Cyrus Fagan: "It's Going To Be A Hostile Environment"
NC State safety Cyrus Fagan met with the media to discuss his performance against Florida State and Saturday's matchup with Syracuse.
NOTE: Click the vdieo above to watch the interview with Fagan.
Would you call that maybe the most important or the biggest play of your career?
Yeah, you could say, but not really because every play you want to have a one-play memory, you know what I'm saying? So as a DB you got to get rid of the good plays, the bad plays, the ugly plays... they go out the window. So I'm going to say no.
That was your first time playing Florida State, because you obviously missed the game last year. What was that like for you and the emotions after to the game after that?
It was a great feeling, especially how we played, how the game ended up going. We were losing early and then had to come back and come together as a team. So, it was a great feeling to know that here I came together with my brothers and we came together and we fought to the end. All the zeros was up and we was victorious.
I give credit to them, they did their job, they gameplanned for us and they coached well. But at the end of the day we kept fighting together as a team and we didn't leave our brothers. So that, was a great feeling.
Obviously the coaches were going to talk to everybody at halftime, but did you speak up to halftime?
Honestly, I was really just quiet. I was just listening at the coaches and when we got in the locker room, nobody said too much. We knew we had what we had to do for real. Coach Gibby came up, gave us our corrections and told us what to do and nobody were arguing. Nobody was in there complaining about, "Oh, what's going on?” We just got the job done.
So, after Coach Gibby gave us the call, we knew we had to go execute.
What's does it say about your preparation and the coach's confidence in you that you probably didn't practice much last week and yet they made sure that everything was still good for game day?
I appreciate them for that. They're looking out for the guys. They knew how bad I wanted it too. I wanted it bad myself. I didn't even know on the way here in the bus, I didn't even know still if I was going to be able to play. I was sad, wasn't talking to nobody, and then when we got off the bus at the Walk of Champions, my..., I don't know, I guess my adrenaline just started running and I saw my mom and my sisters and I was like,”I got to play... I can't leave these boys like that.” So then I just ended up playing and the rest is history for real.
You look at the Syracuse, I mean, what challenges do you think they present?
They've been playing good football for sure. They are 6-0, they've been putting up a lot of points all year. Their running back is dominant, top running back in the ACC. Their quarterback is throwing dimes and running the ball. He’s probably the leading rusher, one of their leading rushers this year.
It's all respect with the Syracuse. We know we got to go up to their place. We know it's going to be a hostile environment. We know we just got to come to play like we did Saturday, play for each other and I feel like we'll be victorious after that. We play for each other.
How much fun is it as a competitor? You go in the Atlantic, Clemson, FSU, Syracuse, it's really almost a meat grinder.
Nah, it's definitely a lot of competition in the ACC. I feel like they got to stop trying us, compared to the ACC. These last couple games have been big time football games, especially how they've been playing out. It's a great feeling to know that we had an opportunity, like you said, to go up to Syracuse now and playing their hometown in front of their fans and try to do our job and at our best. So, it's just a great feeling knowing we back out there.