Hubert Delanie Walker: “When I heard the play I knew the coaches still believed in me.”

SANTA CLARA – Here’s the transcript of Hubert Delanie Walker’s locker room Q&A from this morning.

Q: Take us through that last play.

WALKER: You know, basically, I had to make up. The drop that I had in the end zone could’ve put us up, you know, earlier and we probably wouldn’t have had to go through that crucial moment, 4th down and 6. So when I heard the play I knew the coaches still believed in me, Alex believed in me, seeing the defense play out, I had the quick slant. Alex threw the ball, perfect pass, they thought my knee hit down but I kinda stretched the ball over the plane, got in the end zone, and basically that’s what happened.

Q: Did you have any doubt they would call it a touchdown?

WALKER: I mean, we had bad calls all week – I mean, that whole game. So I really didn’t know what was going on, but I was confident that I got the ball over.

Q: Did you see the replay? It was pretty close.

WALKER: I seen the replay from both angles. From the other angle you can see that the ball was clearly over the plane before my knee hit the ground.

Q: Bummed that the win is being overshadowed by the handshake controversy?

WALKER: Not at all. Our coach is very exciting. He’s a competitor. And that shows a lot, you know. He was very emotional, it was a big win, we overcame a whole lot in the game and he kinda felt that – you know, he didn’t play, but he coached the game. So I could see him acting the way he acted. Really wasn’t no big thing, it was just a rough handshake, and I think it got carried out of proportion. But, you know, when he got in the locker room he talked about it, he wished it never happened cause he didn’t want to take away from our win.

Q: He said that?

WALKER: Yeah. But you know, we like to see our coach be that way, and we’re going to fight for him if he’s going to fight for us.

Q: Did you see it as it happened?

WALKER: I seen it as it happened, but I didn’t think it was that bad. I didn’t think it should’ve escalated the way it did, but it did. You know, when you come into a house where a team is 5-0 and you take that win away from ‘em in the last minute of the game, things happen.

Q: Alex said it was a physical game, lot of talking back and forth. Heated.

WALKER: Very physical. Lot of talk going on. But games like that, you’re going to get that type of atmosphere. You just gotta overcome it and play football.

Q: How about this 5-1 record for this team? It’s kind of like the little engine that could.

WALKER: You know, we look at it as we’re getting better. We’re not looking at, oh, we’re 5-1. We’re top of the charts. We’ve still got a lot to do to get better. We gotta make more plays, we gotta put more points on the board. We see it as an opportunity of getting better. We’re going to take this week to get better.

Q: Do you like that Harbaugh calls it “Improvement Week,” not a bye week?

WALKER: I love that. It is improvement week. We don’t look at it as getting a couple of weeks off, we look at it as getting better and learning our opponent that we got next week.

Q: Is there a buzz in the Bay Area about these two teams?

WALKER: You know, it’s a buzz, but we want to be slept on. We want to be known as sleepers who come in there and then bite. That’s how we look at it. We don’t want to be listed on top of the charts or anything like that. Just leave us where we at and we’ll keep doing what we’re doing, making plays. I gotta go, I’m sorry.

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