Colorado interim coach Mike Sanford spoke with the media following the Buffs’ 20-13 overtime victory against Cal at Folsom Field Saturday.

Below is a transcript of that press conference.

Opening statement:

“This is all for the players. This is all about the players. This is all about their response, their resolve. The stuff that I said here 10 days ago, everyone thought I was crazy. We talked about how unbelievable a group of resilient fighters that we have in our locker room. I think everybody had a chance to see that on full display today. I'm really proud of these players. I told him after the game, that's a great moment. It's a moment we're gonna celebrate, but we talked about a fresh season, a new season. What I told them is the best part about being 1-0, which we are in their new season, post bye week, is that you have a chance to be 2-0 and that's where our attention turns 24 hours from now. We're gonna get back to work tomorrow and we're gonna practice. We're going to add some Sunday work and we’ve just got to keep our eyes straight ahead. Enjoy this. It's one of those days you'll never forget. But at the end of the day, we’ve got a job to do and we believe in our abilities to go do that and that’s where our eyes are going to be fixated.”

On Deion Smith’s health:

“I just wanted to first off address Deion Smith's health. That was an emotional moment and more importantly, we've said that this thing is going to be all about our players, our student-athletes and there's positive updates on Deion’s status. He's standing up and walking around, so a lot of the fears that everybody has when somebody comes off on a stretcher, I think that I was able to assure the team that that's nothing that we have to be concerned with. So Dion is up and walking. I think he was emotional because he didn't have a chance to celebrate on the field with his teammates, but he was a huge part of that victory, both in his play and more importantly, just how much this team loves him and shows their support for him there. That was a moment I'll never forget in my coaching career, just the brotherhood that was shown through that moment.”

On when went through his mind right after the game finished:

“This week was really interesting, I think starting back on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, that bye week, there was so much work that had to be done. I think just buried myself in the work. I had a chance to go recruiting in California. It's where I'm from. A lot of our players had a chance to touch base at home and reconnect with their roots. The joy of football for me, it was at Los Alamitos High School. I was down in Southern California and there was some really clear thinking that I was able to do with regards to where I wanted this program to go and in this coming game week, really. In doing so, it was weird over the course from really Thursday on I've had, I would call them dreams or whatever…I actually dreamt specifically about the student section rushing the field. I really believed it and it sounds crazy, but I really believed that. I had visions in that light sleep. I had visions of Montana [Lemonious-Craig] making plays. I'm not obviously saying I'm a prophet, but there were just a lot of visions of guys making plays. I told the players about that. That wasn't just a motivational tactic. I saw that. My wife was asking me this morning ‘Why are you not nervous?’ I was like ‘I just believe I believe in these players. I believe in the work they're putting in.’ I had a piece about what we could do today and I also have the peace about what we can do going forward. I'm just really excited to go back to work with these players and for them to understand that the process that we put in place…process is always gonna be greater than results, right? What they believe in now is that the process yielded a result, right? That's what this thing is about going forward. It’s how we practice, how we go about our business on a daily life, how we care for a locker room. Those things are really important and that process has to continue.”

On the improvement of the run defense:

“I believed in Gerald [Chatman] and Rick George believed in Gerald. I knew that I believed in him because most importantly, this is about the players. I knew that they were going to rally behind him and then I knew that that our defensive staff was going to work together tirelessly to put our players in the best position and do so on a unified front. And that's what we saw. It was a blast behind the defensive headsets. I just can't imagine calling my first defensive game ever. Like ever. I don't even know if he's called a scrimmage before. But with that type of atmosphere – sold-out Folsom – there was there's a lot of crowd noise, like there were times I was trying to get the crowd to quiet down because the defense communication I was listening to on the headset, it felt like you were driving out east to Frederick where I live and you don’t get any AM signal. I was just proud of most importantly just how our players played, how they flew around and the belief. You saw it. It was tangible and I've known that was there since I got here in January. I looked at our defensive squad and I was like ‘We have some dudes here.’ We have Jamar Montgomery, Guy Thomas. These are guys that I knew had the ability to make plays. Na’im Rodman, the linebackers, Quinn Perry, T Lang, Chance Main, I see these guys. These are guys that I have coached against, these types of body types and athletes that I've coached against at the highest level of my career. I knew that these players are capable of doing that. It was just flipping the script in terms of their belief.”

On watching the winning touchdown catch on the video board and the spirit of the team:

“I had no idea. I thought it was clearly out of bounds and frankly, as a quarterback coach, you know, I was mad at JT for leaving the ball out of bounds. I always tell him the only thing you can't do in the red zone is throw the ball two or three yards out of bounds. If you just put it in that corner of the end zone – we call it the pie hole – then you at least give your receiver a chance to make a play. My mind immediately went to quarterback coach mode and looked at it like, oh, he threw it a yard and a half out of bounds. And then [director of strength and conditioning] Shannon Turley came up to me and he's like, hey, that's a catch. And I was like, really? Of course, my mindset shifted immediately. What I believe is that today was a day where we got some breaks, but breaks don't come as a result of just luck. Breaks come because of a will, a spirit, the way you practice, the way that you go about it and a belief. I felt like those kinds of breaks that were made I think really came from the heart of our players. I saw that.”

