Soundbites: Postgame Press Conference (South Carolina)

BLACKSBURG – After the season opening loss to No. 13 South Carolina, members of the Virginia Tech football program met with the media on Saturday night. Head coach Brent Pry stepped to the podium to discuss the 24-11 loss in the Aflac Kickoff. Read and watch below to see what they had to say:

Head coach Brent Pry
Opening statment: First of all, I want to thank our fans for the turnout. Outstanding. We got the greatest fans in America. Showed up here in Atlanta and from the walk into the stadium and all game long they were outstanding, so thank you for those that made the trip and we'll need you Saturday night in Lane Stadium.

Disappointed in the outcome and there's no pats on the back. Too many self-inflicts errors, untimely penalties, drops, dropped balls at the same time. Not good enough in the red zone. You got to have touchdowns down there, you know.

And then to give up -- I don't want to take it away from their players, to give up the punt return and the deep ball after making them earn it after that first series, making them earn everything they got, which is a really good team, making them earn it, to go into the fourth quarter down by two points and then give up those two plays? We got some things to clean up and we will. We got to be a better team and we can be.

Plenty of positives tonight. And you guys can look at the stats. You know what they are. We did some good things. We just got to grow from this. The penalties are

disappointing. The dropped balls are disappointing. Bad decision in the red zone. I think we lineup, we don't have our gunner on the line of scrimmage on the punt and so we got to re-kick it. So you just don't know when those things, those details lead to big plays and that's certainly what happened there.

I thought the guys fought their butt off. I was very pleased with that. It wasn't about the effort. I think we answered quite a bit. They'd make a play, even after the punt return, we went down and kicked a field goal. We did a good job right before the half working the two-minute, going down, leaving no time on the clock, kicking the field goal. We made plays but we would make a big play, we'd have the penalty and bring it back. We'd have them second and 25 and we let that run get out of there. For the most part, the run defense was pretty good. Sellers made some plays, which he's going to. He did against everybody last year. I think we got to be better than that ourselves.

Defensive lineman Kemari Copeland
On what allowed the Hokies' defensive line to sack LaNorris Sellers four times: I think that was our coaching. Coach Pry did a really good job recruiting. We have, like, three, four deep we can rotate, so our guys were fresh and we just went in. And we've been doing it all fall camp. We've been making plays and Coach tells us all the time, we just got to go out there and apply our type of ball, and that's what we did the first two quarters.

On teammate Emmett Laws' play: I feel like he's been balling and he's been doing that all fall camp. We know Emmett can make a lot of plays. We have been saying that it's past few years. E-Law is a difference-maker. We can put him in. He's a part of rotation and we know we can put anybody in the game and they can make a play, so. He has two to three more years left so he's definitely going to be one of the people that you have to watch out for.