UMass HC Joe Harasymiak Postgame Transcript
Everything Minuteman head coach Joe Harasymiak told reporters after the Kent State game
Transcript of UMass head coach Joe Harasymiak’s Kent State postgame press conference
What are your overall impressions of your team’s effort here today?
“I just want to start by sending prayers to Sully and Mao. Mao had a pretty catastrophic injury to his lower body, so I hope he’s okay.
I’ll start with apologizing to everybody that’s worn this jersey before, that roots for us, that comes to games. That was a joke and it starts with me and it’s my fault. I’ve got to get it right. So just want to start off by that. It’s not acceptable. I apologize to everybody. As far as the game goes, that was an ass-kicking from the opening kickoff all the way through, so we’ve got a lot to look at. We’ve ot to take ownership for it and we will because it’s not acceptable.”
Did the opening kickoff return set the tone for the way the rest of the day went?
“Yeah. I think it kind of went that way. We were supposed to avoid one way and we don’t do that. It kind of took the life out of us a little bit, but 7-0 in the game of football you’ve got to come back, you’ve got to fight back and we just didn’t do that.”
AJ Hairston went the distance as the quarterback position pretty much today. What did you see from him? What did you think of his play?
“I think he did some good things. I’ve got to take a look. It didn’t seem like he had a lot of time for a lot of the day, so I’ve got to look at that. But ultimately, he took some shots and what I’ll eval right now is he kept getting up. He kept getting up and he was vocal. He was trying to lead. So I’m proud of him for that.”
Defensively, what are some things you’d like to tighten up going into next week?
“We got back to playing terribly and it starts with the explosive play. We probably gave up five or six today. We had given up five in the last two games and when that happens it’s just, there’s no way you can come back.”
How do you approach this next week? Obviously you’ve described this game in no uncertain terms. How do you get the players to regroup and focus on Buffalo?
“I think for me being six games in, I’m going to have to make some decisions that are not very popular because it’s not right. It’s not right what’s happened. It’s not right for people that cheer for this program, that support us, they follow us. So with those decisions that I have to make, I’ll be very unpopular. I won’t have a chance to defend why we make them. I think, in order to turn this around, it’s going to be very, very hard and I just don’t know if some of us coaches, players involved are cut out for it.”
And there still is half a season left in time to get things going in the right direction. Right?
“Yeah. We ain’t going anywhere. I’m not giving up. It’s just that performance today, that’s rock bottom. I mean that is as bad as it can get. So when you get there, I think we’ve tried to do some certain things here that I’m going to have to make decisions on and we’re going to have to go from there.”
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