“We have to protect the ball, obviously. We have to make tackles on defense. I give Georgia Tech credit. They ran their offense extremely well. We did not stop them.”
— Pittsburgh coach Paul Chryst
“I was trying to look at the scoreboard and didn’t think anybody was behind me, so I thought I had it. Next time, though, I’ll sprint to the back of the end zone. It was a lesson learned.”
— Pittsburgh running back James Conner, who was stripped of the ball shy of the goal line by Tech cornerback D.J. White
“The first play, I think we had, but I was afraid (quarterback Justin Thomas would) let the clock run out again, the 25-second clock. I was watching that. I didn’t want to run the same play. I thought they’d probably (defend) that (toss) play (again), and so we ran the option and they slanted out to play the toss, and we had the give on the option.”
— Coach Paul Johnson on the timeout he called just before Tech’s successful fourth-and-2 play in the third quarter
“He broke some tackles, and he’s got great speed when he uses it and gets on the outside. He’s a different kind of guy. The other guys are cutback guys, and he can run around the corner.”
— Johnson on A-back Broderick Snoddy
“We won, so I’m happy. Our guys work hard. What you want to do as a coach is try to give ’em a plan that they can execute and a way to win the game, and they did that, so I’m happy for them.”
— Johnson
“Anytime you’re carrying the ball or even maybe catching the ball, anytime the ball is in your hands, after you get it a couple times, you start to get in a rhythm, and I felt like I started to do that throughout the game.”
— B-back Synjyn Days, who had a career-high 22 carries
“I’m just working hard at practice. Coach Johnson, a couple games ago, just told me to stay by him. One game, I got in, I stayed by him and I got more reps.”
— Snoddy
“I’ve been involved in a game where we fumbled that many times. I don’t know about the opponent. That’s never happened before.”
— Wide receiver DeAndre Smelter
“The last two weeks, we kind of stunk it up a bit. With our offense, if our offense can pretty much score over 20 points, we should win the game. That’s the way we feel.”
— Defensive tackle Adam Gotsis
“When I saw him break (free), I felt pretty good about my chance of getting him. It was just a matter of getting the ball out. So when I took off, my whole intention was to get to him and strip the ball. I was able to do that and offense got the ball back and put in six, so it was a big play for us.”
— White on his strip of Conner