On players playing with joy and where that joy came from:

“I haven't talked about it very much externally. It's kind of been an internal thing this week because the word joy isn't probably the most football-centric term. It doesn't really equate to hard hits and tackles for loss and in passing touchdowns, but we established really starting on the first day that we met. We said that for these next seven weeks, our culture is gonna be defined as joy and that's exactly what we've made the mission of what these next weeks are about. I said it when I had the opportunity to have this press conference. This isn't about me. This is about them. I’ve talked to the players and I'm teaching them the different levels and different definitions of what joy means. Joy is something that is completely independent of your circumstances. It's how you wake up every single morning. It's how you come to this facility. It's how we practice. I've seen a team that bought into that vision and we’ve got to continue to buy into that vision. This is a new challenge for us in this 2022 season – how do we bring joy, but also humility after a big win. That's the challenge. Already in the locker room, we moved on to Oregon State.”

On switching quarterbacks from Owen McCown to JT Shrout:

“Owen took a pretty significant hit. I want to say it was in either the first or second quarter. It was one of those kinds of abdominal lower kind of mid mid section type hits. I've played the position. I've been around the position my whole life. I kind of knew what he was physically going through. For me, I just felt like it gave our offense the chance of having a healthy JT play in that moment against a banged-up, at least in the moment, Owen. It had nothing to do with the play. I thought both players played exceptionally well. When we're in the situation that we're in as a football team, it's going to require all of us to go win football games. I think the quarterback room embodied that today, as well as I feel like all the rooms that we had. It took not only all of our football team, but it took our fan base, it took our students section. I feel like that was a full program win today and I think the quarterback position room resembled that.”

On motivational tactics he used, like showing the team a pregame hype video on the field hours before kickoff:

“The Buff Walk is such a cool tradition. That was my first Buff Walk. I didn't have a chance to be a part of that because I always came straight here and went right to the recruits. We want to continue to grow that tradition and have more and more of the fan base there and more and more support from our coaches. A lot of the assistants hadn't been on the Buff Walk. We took basically the entire program on the Buff Walk today. I grew up the son of a college football coach that coached some of the best programs in America. I love the traditions in football. I love the pomp and circumstance, the stuff that predates my time on Earth. That was really important, but I also felt like the Buff Walk was kind of anticlimactic. I wanted to have some type of moment where we could all come together and visualize what we were going to do on that field. I wanted to show him the images on that screen of what they've done, of the culture of joy being on that screen, of how we practiced and then also showing them the plays that we've made this year. In fits and starts, we've made plays to win football games. We just haven't pieced it together. I think that I saw that today. That was one piece of it, but really at the end of the day, it has nothing to do with me hitting the right buttons. It has everything to do with the players and how they played. I fully believe that.”

On the improved pass game and what caused it:

“Probably because I was on the sideline [laughs]. It got me out of the box. I think it was a belief. I think what we saw in practice all week and during the bye week is very competitive. I kept talking about how we had very competitive periods. When you’re defense and you're going good on good, we all saw what the defense looked like, right? Not all of us had a chance to see that defense. Shoot, we were going against that and it was hard. That's a good thing. When you can face a defense daily that's tough to move the football against as an offense, that helps you. It's like a doughnut on the bat, right? I felt like we were swinging with a doughnut on the bat. We stepped into the batter's box, shoved the doughnut off and we could go out and play ball. That's exactly what how championship football teams operate. It should feel very challenging against your own defense in practice and then you get to game day and it's easier. Now, it wasn't easy. Cal’s a good defense. They don't give up a whole lot of points minus one game. They held Notre Dame to 20, I believe. They've played some really good teams and they've held some teams under 20 points. I was really just pleased with our overall performance offensively and our resolve throughout the course of the game.”

On Tyrin Taylor’s first-quarter interception:

“It was huge. It was huge. I don't know if you guys know, but the song that plays after every turnover, that's what we do in practice. The players have a turnover song, a takeaway song for the defense. I can't remember the exact song. Something about a trap. Jalen Sami brought his little Bluetooth speaker to the walk through and during the walk through this morning, he had that song playing over and over and over because we associate that song with getting the ball. That set the tone for us defensively. I think it set the tone for the energy of the crowd. Energy, like I talked about, is not just something that you go out and just run around and do jumping jacks. It's backed by execution. It's backed by plays that we talked about making an emphasis on. That was really fun to watch that song come on. It came on one time and there was a penalty, so I had to kind of get everybody back to play the next snap of defense.”

On Jordyn Tyson’s trick play pass to Montana Lemonious-Craig:

“We had a couple of gadgets up our sleeve, some of those JUCO gadgets that come from [interim offensive coordinator] Coach [Clay] Patterson, some DII football down in south Texas. We’re gonna continue to explore all that. I liked the timing of the call. Honestly, we were in a bit of a rut at that point in time. It wasn’t wide open. It was players making plays. Montana was phenomenal. I just love the way that he embodied joy today in his play. I saw that from Montana and he just continued to do it throughout the course of the game.”