OPENING STATEMENT:
“Obviously this week is a conference game, haven’t had one of those of late with an opponent that really has an explosive offense. Their quarterback is back in (Steven) Montez, and (Laviska) Shenault Jr. is probably one of the best players in the Pac-12, maybe one of the best offensive players in the country. They are an explosive offense, especially in the second half. They have scored 72 points and their opponents have only scored 27. For some reason, they have got off to some slow starts, but in the second half they have been able to turn it on and play some good football. They are very balanced; they run the ball and play with two tight ends a little bit more. I think that is Mel’s (Tucker) style, an SEC version of a package with two tight ends. On offense, they run the ball fairly well and they throw it. Defensively they have a 3-4 system, bring pressure at times, and drop eight at times in coverage. His footprint is being put on this football team. They are a very physical team and they can score points. They are averaging 36 points per game. We need to start scoring points on offense if we want to be competitive going through this Pac-12 conference. And as I have said before, we are trying to get better every week. So, that is where we are at as a football team.”
ON SHUFFLING OF OFFENSIVE LINE:
"I thought about that after the first game. Taking a guy that was in the running for a bunch of awards at the center position and moving him to left tackle would be a little bit of a problem for him and our offense. After watching us play, I concluded that we have a Freshman quarterback (Jayden Daniels), so we should just start him more over there. It does not matter. He could solidify the offensive line. It can take a lot of pressure off the guard now because we moved him (Dohnovan West) from center to guard. We will have a left tackle that is going to be a Freshman. If we can help him at times chip and bring the tight end to protect him especially against the team we just played. I thought it was the best thing for our offense because we had gone three straight weeks in which we changed our offensive line. I said that this is it and I did not want to change it anymore. I called them in on Tuesday and told them. They were fine when they went to practice. The right guard (LaDarius Henderson) played pretty good. That is Cabral's world too. I think going forward that will get things going for us. Also, those guys have to play together too. It is hard when you are moving pieces all the time. But, due to injuries and some other things, we had no choice. Early in the season, you find out about your players and what they can do well. That needed to be solidified before going forward. So, hopefully no one gets hurt and that is the lineup."
ON HANDLING SUCCESS EARLY IN SEASON THIS YEAR COMPARED TO LAST YEAR:
“We will find out because it is a big week for them. It is an opponent that can play very well and put points on the board. It is a good test for us again. It really is. We have had a little bit of success. How do we handle it? We were in a similar spot last year. We had some success, but we got our nose punched in. So, we will find out. All of the warning signs are there. I am going to talk about it all week. Then, we are going to go out on the ball yard and find out. We will see how we handle it.”
ON FRESHMEN NOT GETTING FAZED BY BIG MOMENTS EARLY IN SEASON:
“Hopefully, it is the environment they play in and coached in. I would hope that it is eventually a part of our DNA and that is all about trust. I do not want to put it on me because it is not me, but it is out staff and how we handle things. I get it all the time from these guys that I always stay calm. I tell them that I have to stay composed because I have to make decisions. I do not get caught up in all of that stuff. We want our players to be passionate, but not emotional because when you are emotional you make errors. You see it every week in the games. Guys clap their hands and say, ‘my bad.’ It is really the teams’ bad. When big moments arise, there is a calmness that you have to have. During the last drive, I told our quarterback (Jayden Daniels) that we are not going to get the ball back and we need to score. He looked at me and said, ‘okay coach.’ They went out there and executed. It all worked out for us.”
ON HOW TO BALANCE WINNING GAMES AND SETTING FOUNDATION FOR FUTURE:
“They both go hand in hand. When you win, it gives you more confidence as a player. Obviously, we are sill trying to find our way offensively right now. You keep building on the little things that you do. That was a big drive at the end of the game against a very good team in a stadium that was crowded with their fans. Our guys were able to execute some things. It was not pretty. But, when you look at the last drive it started with pass protection. They did an excellent job pass protecting. We needed to run a certain route. We dialed it up and got it. I pointed out to our team that this was going to be our last drive of the game. All of these things had to go right. They did it. Hopefully, we can continue to build on that. But, we are a work-in-progress. This is not over yet by no stretch of the imagination. We will hit some potholes. When we hit them, I will be up here and basically be talking the same way. I am not going to say the house is on fire. We would be okay. We have water sprinklers. We will put the fire out. That is just me. I keep telling you folks that and I think you guys think I am kidding. I am not kidding. That is just my personality. That is who I am. I get excited when the kids do something good. I get excited when the game is over, I sit in the corner, and just watch them. That is what makes me happy because they do all the work and it pays off with winning a football game. There is nothing like that in the locker room when you watch them I do not even say anything. I just sit there and watch their personalities come out. It is a fun deal for them. There is a lot of work to do and they understand that.”
