Postgame North Texas: Coach E

Army coach Rich Ellerson spoke with the Times Herald-Record after a 17-13 win at North Texas Saturday

“Talk about a fourth quarter. I’m glad nobody left early. It (the win) speaks to the resilience of our football team. We weren’t stopping them much but we were able to get those takeaways. Our defense was so resilient. We just kept playing and kept playing.”

“We were frustrated at halftime. We had squandered some opportunities dropping some balls. We weren’t a juggernaut in the second half either. But we made a couple of plays. We had some guys step up in some critical situations and made big plays. Most of those came from the defense. But we made enough on offense. Pat (Mealy) had a great play. Ali (Villanueva) has another good game when he settles down. We made just enough plays. Frankly, we needed every one of them.”

“We needed guys to make plays whether it was Marcus Hilton blocking a kick or Trent Steelman taking the ball down and taking off . They locked us up in man coverage and he took advantage of it. There are bunch of heroes out there. Obviously, Ty (Shrader) had that last play. Jonathan (Bulls, Army’s punter) just had a career day. He had some great punts, exactly what we needed when we needed it.”