Game Quotes:

ASU Head Coach Dennis Erickson
On the game overall:
"Well we came out early and played like we talked about all week. The biggest thing was to come out and play hard early to try to get them out of the game, and we did. We came out and played very well in the first half, executed things, and then we come out in the second half and had a couple chances. So I thought our first group played extremely well, and then we substituted. That was a thing we wanted to do. We played a lot of guys, a whole bunch of them, and we didn't play very well. We kind of lost the momentum there in the second half. I'm pleased halfway with that first group, and I'll just have to see how those second guys played."

On Rudy Carpenter's play:
"I don't know what his stats were, but it was unbelievable. He made some great throws. I don't think he made a bad throw. He might have made one bad one. He's seeing things. I thought we protected pretty well, though obviously we've got to get better at that. He knows what's going on. He understands our offense and what we're doing. I thought he did a heck of a good job."

On going up against NAU's defense:
"They were playing a lot of 3 deep stuff, and they were getting guys down in the box. That's the nature of that defense. I've played against it many times. You've got to be able to throw those routes, and we ran them and threw them. They had trouble covering our guys. I thought it was really good early. Then some other guys got some time in there, and we just never got things back, but I'm not concerned about that."

On Stanford, next week's opponent:
"(Stanford head coach) Jim [Harbaugh] has done a great job there. They beat SC, and they beat Cal at the end of the year. They're playing well. They believe in what they're doing. They believe in him, and he believes in them. We're going to have our hands full. There's no question about that."

ASU QB Rudy Carpenter
On the team's overall performance in this game:
"I thought we did fairly well tonight, but I still think we have a lot of work to do, especially in the run game. I think we still missed a couple throws, some pretty easy ones, so I'm still a little disappointed about that. Overall, I think we did all right. It was a good start, but I think we still have a lot of work to do."

On the offensive line's pass protection:
"I thought they protected pretty well. For the most part, I had a lot of time to sit back there, recover, and make some good plays. Like I said, we still have a lot of work to do and work on every aspect of our team."

ASU LB Mike Nixon
On getting the first one under their belt:
"Defensively we were kind of tired of hitting the first offense everyday and they were tired of hitting us too. We thought we played a really good first half. We got out there and did what we wanted. Some of the younger guys got to play in the second half and we just didn't step up defensively like we needed to and we kind of let them back in the game. After what Stanford did Thursday night we are going to need a better effort."

On the defensive struggles in the fourth quarter:
"There is a fine line between wanting to get your guys ready for a Pac-10 opener and taking advantage of the opportunity at hand. I know we haven't seen the tapes yet obviously, but it felt like they were moving the ball with ease."

ASU RB  Dimitri Nance
On how he felt about the running game tonight:
"I think we did a pretty good job. The NAU defense did a good job of covering the gaps. We just did the best we could, but I think we could do a lot better."

ASU WR Kerry Taylor
On gaining more yards in this game than all of last season:
"I think I got a better opportunity in this game. A lot of hard work in the off-season paid off. Rudy [Carpenter] made some good throws to me and it felt kind of easy. I'm pretty happy with the performance, but there are always things you can work on."

Northern Arizona Head Coach Jerome Souers
On whether or not they felt deflated after ASU's first touchdown:
"It's tough. We wanted to defer the kickoff. Football is a long game and you can't let one play deflate you."

On Rudy Carpenter:
"We didn't see this kind of offense before; it's more open. We would miss and then they'd extend the play. Big plays ensued. We were concerned with the physicality, but we matched up better with the run game than we thought we would, but the passing game killed us."

Northern Arizona QB Lance Kriesien
On his impressions of ASU:
"I give credit to ASU; they should be ranked higher than they are. We needed all 11 guys tonight and at some point there were some lapses. We didn't take advantage of the opportunities we had in the red zone, but again, all the credit goes to ASU. They are a great team. I wish them luck in the rest of the Pac-10 season."

On the environment at ASU:
"I feed off the crowd noise. I love the environment. It probably rattled some freshmen. It's one of those things you can't simulate in practice."

Northern Arizona DB Cyrus Igono
On Rudy Carpenter:
"He's good. He has good pocket presence and he kept fighting all night, whether it be running for a first [down] or scrambling when the pockets broke down. His scrambling ability is definitely something that we didn't prepare for, and it created some problems for us."