ON STATUS OF BRANDON RUIZ:
“We will find out a little bit more. We thought Brandon was going to kick this week. But, then he went out to practice and felt sore again, so we shut him down. We are fortunate enough to have a good kicker. It is unbelievable to have two of them. He has done a really good job for us. He has made eight in a row. When he (Brandon Ruiz) comes back, we will find out what we do. But, until then, (Cristian Zendejas) he is our kicker.”
ON HOW TO GAME PLAN DEFENSIVELY AROUND LAVISKA SHENAULT JR.:
“He is a really good football player. It is fun to watch him on tape. He had four touchdowns against us last year. They (Colorado) scored 28 points and he scored all of them. You better be ready for him. There are times when you may not hear from him, but they will get the ball to him in big moments. They know when they need a play, they will orchestrate a play for him, whether he is in motion or in the backfield as quarterback. Their quarterback does a really good job throwing the deep ball. That is what they do well. He really has a nice touch. We have to know where he lines up. So, we will see if we can slow him down.”
ON HEALTH AFTER PHYSICAL GAME:
“As far as health-wise, I think we are okay. We were a little sore. That was a physical football game on both sides of it. There are always going to be some guys that are sore obviously. But, that is football."
ON OFFICIATING IN LAST GAME:
“They never have a home game. It is tough on them. A lot of things happen in games. I do not get involved in judging the officials or screaming at them. It does you no good. It gets you on television, but I do not really want to be on television. The play that they are talking about is kind of in between because Cam walked up to the box. But, as he was walking the ball was about ready to be hiked. That was the issue. He walked up in the natural zone where you have to be set. He was not set long enough and they thought he was hurdling over their guy. It happens. I can say some other things, but I will not. They missed a call. Sometimes they miss calls. I have been in some games where they miss calls. I understand it. I do not say anything. I don not make a big deal out of it because it is just football. We were fortunate obviously. But, there were some other things that go along with the game and we could do this for the opposite team. I do not do that. We were able to win a football game on the road against a very good football game. A lot of things happened in that game. There were 17 fouls. They had 10 and we had seven. So, I will just leave it at that.”
ON DEFENSE DEVELOPING MORE CONTINUITY:
“They are starting to get a personality. There is a lot of improvement there. If you are not a great defense, then you would not give your team a chance on that last series. On the road, that is when you become really salty. They have limited points to keep us in games. This week it is going to be hard because (Colorado) these guys can score. They average 36 points per game. They have a (Steven Montez) quarterback and wide receiver who will both be playing on Sundays. We better get ready. But, they have done a good job of keeping us in the game. That was the whole issue we had at the end of last season. We will have to play defense early. We might have to play defense the whole season this way. I do not know. You are on scholarship to play defense, so go play defense. Your job is to not let them score. I lived that world my whole life. It is hard. You have to have tough-minded players to do that because every quarter you would want to have a lead. Sometimes, it may not happen until late. When it happens, you then need to close it out defensively. We are still working.”
ON CLOSING OUT CLOSE GAMES:
“We are just trying to find a way to win games. Every week, there is always a plan to try and win. This week it was to withstand the onslaught in the first half because these guys have got out to big leads against their first two opponents at home That is all I talked about all week, just make it ugly – as ugly as we can. And if we do that, all of a sudden, the script changes and we take the fans out of the game. We take the emotion out of the stadium and it goes flat because they don’t have the lead. We are not throwing on the road, against a really good defense with a freshman quarterback and two freshman offensive linemen. That does not bode well for anybody. I don’t care who you are. We did not want to get into that game, and so that was the plan. We made people turn the channel saying ‘I don’t want to watch this’ because there is no scoring. And that’s okay because I was loving it. I was sitting there saying ‘we are doing good right now boys.' And we went into the locker room and I said ‘okay, half the plan is done, now we have to go finish it.' To their credit, and maybe they do not know any better because they are so young, they just say ‘yeah Coach, we are going to go do this’. We went out and they just kept playing and that’s just what they do. Good for them and good for the coaching staff, because we didn’t change what we thought we needed to do to win. We just stick with the plan, do not deviate unless they make you change. Right now, we are playing good enough defense where we can punt the ball and move the ball some, play good in the red zone, force the kicker to miss some kicks. Even if he made the kicks, we are still within a score. We still have a chance. You just want a chance, man. That is football. Just give yourself a chance. Do not muck it up. That is hard for young kids because they don’t understand that sometimes, but they were good enough to figure it out and we got out of there with a win.”
