UCF 31, SMU 24: Scott Frost Postgame Press Conference

"I'm exhausted," Frost said. "The players played their tails off. I'm so proud of this team for finding ways to win in a couple close games on the road. That's one of the better teams in the league that we just played. They're coached well and they play hard. We made it harder probably than it had to be. I give a ton of credit to them. We found ourselves in a close game that we probably shouldn't have been in. I love the way that our team responded, particularly on defense."

On the offensive performance:

"At times we looked like us. I kept looking up and seeing how many yards we had on the scoreboard. I never pay any attention, but it was up on the scoreboard. When you have 600-plus yards of offense, you're supposed to have more points than that. That's my fault. We got stopped on a fourth down. That would have really helped to get points on the first drive. Threw a pick-six that helped them stay in the game. Had a chance to put it away in the third quarter and fumbled down there. Had a chance to score a touchdown and be up more than a touchdown at the end of the game and got stopped on a third-and-short and had to kick the field goal. Got sacked another time and knocked us out of field-goal range. We had plenty of chances to make this a little more comfortable. Their players played really well."

On the big plays:

"I knew that was the type of game it was going to be. If you watch on tape, their backers are always up around the box. They kind of leave their DBs in a tough place to play because of the way they play defense. They mix it up so you can't really dial it in. They got all the linebackers close to the line of scrimmage all the time and that makes it harder to get the easier yards, but easier to manufacture some big plays. That's kind of how it worked out. We couldn't really get six and seven and four and five a pop. Sometimes we got it, sometimes we didn't. We knew we were going to make some big plays and we made just enough."

On McKenzie Milton's performance:

"I'm not going to criticize McKenzie. We're going to fix what needs to be fixed. The kid's been our leader and our spark plug all year. Shoot, I just saw this thing and he still threw for 400-and-something yards and rushed for 44 after taking three knees. Obviously, turnovers are the biggest stat in football and we've been really good at that all year. Today it got us in a lot of hot water so I'm glad our guys found a way to get out."

On whether today was a wake-up call:

"I don't know. I'm still asleep, I think. Listen, winning game is hard. Winning games against good football teams is really hard. This team has found a way. This is a new one. Going up and down the field like we did, we should have come away with more points. We can't turn it over like that. Can't give up that big play on the first play of the game on defense. Again, a ton of credit to them because I think they're a well-coached and talented football team. But our kids found a way at the end. We were in a situation where our defense had to go out and get a stop. We stumbled on offense and they had to go get another stop. It shows a lot of heart for those kids to do what they did."

On Adrian Killins:

"AK. It seems every time we need something, he just pops one. I've got to give a lot of credit to the o-line tonight and a ton of credit to Greg Austin, our o-line coach. A couple of the touchdowns were plays we hadn't run and he talked me into putting them in. We trapped them once and wrapped a guard around a center another time and those were AK's big touchdown runs. I have some really good football coaches on this staff and they deserve a lot of credit."

On CB Nevelle Clarke being tested:

"I'm proud of the defense, Coach Chinander and all the guys on the staff and the kids on the defense, especially the guys in the back end. I think their o-line played really well. We didn't generate as much pass rush as we normally do. Their quarterback did a great job evading it, getting out of the pocket and making some plays with his legs. For not getting a ton of pass rush on their kid, I thought our back end help up really well against some really dynamic receivers. Coach Fish and his boys had a good night."

On what he saw in McKenzie Milton out of high school:

"I saw him play and knew he had the talent. I didn't know he could play this well this early. You know what I saw in him was moxy. And a really quick intellect. To play in this offense, you've got to be able to make multiple decisions really fast and his ability to process information is very similar to the couple guys I coached out at Oregon."

On McKenzie being so far away from home, being from Hawaii:

"Yeah. He's going to have a lot of frequent flyer miles by the end of his college career."

On Baby Watch:

"It took a lot out of me. I just didn't have the energy. I'm glad the kids brought it. I'm glad the assistant coaches brought it. I'm worried about my wife. I want to be there. Everybody tells me when your first child is born it's the best moment of your life. I've been nervous, not wanting to miss that and wanted to be there for her. I told the team in the locker room, whenever he comes, thanks for making his birthday happier for me."

On being notified in case something happened:

"Gerrod, who follows me around the time, sometimes I like when he follows me around and sometimes I don't. My football ops guy. He had a phone in his pocket. Coach Verduzco's has been with my wife to make sure she has somebody there for her. I have good friends and good people around me."

On whether there's been any word:

"I haven't heard anything yet. I came in to see you guys and then I'll go back and call her. I know I would have heard the moment anything happens."

On whether he thought he might have not made the trip:

"I want to thank Danny for providing a way to get home if I needed to. Bob Garvy also was instrumental in helping me get home if I needed to. The one thing we talked about a little was me coming in this morning in case it happened last night. I wanted to be with the team. I'm just lucky it worked out this way so I can get home to see it. I hope."

On how tough it would have been to leave:

"It would have been. During that game I thought about handing the calls over to Troy, just because I knew he was prepped and ready to go. I've got a ton of confidence in myself to call plays, but sometimes you've got to bring in a relief pitcher. I had a lot on my mind and still called a good enough game to get 600-something yards of offense. He would have been fine if I would have had to leave. I know he was prepared and a lot of the plays we call every week are suggestions from the other guys on the headset anyway. These guys at this point are familiar with what we do. We would have been just fine."

On the distractions and if this was the best win:

"This is the one that happened tonight so this is our best win. It might be. When I looked at the schedule at the beginning of the year, to kind of answer your question, I knew games two, three and four would be really big challenges. Hurricane cost us Game Two and we found a way to win a couple games against some really good teams early. I knew at Navy was going to be tough. And I kind of circled this one. I saw the improvement in SMU last year and I knew they were going to be a much-improved team this year. I knew this was going to be a challenge. It was. Probably shouldn't have been quite as big a challenge if we had done some things better, but credit the other team:

On being 8-0:

"I think we deserved to win. But we could have lost just as easy. Maybe not just as easy, but a couple plays here and there. I was worried them having the ball there at the end. If I was him, I would have gone for two had I scored and tried to end it, even if I was at home. I didn't want to be in that situation, having one play for the ballgame. I'm glad they came up with a stop there."

On being one of the few unbeaten teams in college football:

"I was lucky to be part of one team that had a chance to be undefeated. We've got a long way to go before we start talking about that. This team still has a chance and there's not very many that can say that."

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