Upcoming Event: Football at FIU on September 13, 2025 at 6 p.m.
6 p.m.
Football
at FIU
Florida Atlantic University Athletics
Charlie Partridge Post-Game Quotes
9/12/2015 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 12, 2015
Post-Game interview with Charlie Partridge (9/11/2015)
Obviously, it's hard to win a game with that many turnovers. All the credit in the world goes to Miami. They're a heck of a football team. I think Al Golden has done a tremendous job and deserves a lot of credit. There were times when I was very proud of our football team, but there's also times where it's time for us to take the next step. We proved that we were, we can play with the likes of bigger conference schools and Power 5 or whatever you call it, so what we need to do is grow up.
You saw at times, you saw our young kids grow up. You saw that we can compete, and we can't turn the ball over. And, quite honestly, I just told the team that we are beyond that now, that, you know, and we need to play to win. The entire group and I'm counting on them taking the team over from a leadership role and building from here because if we continue on the path that I saw at times, we can go on and have a great season. Again, all the credit in the world to Al Golden and Miami and their staff.
Coach, was it hard enough getting the team back moving again after the hour-long delay?
You know what, the staff did a great job of keeping them moving. You know. We came out and we threw the ball, we did some good things right when we got out there. So, it really wasn't that big of a deal. We went through a two-and-a-half hour delay last year so this just felt like an extended half-time.
You obviously want your team to be fully healthy, but you've incurred a lot of injuries in these first two games. How tough is it to lose your Jaquez on the first drive when it seemed like you guys were finding a rhythm right before the delay?
Jason Driskel came in and did a heck of a job. He had some nice checks. Miami was showing pressure and he threw some nice balls. Jason knows that we've talked about this through the course of leading into the season and we do have some depth at quarterback, so it's like all coaches say, it's about your next man up and Jason showed that he can do some good things. It's 7-3 when that delay happens, Quez goes down and doesn't come back in. Did you feel that kind of changed the game?
Well, I would have felt that way if I didn't see Jason Driskel do what he did at times during the game. You know what I mean, and the bottom line is we just, at the time when it was somewhere in the 20-17 range when uncharacteristically Jenson Stoshak came up and fumbled the punt, that was a tough one. But, I believe that our defense held and either they missed a field goal or hit a field goal. So again, there's signs of us growing up, but we need to grow up right now. Enough, let's finish some games and let's get some victories.
Coach, let's talk about the atmosphere.
Awesome. I don't think anyone walked out of here, Miami fans, Florida Atlantic fans, fans that just came to see the event, recognize what Division I big time football can be in Palm Beach County and come back because the atmosphere can be the same every week. It doesn't have to be us against the Hurricanes, and to me that is just, I was asked a question earlier in the week, what a win over Miami would mean, and I meant what I said which was it would fast-forward us a few years. As you guys can see, we are on the trajectory to do some really, really good things. We didn't win tonight but there were some victories tonight, so the atmosphere being seen, some people recognize that it can and will happen here.
Charlie, for Driskel to sort of, to make the switch sort of in a weather delay, did that sort of help his transition, knowing that hey it's Jaquez is out and you have to go on the field when it's sort of a faster paced situation whereas I think with an hour delay, he could sort, did you have to change the game plan and sort of create a game plan on the fly for Jason?
Well, I mean, we had plays. We always have plays marked for the backup quarterback. Again, Jason checked on some option plays at certain times and we called some option plays for him and he ran well. It did certainly help that there was a break. We wanted to see, actually we got Quez out there to see if he could do it, but we did have a plan in case Quez couldn't because it was kind of hard to tell during that time, so once we got him out on the field and he tried to plant, drive and throw, we knew that we were going to go with Jason and Jason did some good things. I am proud of him.
If this were sort of a game further down the season, would you have tried to get him to play more or is it something where if he comes into next week - there's 10 more games in the season.
You talking about would we try to force him to play? No, we were cut and patch, playing to win tonight. We went for it on 4th and whatever it was and then we ended up getting down there and then the penalty backed us up and forced the field goal. We were doing everything we could to win the game. If Quez could have gone, he would have gone, same as it would be a for a conference game.
Same go for Jay Warren who is still uncertain about how he's doing.
Ya, again, it's a middle torso area injury and status is unknown.
How comfortable were you putting Jason in the game?
Were there any second thoughts or anything?
No, zero, he's really done a nice job, uh, throughout the course of camp and we will see how long Quez' injury is and go from there.
Is there any way to kind of improve with the penalty situation with the, sort of, lack of discipline from young players coming in?
The biggest concern I have from tonight's game was the turnovers. We had too many of those to have a chance to win a game, um, we will take a look at the penalties on film and see where we're at.
What do you think that they need to improve?
Where do you want to see the most improvement?
We need to stop beating ourselves with things like turnovers and penalties. If we do that, we can be really, really good. And part of that is not making excuses.
Coach, could you talk about your rushing attack and also how you rebounded from penalties?
I am proud of the fact that our offensive line did much a better job. We had issues with we were down in the red zone and all of us in coaching, I love the energy in the stands but when we're on office, we need to be a little quieter, and as you can understand, we did address the crowd down in the student section. I'm so proud of the student section and the job they did, but we ran the ball at times very effectively. Buddy Howell has proven he can be a force and Jay Warren did as well before he got hurt and had to go out of the game. There were times where our O line was really wearing out their defensive line, so again, if we to continue to build on that, we got a shot to be pretty good when we get into league play next week.
The defense is just full of guys who are either young or haven't got that much experience. I mean, when you have all these injuries and you're sort of trying to play guys in all these positions, how difficult has it been for the first two games when you just have to go through these growing pains as a defensive unit?
We knew that there was a bit of a youth movement on defense. We knew that some of these young guys were going to contribute, and they will be outstanding players for us in the future. They are growing up extremely fast. So, there is a lot of transgression out there and starting roles or starting number of reps so. With every rep, they are going to continue to get better. That was our goal through the course of the game and 1) to win and 2) to continue to get better through the course of the game, and there was times that we were, so we will see improvement through the course of the year for sure.
Players Mentioned
Inside The Owls' Burrow S10 Ep5 Trailer
Monday, September 08
Post Game Recap vs FAMU
Saturday, September 06
Gemari Sands Post FAMU
Saturday, September 06
Inside the Owls Burrow 2025-26 #4
Thursday, September 04