ON WHEN THE DEFENSE WILL GET RECOGNITION:
“In sports, regardless of what sports you cover, offense brings fans to the stadium because people want to see scoring. Unless you watch a soccer game, then you sit there and they might score they might not. It might be one to two or three – and my girls played soccer, so I get it. People want to see points. We want to see action. Everyone wants to play defense the last two minutes when you have the lead. But we are in a world now in which everything is on a screen and you can go to something because your mind going fast and they are scoring. You play defense and it may not be pretty. Why would they not talk about it? You have got a freshman quarterback, a running back (Eno Benjamin) that almost rushed for 2,000 yards last year and some people say he is not playing well. I don’t know about that. He has scored three touchdowns in three games. He has made big plays in big moments. He scored a touchdown when we needed a touchdown. I get the yards, I get all that. But, he is dealing with a situation and he has not blinked. He goes in the huddle on the first drive, with the offense, before they go on the field and he’s screaming, telling them ‘this is going to be hard today’. That is the first thing this guy says. He says, ‘this is going to be hard, but do not worry about it, just go play’. We all get it, we have a freshman quarterback and the guy has won three games. In this win, he was big down the stretch with his legs. The guy took off and ran. It is fourth and 13 and this guy takes off. He saw the coverage and converted. And Eno (Benjamin) gets out of the backfield and shields the guy and he (Jaden Daniels) runs to the first down sticks. Then he clears the pocket and runs down the side for five. He made two gigantic plays with his legs and so it is worthy to talk about because he is a freshman. The quarterback always gets talked about, every sport. In football, they talk about the quarterback. Like the quarterback in Arizona, he runs around and makes some plays. I get it, that is what happens."
ON RANKINGS:
“Well it is really good, but it does not help you win games. We can tell you that from last year. We got hit in the nose, rankings went away. There are probably some other teams this week that got beat. I have always said this, especially in college football, there are so many personalities with the young people on your team. That is why there are upsets every week. It always happens because you do not know what these kids are going through when they leave the building. We do not know all the things they are dealing with in their brains and how they compartmentalize all that stuff, and how they deal with it. To me, that is why when I watch college football, there will always be upsets, or at least always close games. It’s a game of passion and when the passion becomes emotion off the field because of events they have dealt with as student athletes. We forget about that. We forget they are student athletes. They have a lot on their plates. It is not just about being a football player. This is not their living. Now, some of them want to make a living out of this, but they actually have a social life. So how does that affect them on Saturday? As a coach, you do not know. We do not babysit these guys, they just come to work, and they smile. You do not know if they have a problem or not. Now some of them will come into your office and talk to you. So, that is what makes college football so unique. This is why you watch every Sunday and you scratch your head. It is nothing new to me.”
ON KEEPING COMPOSURE IN BIG MOMENTS:
“We work on those things in practice. Now, there is no one out there, there is crowd noise. We will go in the bubble and have the crowd noise. We practice this stuff, and hopefully it works. But the quarterback (Jaden Daniels) was good, I talked to him before they went out there. I said, ‘Hey look, this is it, you got to do something.’ He said ‘Coach, we are going to be good’. I said ‘Okay, go do it’ and he did. When he was done (with the drive), he walked back over to me and said ‘Coach, you good?’ and I said, ‘I’m good now, I just hope the defense can stop them.' There was not a doubt in his mind that they were going to be able to move the ball. That is how he felt. But that is who the kid is. We have some very good conversations on the sidelines, it is very interesting.”
ON DJ DAVIDSON INJURY:
“When he went down, I said, ‘You cannot hurt Mandrake, how can he go down?’ I told our trainer ‘that is Mandrake, get that guy back on the field, he is okay, that’s Mandrake. You cannot hurt Mandrake”. And luckily it was not bad, but it looked bad. We cannot lose him right now. He got back in the game and he played good.”
ON IMPORTANCE OF WINNING:
“As far as recruiting, I think it helps you. When you are playing national games, you get exposure. I think the thing that helps us the most is if you’re a freshman in high school, or a senior in high school. You are saying to yourself, 'Man, they play a lot of freshman there’. And we do. That was not intended, that is just what we have. They understand that if you go there they will let you compete and if you are worthy, you get playing time. That is a little bit of our program. It helps when you win, and so we are doing okay. It is kind of fun.”
ON VETERANS WARNING YOUNGER PLAYERS AGAINST EVENTS OF LAST SEASON:
“That is the conversation you want from your leadership group because sometimes players do not realize when you have these opportunities that they don’t happen a lot. When you are rolling like this, we are not even playing consistent yet on offense. That is going to be mentioned this week, not only by the players but by the guy sitting here (Herm Edwards). Hopefully they listen, because last year we did not listen. It went to deaf ears. Not to say that San Diego State was not a good football team, but we went down there and they put it on us.”
