North Carolina head coach Carl Torbush:
“First of all, let me congratulate Coach Bowden and his football team. I think they proved why they’re No. 1 in the country. They did to us today what we tried to make sure they wouldn’t be able to do: they scored just about every way you can score. Offensively, they got us out of the ballgame so quick, we had no chance to recover. I’m disappointed for our football team, I’m disappointed for our coaching staff and I’m disappointed for our fans. We gave our fans no chance to get involved in the game.”
“I felt like our team going into the game was ready to play. Obviously, something happened and it was like being in a nightmare. We couldn’t get out of it. We were behind, 28-0, before we had any chance. Probably the most disappointing thing was when we were down, 28-3, and they were able to score right before halftime.”
“I think Peter Warrick proved again why he’s a Heisman Trophy candidate. He’s an outstanding football player. I’m very impressed with their defense. They were hard-hitting, aggressive and physical. They can really smother you. I was disappointed in all the penalties we had.”
“This is a loss. It’s no different than the loss to Virginia. We lost a football game. What we’ve got to do now is bounce back, evaluate what we did right and what we did wrong, try to get as much corrected as we can on Sunday, Monday let it go and Tuesday get ready for Clemson. The worst thing we can do now is sit here and linger over what happened against Florida State.”
North Carolina Players Post Game Quotes
Quarterback Ronald Curry
On the early turnovers:
“We just didn’t execute. We had a lot of breakdowns. If we didn’t make those mistakes, I think we could have been in the game.”
“To be down 28-0 was a big blow.”
Linebacker Merceda Perry
On being down 28-0:
“My wildest dreams wouldn’t expect this.”
On getting pressure on Weinke:
“At some times we could have gotten more pressure. With a quarterback like Weinke, you have to get in face and get him out of the pocket. Sometime we did a good job, but we could’ve done better.”
Fullback Deon Dyer:
On the start of the game:
“It was frustrating. It was like we spotted them 28. We rallied, regained our composure and put some points on the board, but it was frustrating.”
On the hit he took on his touchdown run:
“I’ll take them like that all day if I can cross that line.”
On putting this game behind them:
“You can’t take the game you played into the next game, or you will lose. We made mistakes. We’re gonna fix correct that in practice and move on.”
Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden
Post-game quotes
On the game:
‘You score 28 points in the first quarter and that’s pretty much the ball game… It’s funny, as soon as we start to substitute, everything shuts down. Give North Carolina credit. They wouldn’t quit. At least we got to play a lot of kids. I’m very happy with our players to come up here and win the ball game.”
Difference between ’97 game and now:
“They were a mighty loaded football team (in ’97). They played a lot of young people today. We had four senior receivers.
On the offense in the first quarter:
“I wish our quarterback could have stayed hot. Early we were able to complete passes…It looked like they couldn’t stop us.”
On Curry:
“He’s a heck of an offense. He is just tremendous.”
On playing a complete game:
“That first quarter we were. The complete ball game I wasn’t satisfied. I wasn’t satisfied because I want perfection.”
On the play of RB Nick Maddox:
“He plays like a freshman who is ready to play.”
On the offense:
“We have really got some firepower. Why don’t we do that all the time?…It’s a team that has the potential to be a lot better than it’s playing. To win a national championship we’ll have to play four quarters - two quarters like that one will do it.”
On Warrick:
“A lot of it is not trying to showcase him. It’s doing the right thing…He’s a talented guy. If we took him and put him at quarterback we’d have a Curry. I keep drooling over Curry, I could put him back there and do the same thing.”
