Appalachian State Coach Scott Satterfield met with the media following the Mountaineers’ 45-38 overtime loss at No. 10 Penn State on Saturday in State College, PA.

Here is a transcript of what Satterfield had to say:

Opening Statement

"Oh man, that was a tough one guys, for the black and gold. First of all, you have to give credit to coach (James) Franklin and his football team, Penn State. Obviously, we have a tremendous amount of respect for his team, his staff, and what they've been able to build here. Double-digit wins the past two years and worthy of a top-ten ranking this year. We certainly have a lot of respect for them, but our kids believed. There was not any doubt in our minds that we could come in here and get this win. You get down 14, but the composure that we showed for a young football team.

“We have 12 seniors, and not many juniors, it's a very young team. That was the one question mark that I had about our team: Would your team fold, would they lay down whenever adversity hits? I think that question was answered. We were down 14 and continued to fight, came back in that game and ended up taking the lead. I'm extremely proud of our program and our guys and the way they fight and we'll grow from this, get better and hopefully we'll be ready to go next week."

Q: Scott, obviously you get to those moments when the game could be won, the long field goal attempt and then the play at the end, run us through what your thoughts were in each of those situations?

"It's fourth down and four at the end there and I wanted to go for it, it was just a hair out of (Chandler Staton's) range. He's got enough leg for it. So you're right there on the brink of it, so I thought we'd give him a chance, put it in his hands and see if he can make the kick. He hit a great kick, just pushed it a little bit to the right. You get that, you win the game right there. If you don't, you probably still go into overtime and I felt that he had earned that right to do that. He's made some field goals over 50 [yards] before.

“And then in overtime, we're driving and the play we called there at the end, we had hit a couple of times, actually hit Malik [Williams] for a touchdown on that same play. They dropped off in zone and the corner made an unbelievable play. He reached right over top of Corey [Sutton] and made a great interception. That's football. You have to be able to make plays and their guy made it. It's tough for us, our team has been there. Tennessee two years ago, took them to overtime, lost in overtime again in a very similar type situation. It's extremely difficult for a team.

“I mentioned this earlier in the week, there's not one player on their roster that we recruited, and not one player on our roster that they recruited. For reasons being that they're in the Big Ten and Power 5 and we're in the Sun Belt. The way our guys fought and played and clawed and we went toe-to-toe with them, I'm extremely proud of our guys."

Q: Zac (Thomas) gets three touchdowns in that final quarter, what can you say about coaching that guy in that situation?

"He's a tough guy, he's a tough sucker, man. When he went out, you guys saw it, he got hit hard. He had to go out a play. (Peyton) Derrick comes in, never played a snap for us, comes in and almost throws a touchdown pass on a big fourth down and completed it. Then Zac comes right in and throws a touchdown pass. He's a competitor, that's one thing I love about Zac is that he competes his tail off, just like the rest of our guys. Our guys feed off of that. When you get hit that hard, and have to come to the sideline, not knowing if he's going to come back, you come back the next play and go score, it's incredible heart. That's what our team is made of, guys just like that. We feed off that.

“We'll continue to ride him and I thought he played great tonight. That was a heck-of-a play by the corner there. I mean I just thought he played extremely well for a guy in his first start, in this environment."

Q: Scott you mentioned the young roster, did that affect some of the penalties?

"Well, I don't know. It could've had a little bit to do with it. We got called three times for chop blocks on the back side of our zone play, that's on the coaches. The way they were calling it, I didn't know they were calling it that way. We've got to go back and look at that. There were a few penalties that were unnecessary just like the first drive: We stop them on third down, then get an unsportsmanlike penalty, that's just uncalled for. We can't do that, they go down and score a touchdown. That's the kind of stuff you have to eliminate, that you can't do when you're playing a good football team."

Q: Scott early on in the game, it looked like you were giving Zac some quick stuff, some easier stuff, more timing routes. Then, as much of a necessity as anything, you're down two touchdowns, it kind of opens up. Is that coincidental or was Frank (Ponce) seeing something in the box that made you think, 'hey we need to start going down the field more'?

"What we were seeing is some of the things they were doing defensively: They were giving us some more throws down the field. We were seeing that probably the first quarter and a half. By the middle of second quarter we were saying, 'Here's where we can start attacking them.' Then we come back out in the second half and started opening it up a little bit more. A little was necessity, but it was also what Frank was seeing up in the box, some of the holes they were playing. Then they busted a couple of coverages there at the end and we got down the sideline a couple of times.

“So, it was a little bit of both. Earlier in the game, we didn't know we'd hold up as good for routes that were going to be way down the field and that's why some of the quick stuff was happening. Our line did a great job of holding up and protecting. Now and again, we felt really comfortable calling some more longer field throws. They held up really nicely and we were able to complete some of those."