who came in hurt and guys who were hurt throughout the game. They just kept playing so hard and we just didn't make the plays to win the game, so credit to our opponent. I am so proud of our football team. Really proud of our team and the entire building. I say it a lot. Our building. Our equipment staff and our managers, how hard they work to pick up the slack through this. Our medical staff and our trainers, our weight room staff, our nutrition staff, our academic staff. I love our players and they deserve all the credit, but everyone in our building did a great job. It stinks that we didn't win today and it really stinks the last two games we came up three points short, but this was one hell of a season, one hell of a group of kids. As a staff, we're really proud of them.
Q: If you could choose how these Maryland players are remembered, how would you want them remembered?
A: Just as a group of kids that stuck together, that had to deal with things nobody should have to deal with. How they matured and how they responded to adversity from all the things that came out and every day they went back to work. They're an unbelievable group of kids. That really should be the only story. This is our livelihood and our profession, but what these guys did, they played hard every game. Anyone who wants to question that is wrong. That's not always the case. They had every excuse in the book not to play hard. How many seniors stayed out there and played until the last whistle today? You look across the country and as soon as adversity hits, seniors start tapping out to get ready for the draft. Nobody did that on our team, they guys are dying to play. It's an unbelievable group of kids
Q: In terms of how the game started, when a team on the road scores so easily like that do you have to change the approach?
A: No. They scored, they could've scored in two plays or 20. You have to go play. The weather was what it was. They've been taking the ball, so obviously maybe that was a bad decision. We had the ball to start the second half. We had a double move that we just didn't get the call. We had chances, they scored, we could've scored. We just didn't panic, to answer your question. Obviously, we didn't want that to happen in the first pass. I'm still happy with all our kids and how badly they wanted to play. Wish we could go back, but we don't get to do that.
Q: Last week, you talked about the difference six inches can make in a game. Early on, especially in the first half, you guys had occasional drops, incompletion along the sideline, interception. Is it disappointing that two games in a row didn't go your way?
A: It is disappointing. Inconclusive plays were a difference. Every game is certain plays. Football's a momentum game. You go out there first play of the second half and get a double move for a touchdown and the game changes, so that's how it is. We had a couple plays he called us out of bounds. That's football, it's what we do. It's part of it and we didn't make enough plays to win. We had some opportunities to make some plays today. I take full responsibility for all of it. I don't know what we did wrong, but we had some chances to make plays and we didn't make them today.
Q: How much do you feel you've grown as a coach going through the interim period and how much would you like the opportunity to continue in a permanent role here?
A: To the second part first, that's nothing we're going to worry about right now. I can help you write about our players. They're going to move on, they have to search firm and they're doing their job. We've taken it day to day and that's what we're going to do. We'll get up tomorrow and see what happens, but that's not the story. As a staff, we've grown a lot. We've learned how. We get into coaching for the kids, but things change sometimes and it's hard. Sometimes things happen, but there's no doubt how much we learned from our kids this year. There's no doubt how important it is to make sure we're all together. There's no doubt that sometimes somebody's here and somebody's there, but football's still the greatest game in the world. It doesn't matter where you're from or how much money you have. If everyone believes you have a chance. We didn't win enough, but they believed. It didn't show up today, but it sure did show up last week. They believed, so that's what I learned. I learned it's still the greatest game on earth and I wish we won a couple more.
Q: In regard to the injury situation, were they particularly beat up after the Ohio State game?
A: No, it wasn't anything like that. Last week of the year, we were very smart in practice and it was a long season. [Darnell] Savage had been hurt a little from the Ohio State game. Ty [Johnson] tried to go all week and today said he couldn't go. [Sean] Christie was out today and we knew all week he wasn't going to play. It's a 12-game season, 16 or 17 weeks with camp. It's two really close games last week which is just a lot. I'm proud of how these guys played because a lot of guys with two emotional loses wouldn't have come back.
Q: Did Anthony re-aggravate?
A: I can't answer that. I know he went out and they told me he was out. At that point, we had [Javon] Leake and [Tayon] Fleet-Davis and that's about all we had. We got ourselves in a pinch there with personnel, but we had chances we just didn't play well and coach well enough.
Q: What do you do with this game? Do you still go back tomorrow and start dissecting it or do you take this away for a little while?
A: I'll probably put this away for a little while. It's not going to matter right now. We'll grade it for our kids like we always do. Again, there were plays there to make and better calls to make like every other game you lose. Again, that's the hard part for us as coaches, when you have a game where a couple plays here and there change the entire game. I don't know why we missed some of the plays we missed today but we did, so it all falls on me.
Q: What were they doing to stop the run game?
A: They decided to stop the jet [sweep] like other teams have. We had some communication issues we haven't had when the ball probably should've been doing the other way. It falls on me. We have a quarterback who has only played a couple days. They were up the field on the jet and we had some chances and didn't get those big runs. They had everyone down, break one more tackle. They tackled a little better than we hoped they would. Then our passing game, we had some shots and we just didn't get them. We were just out of bounds. All of the sudden you're in field goal range. We got ourselves far out there. That's points at the end of the half that I was going in saying if we can get three and then come out and get seven, that's 10 points there. If we could go bang-bang then all of a sudden, you're back in the game. That was a big play and they have just made tremendous catches. That's just how it goes.
Q: When you took over as the interim coach you didn't know at least half the team for a while. What did you get to know about these guys that maybe surprised you?
A: I don't think anything surprised me. The coolest part about it is how much everyone decided we were going to stick together and play hard, block out everybody else and forget everybody but us and care about us. That's what we did. The defensive kids did it and it was fun to get to know them. It was a tough locker room right now. I feel really frustrated that we didn't win. It's a special group of kids and everybody in the building. Everybody's probably thinking no one's been in our building. There have been some tough days throughout the time this has all gone on. The fact that everyone has hung in together and you can come in there and talk to someone. It's awesome and that should be the story. Everything else will work itself out. Everybody will figure everything else out. The story is how awesome these kids are. I wish we had played better, I wish I had coached better. You go all the way back to when this started getting lose and you said we were going to play these games as close as we did and win five games, I bet everyone would have said no way. These kids deserve all the credit.