Auburn Athletics released head coach Gene Chizik's comments following the 12-10 loss to No. 2 LSU on Saturday night.
Auburn Head Coach Gene Chizik
"I want to start out with a
non-football related situation. It is a very heavy heart for myself and
a lot of our players and a lot of our coaches right now. The young man,
who was a student assistant (coach) with us, in football passed away
shortly before the game unexpectedly, and it is very tragic. Our
thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family. (His name is) Joe
Bagwell, and that was tough.
"I want to say thank you to all of our fans
tonight because they were All In, and they came and they showed up, and
they did their job, and they were outstanding. That is what makes Auburn
great.
"The football part of it, it's very disappointing. We played
against our second top 10 team and had chances to win the game, but we
didn't finish, and it is disappointing, but our goal every week is to
improve. I saw a lot of improvement out of our football team tonight in a
lot of different ways. Give LSU a lot of credit. They are an extremely
talented and extremely physical football team, and they are very good.
So, it was a hard-fought battle, and we didn't come out on the right end
of that. That is very disappointing to me, and everybody in the locker
room. So, we worked hard in preparation for the game, and I couldn't be
more proud of the players for the preparation that they put into the
game.
"We went into the game fully expecting to win, and it didn't
happen. So, we are going to go back to work and try to continue to stay
on track for improvement, and we have this week off which we are going
to be able to rest up a little bit. Again, try to get a lot of
corrections made based on what we saw again tonight, go back to work
this week. I'm very proud of the kids in the locker room, and they
played very, very hard tonight. They put it out there, and they were All
In, too. So, that is where we are."
On Auburn taking a step in the right direction tonight
"I
think if you just look at the whole entire body of work and how hard
they played, it was a field position game which we knew going in it was
going to be, and we knew it had to be. I think it sums it up. I am very
proud of the effort they gave, and the improvement they made. I love the
kids in the locker room. That's the bottom line. They blocked out all
of the distractions, and they really try to work. We've had good days of
practice, and I felt good going into the game, but we didn't finish,
and there will be a day when we will. We are going to continue to grind
and work until we can."
