Read what Western Kentucky head coach Tyson Helton had to say after Western Kentucky's 34-27 loss to Troy on Saturday night at Houchens-Smith Stadium.
Opening statement:
TYSON HELTON: "Good football team we played tonight in Troy, hats off to them. They beat us fair and square. They played good football. Game went about how I thought it would go that it would be a hard-fought game. Our guys knew it would be a hard-fought game as well. Battled hard. Had some turnovers. Had some penalties. We need to make stops, but didn't make them. When we needed to convert, we didn't convert. Tough one. We'll rebound. Get back in conference play. Get ready to get on the road and play a really good UTSA team."
On Troy's redzone execution:
HELTON: "We rolled the dice a couple of times and we hit the quarterback, but he got the ball out of his hands and we were on some one-on-one matchups out there and both quarterbacks made really good throws in critical times when they needed to make them. That's why they scored. But, they executed well. They had long drives and they kept us off-balance a little bit. When they needed to make the plays, they made them. So, hats off to them."
On Austin Reed throwing over 50 attempts:
HELTON: "We got behind in the fourth quarter. We had a lot of throws very late. That kind of adds up really fast. I thought we had decent balance for the most part with both run, pass, and the RPO game, but we were down by 14 so we gotta start slinging it around and trying to make up those yards."
On Reed's quick passes and getting sacked five times:
HELTON: "I thought their front was good going into the game. I thought their front did a good job during the game. They got push. Their coverage was solid, so we had to hold the ball a little longer than we wanted to. Some of it was the pass rush and some of it was coverage. I'll have to look at the film, but for the most part I thought Austin did all he could do with the hand that he was dealt under those circumstances. But we knew going into the game that their front was pretty good and I thought they did a good job tonight."
On what he saw from Jarret Doege and his two fourth quarter touchdowns:
HELTON: "You know, both quarterbacks made big plays at clutch times and Jarret was no different. Obviously, with him being here I knew that he was very capable of making those plays and he made them. Hats off to him. It's hard going in as the backup late in the game and having to try and find a way to win and he definitely found a way to win. It stinks for us obviously, but happy for him that he was able to go in there and make some plays and make things happen."
On WKU's first scoring drive:
HELTON: "It was great. It was what I wanted to have. We executed great. It was pretty flawless. But their defense kind of settled down and got in the groove of things. Third downs. Third and short. We needed to convert on a couple of shorts and tried to take a chance on a couple of fourth downs that didn't work out for us, but again they are a good defense and there was gonna be some back and forth in that. We needed to convert on third downs. I think back to the first half. We had a 3rd-and-2 and were moving the ball pretty good and they owned us, so we ended up having to punt. Thought about going for it on fourth down, but it ends up being 4th-and-3, 4th-and-4. Those are the things we have to clean up."
On Michael Matheson's performance:
HELTON: "Mike's a good player. He did a great job tonight. Our other receivers made some good plays. Daewood (Davis) made some good plays tonight, but it was good to see Mike make those plays. Our guys compete and we were in a bad situation trying to catch points late in the game and try to do it fast. I thought Mike did a good job there, but it doesn't get any easier so we gotta get conference play going again. Nobody feels sorry for us. We don't feel sorry for ourselves. We'll go to bed tonight, come in tomorrow and that game is over with and we'll get ready for UTSA and try to get that conference win."
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