Arkansas/Utah State Postgame Quotes

Arkansas vs. Utah State

Arkansas Coach Houston Nutt

(On tonight’s win)

“Anytime you can pitch a shutout you get excited. I’m proud of our defense, but offensively we’re shooting ourselves in the foot. We really should have scored 35-40 points. We play in too tough a league to give gifts away. Wins are precious, even if they are ugly. I love ugly wins.”

(On Mitch Mustain’s first start)

“Mitch did well for his first start. I felt good about it. He made good decisions for the most part. There were a couple of times I wish he would’ve gone the other way, but [quarterbacks] Coach [Alex] Wood will get that fixed.”

(On the kicking game)

“Our main problem was our kicking. We’ve got to kick better. We can’t miss extra points.”

(On Darren McFadden)

“Man it was good to have to old Darren back. You can tell he’s missed a month, but he never looked over to [Running backs coach Danny Nutt] Danny because of being tired. He wanted to be out there the whole time.”

(On going into SEC play)

“We’ve got to step it up. Everyone has to pull their own weight. We want to build off of this going into conference play.”

Quarterback Mitch Mustain

“It was like any other game. It’s always good to win, but there was no big difference. It feels good to get my first start under my belt. We will definitely have to be stronger next week against Vanderbilt. It is always nice to be able to give the ball to such good backs like Darren (McFadden), Felix (Jones) and Peyton (Hillis). They make things a lot easier as a quarterback. The touchdown at the end of the first half was important because it gave us a little more room for error and let us try a few different things.”

Wide Receiver Marcus Monk

“It always feels good to get a win, but we cannot celebrate too long. We have to come back and get ready for Vanderbilt on the road next week. It took us a little while to get going but eventually we found a little groove. Mitch (Mustain) handled himself well I thought. The touchdown was a go-route on the outside. Mitch threw it to a spot where only I could catch it and I went up and made the grab.”

Tailback Darren McFadden

(On the 72-yard TD run)

“I saw the hole before I even crossed the line of scrimmage. I almost lost my feet, but I regained my balance and took it to the house. It was great blocking by the offensive line.”

(On the fumble)

“It was completely my fault for not securing the ball better. There is no excuse except that I have to work to make sure it does not happen again.”

“Our offense had a few minor setbacks, but for the most part I thought we moved the ball pretty well. We will work on some things and get ready for Vanderbilt next week.”

Defensive Tackle Keith Jackson, Jr.

“Every time you get a win, especially a shutout, you have to be pleased. It is definitely something to be proud of. We still have a lot of things to work on for next week because Vanderbilt showed today that they are a very good football team. Marcus Harrison mentioned the thought of a shutout earlier in the week and Coach (Reggie) Herring brought it back up yesterday. When Utah State got down inside the ten late in the game we put the first team back in there to try and maintain the shutout.”

Arkansas Injuries

LB Mark Bonner – dislocated left shoulder (very doubtful for Vanderbilt game)

LB Freddie Fairchild – sprained right knee

OG Jeremy Harrell – sprained left shoulder

Utah St. Coach Brent Guy

“We were going to try and control the clock and get our running game going. The big play really killed us tonight. We gave up too many big plays, and we’ve got to put the ball into the end zone. We played a decent third quarter, but the big run (by Darren McFadden) in the beginning of the third quarter killed us.”

(On the McFadden TD run)

“They just caught us with a good call there. We had a stunt on and they caught us.”

(On being shutout)

“We’ve got to score touchdowns to win games. That’s why we didn’t kick the field goal (in the fourth quarter). I’m not into moral victories, and I wasn’t going to kick a field goal just to avoid being shutout.”

(On Arkansas’ offense)

“I think they’re still in conversion mode (offensively). I saw more new than old.”

(On Marcus Cross)

“I thought he ran tough. That’s a tough, hard-hitting defense. His numbers showed his toughness against a good defense.”

Leon Jackson (Quarterback)

“The problem is we didn’t score a touchdown. We wanted to put points on the board tonight. The biggest thing is we need to finish drives.”

“Our front five did a great job blocking and we did a good job getting the ball to Marcus and we got into their secondary. I do feel we improved the most on picking up third down conversions tonight.”

Marcus Cross (Tailback)

(On running more)

“We talked all week about running the ball down the field more. Coach talked to me on Saturday and told me he wanted to get me more involved and I had to be tough. Our goal was to gain 100 yards carrying the ball and I did that tonight, but we still need to finish drives. We need to work harder and score points.”

(On Arkansas Defense)

“They are very tough. They know how to fly to the ball and sometimes they over run plays and I just had to let them go around me. They are an athletic team.”

(On playing an SEC school)

“They did a great job. I can’t take anything away from Arkansas. It is a dream to play against an SEC team or a major conference team period.”