University of Massachusets Athletics
Postgame Quotes: Head Coach Walt Bell and Student-Athletes
HEAD COACH WALT BELL
Opening Statement
“It was a good team effort. We knew coming into the football game we had to be good in all three phases. Defense, we talk about winning on third down and obviously, one-of-10 on third down if this is accurate is pretty good. Talk about holding them in the red zone on defense and they did a nice job of forcing field goals. Offensively, we knew going into the football game with a young quarterback who had struggled the last couple of weeks, we were going to run the football. Probably the first time in my life I’ve ever handed the football to one guy almost 40 times. Ellis did a great job but more importantly tonight, our offensive line did a great job. Had a couple of miscues on third and short. Probably could’ve been better on third down. We weren’t great on some of the third and manageable situations today but being really, really cautious especially as our defense throughout the day continued to play well. Played the game really conservatively. Special teams did a nice job. The tight punt at the end there where they got a nice return, didn’t necessarily hit the ball great, kind of gave them a chance to get a return. Huge team win for us. Happy for our players more than anything else. Just everything they’ve been through. It’s been a long time for these guys. In 2019, we had 52 scholarship players and traveled 49 to our last regular season game. We only had 65 players on the entire team and didn’t even have scouts to practice against a year ago for our four games. Everything those guys have been through from an adversity standpoint, incredibly excited for them. Great win.”
On Ellis Merriweather's performance
"We had some really good success early in the game running the football. We knew coming into the game that we going to have to run the football to win. We still had some missed opportunities in the run game. Ellis missed a cut or two, we had some guys fall off blocks. Our kids did a nice job. Ellis, just to touch ball that many times and not put the ball on the ground, that’s an unbelievable just from a consciousness decision maker of taking care of the football when you touch it that many times when you’re that tired. Proud of Ellis and how he took care of the football. He ran hard, he ran physical. Ellis would come up here and tell you the same thing, his five O-linemen did an unbelievable job. The strength of their defense is their front so I thought Ellis did a great job.”
On Brady Olson's play
“We called the game really conservatively after the last couple of weeks. We hit a shot play off of a screen fake, we had wide zone and had been running with the tailback almost every play. We hit a pass play off that, which kind of loosened them up and got the ball to the 50-yard line and we were able to eat another extra three or four minutes off the clock. We got down there and had Onuma Dieke up the middle of the field. Gave up a little bit of a protection issue and weren’t able to sit in there and make it clean or it would’ve been a score there as well and we had to settle for a field goal. Brady did a nice job taking care of the ball. Him and Zamar both did a nice job of managing the line of scrimmage and taking care of the ball.”
On first drive of the game
“I don’t know if we threw a forward pass either. We came out and ran the ball well and they made some adjustments going into the second drive. We had a miscue option play that could’ve been a big hit on the second drive if we would have pitched the ball. We came back later in the second half and called the exact same play and actually got the ball pitched. We did a nice job of taking care of the football.”
JUNIOR RUNNING BACK ELLIS MERRIWEATHER
On the students storming the field postgame
“It felt good. We haven’t had that feeling in a long time. I’m just glad that we can bring that to the University. All my guys worked their butts off today. I couldn’t have done this without them, so I’m just happy we got it for the school, for the team, and for Coach Bell.”
On getting off to a fast start
“It set a tone we were preaching that all week. You know you have to start fast, you can’t start slow because we didn’t want to play catchup at all. That was just a mindset the whole week and everybody bought in. We went out there and did our thing.
SOPHOMORE CORNERBACK JOSH WALLACE
On the students storming the field postgame
“It was crazy. I wasn’t expecting them to storm the field, but we just have to keep moving forward.”
On the defense’s mindset
“I feel like defensively everyone was on the same page today. We rarely had any errors today. I think that carried over to us and played great defense.”
Opening Statement
“It was a good team effort. We knew coming into the football game we had to be good in all three phases. Defense, we talk about winning on third down and obviously, one-of-10 on third down if this is accurate is pretty good. Talk about holding them in the red zone on defense and they did a nice job of forcing field goals. Offensively, we knew going into the football game with a young quarterback who had struggled the last couple of weeks, we were going to run the football. Probably the first time in my life I’ve ever handed the football to one guy almost 40 times. Ellis did a great job but more importantly tonight, our offensive line did a great job. Had a couple of miscues on third and short. Probably could’ve been better on third down. We weren’t great on some of the third and manageable situations today but being really, really cautious especially as our defense throughout the day continued to play well. Played the game really conservatively. Special teams did a nice job. The tight punt at the end there where they got a nice return, didn’t necessarily hit the ball great, kind of gave them a chance to get a return. Huge team win for us. Happy for our players more than anything else. Just everything they’ve been through. It’s been a long time for these guys. In 2019, we had 52 scholarship players and traveled 49 to our last regular season game. We only had 65 players on the entire team and didn’t even have scouts to practice against a year ago for our four games. Everything those guys have been through from an adversity standpoint, incredibly excited for them. Great win.”
On Ellis Merriweather's performance
"We had some really good success early in the game running the football. We knew coming into the game that we going to have to run the football to win. We still had some missed opportunities in the run game. Ellis missed a cut or two, we had some guys fall off blocks. Our kids did a nice job. Ellis, just to touch ball that many times and not put the ball on the ground, that’s an unbelievable just from a consciousness decision maker of taking care of the football when you touch it that many times when you’re that tired. Proud of Ellis and how he took care of the football. He ran hard, he ran physical. Ellis would come up here and tell you the same thing, his five O-linemen did an unbelievable job. The strength of their defense is their front so I thought Ellis did a great job.”
On Brady Olson's play
“We called the game really conservatively after the last couple of weeks. We hit a shot play off of a screen fake, we had wide zone and had been running with the tailback almost every play. We hit a pass play off that, which kind of loosened them up and got the ball to the 50-yard line and we were able to eat another extra three or four minutes off the clock. We got down there and had Onuma Dieke up the middle of the field. Gave up a little bit of a protection issue and weren’t able to sit in there and make it clean or it would’ve been a score there as well and we had to settle for a field goal. Brady did a nice job taking care of the ball. Him and Zamar both did a nice job of managing the line of scrimmage and taking care of the ball.”
On first drive of the game
“I don’t know if we threw a forward pass either. We came out and ran the ball well and they made some adjustments going into the second drive. We had a miscue option play that could’ve been a big hit on the second drive if we would have pitched the ball. We came back later in the second half and called the exact same play and actually got the ball pitched. We did a nice job of taking care of the football.”
JUNIOR RUNNING BACK ELLIS MERRIWEATHER
On the students storming the field postgame
“It felt good. We haven’t had that feeling in a long time. I’m just glad that we can bring that to the University. All my guys worked their butts off today. I couldn’t have done this without them, so I’m just happy we got it for the school, for the team, and for Coach Bell.”
On getting off to a fast start
“It set a tone we were preaching that all week. You know you have to start fast, you can’t start slow because we didn’t want to play catchup at all. That was just a mindset the whole week and everybody bought in. We went out there and did our thing.
SOPHOMORE CORNERBACK JOSH WALLACE
On the students storming the field postgame
“It was crazy. I wasn’t expecting them to storm the field, but we just have to keep moving forward.”
On the defense’s mindset
“I feel like defensively everyone was on the same page today. We rarely had any errors today. I think that carried over to us and played great defense.”