WKU HEAD COACH TYSON HELTON
On the unique difficulties Army’s offense presents:
“Well, they’re a good football team. They do a great job with their offensive scheme and it’s
tough to defend. It was hard to stop them defensively. When you try to answer one thing, they
give you something else to worry about. I was proud of our defense – they needed to get a
couple big stops there at the end – and we were able to do that. It gave us a chance. I told the
defense ‘at the end of the day it’s team football, just give us an opportunity to make a play’ and
our defense did that today. Now, would we like to stop them better and give up less points and
all that? Yeah. So, a lot of tough ball played today. But, I am proud of this football team – how
they battle and how they fight. It’s tough to get down like they did and be able to fight back and
keep competing.”
On how WKU’s offense executed its gameplan:
“I was really happy with the gameplan. We knew early on that they were going to have a hard
time covering us, so we took advantage of that. It’s like I said, you have to take what they give
you. They were loading the box a little bit so we took advantage of the pass. Bailey [Zappe] did
a great job of seeing guys open. So, a lot of good things in the passing game. I think the two
biggest things were the first two drives. We throw an interception there, and that’s tough when
every possession is precious. Then we come back and have two false start penalties on the next
drive when we’re across the 50 yard line. So, those things hurt you when you’re playing a good
Army team. Wish we could’ve not had that happen and it might’ve been a different game.”
HILLTOPPER PLAYERS
Graduate senior quarterback Bailey Zappe
On how he feels the offense is operating so far this season:
“It’s nice to see, especially this early in the season being the first year we are all playing as a
group with different kinds of guys and different play styles being able to see us score 59 points
then 35 points its awesome to see that. Defense today played their butts off, that is an offense
that is good, and we put them in bad situations, I put them in a bad situation throwing the pick
on the very first drive and they helped me out and got a turnover to cancel it out… Moving on
we gotta continue to execute, play like we play, and if we do that we are going to continue to
light up the scoreboard like we have been.”
On how he felt the offense did compared to the first game:
“Like I said a little while ago, don’t shoot ourselves in the foot. With penalties, turnovers I mean
that is all stuff that if it doesn’t happen our drives end in scoring; either kicking a field goal or
scoring a touchdown and we just can’t do that stuff and we played the number one run defense
and pass defense in the country last year, we played the number one defense in the country,
and to be able to do what we did… Technically we didn’t come out with the win but we did
have some good things in there where we can also improve on in the next two weeks.”
POST-GAME QUOTES | Army (38), WKU (35) | September 11, 2021
Junior wide receiver Jerreth Sterns
On his connection with Zappe and the offense’s production:
“It’s a great feeling honestly, but like Bailey said I would feel a lot better if we get the win and
like Bailey said we put our defense in some tough situations today and they fought their butts
off honestly. Let’s get back to drawing board and get ready for Indiana now.”
Senior defensive tackle Jeremy Darvin
On the team’s late comeback attempt:
“To me personally, I have been here for a while and that is probably the best I have seen as far
as the overall team just staying the game, fighting the whole game, and just being connected
and understanding the last five minutes to win the game. It’s great to see, we are really bought
in, and we really got a good team.”
Graduate senior defensive end Michael Pitts
On the team’s confidence moving forward:
“Definitely coming in after halftime, making those adjustments… I definitely think that made a
lot more people buy in and then coming back almost. So, it’s a loss but you can still take some
good from this loss.”