“Obviously this week is a conference game, haven’t had one of those of late with an opponent that really has an explosive offense. Their quarterback is back in (Steven) Montez, and (Laviska) Shenault Jr. is probably one of the best players in the Pac-12, maybe one of the best offensive players in the country. They are an explosive offense, especially in the second half. They have scored 72 points and their opponents have only scored 27. For some reason, they have got off to some slow starts, but in the second half they have been able to turn it on and play some good football. They are very balanced; they run the ball and play with two tight ends a little bit more. I think that is Mel’s (Tucker) style, an SEC version of a package with two tight ends. On offense, they run the ball fairly well and they throw it. Defensively they have a 3-4 system, bring pressure at times, and drop eight at times in coverage. His footprint is being put on this football team. They are a very physical team and they can score points. They are averaging 36 points per game. We need to start scoring points on offense if we want to be competitive going through this Pac-12 conference. And as I have said before, we are trying to get better every week. So, that is where we are at as a football team.”
ON SHUFFLING OF OFFENSIVE LINE:
"I thought about that after the first game. Taking a guy that was in the running for a bunch of awards at the center position and moving him to left tackle would be a little bit of a problem for him and our offense. After watching us play, I concluded that we have a Freshman quarterback (Jayden Daniels), so we should just start him more over there. It does not matter. He could solidify the offensive line. It can take a lot of pressure off the guard now because we moved him (Dohnovan West) from center to guard. We will have a left tackle that is going to be a Freshman. If we can help him at times chip and bring the tight end to protect him especially against the team we just played. I thought it was the best thing for our offense because we had gone three straight weeks in which we changed our offensive line. I said that this is it and I did not want to change it anymore. I called them in on Tuesday and told them. They were fine when they went to practice. The right guard (LaDarius Henderson) played pretty good. That is Cabral's world too. I think going forward that will get things going for us. Also, those guys have to play together too. It is hard when you are moving pieces all the time. But, due to injuries and some other things, we had no choice. Early in the season, you find out about your players and what they can do well. That needed to be solidified before going forward. So, hopefully no one gets hurt and that is the lineup."
ON HANDLING SUCCESS EARLY IN SEASON THIS YEAR COMPARED TO LAST YEAR:
“We will find out because it is a big week for them. It is an opponent that can play very well and put points on the board. It is a good test for us again. It really is. We have had a little bit of success. How do we handle it? We were in a similar spot last year. We had some success, but we got our nose punched in. So, we will find out. All of the warning signs are there. I am going to talk about it all week. Then, we are going to go out on the ball yard and find out. We will see how we handle it.”
ON FRESHMEN NOT GETTING FAZED BY BIG MOMENTS EARLY IN SEASON:
“Hopefully, it is the environment they play in and coached in. I would hope that it is eventually a part of our DNA and that is all about trust. I do not want to put it on me because it is not me, but it is out staff and how we handle things. I get it all the time from these guys that I always stay calm. I tell them that I have to stay composed because I have to make decisions. I do not get caught up in all of that stuff. We want our players to be passionate, but not emotional because when you are emotional you make errors. You see it every week in the games. Guys clap their hands and say, ‘my bad.’ It is really the teams’ bad. When big moments arise, there is a calmness that you have to have. During the last drive, I told our quarterback (Jayden Daniels) that we are not going to get the ball back and we need to score. He looked at me and said, ‘okay coach.’ They went out there and executed. It all worked out for us.”
ON HOW TO BALANCE WINNING GAMES AND SETTING FOUNDATION FOR FUTURE:
“They both go hand in hand. When you win, it gives you more confidence as a player. Obviously, we are sill trying to find our way offensively right now. You keep building on the little things that you do. That was a big drive at the end of the game against a very good team in a stadium that was crowded with their fans. Our guys were able to execute some things. It was not pretty. But, when you look at the last drive it started with pass protection. They did an excellent job pass protecting. We needed to run a certain route. We dialed it up and got it. I pointed out to our team that this was going to be our last drive of the game. All of these things had to go right. They did it. Hopefully, we can continue to build on that. But, we are a work-in-progress. This is not over yet by no stretch of the imagination. We will hit some potholes. When we hit them, I will be up here and basically be talking the same way. I am not going to say the house is on fire. We would be okay. We have water sprinklers. We will put the fire out. That is just me. I keep telling you folks that and I think you guys think I am kidding. I am not kidding. That is just my personality. That is who I am. I get excited when the kids do something good. I get excited when the game is over, I sit in the corner, and just watch them. That is what makes me happy because they do all the work and it pays off with winning a football game. There is nothing like that in the locker room when you watch them I do not even say anything. I just sit there and watch their personalities come out. It is a fun deal for them. There is a lot of work to do and they understand that.”
ON STATUS OF BRANDON RUIZ:
“We will find out a little bit more. We thought Brandon was going to kick this week. But, then he went out to practice and felt sore again, so we shut him down. We are fortunate enough to have a good kicker. It is unbelievable to have two of them. He has done a really good job for us. He has made eight in a row. When he (Brandon Ruiz) comes back, we will find out what we do. But, until then, (Cristian Zendejas) he is our kicker.”
ON HOW TO GAME PLAN DEFENSIVELY AROUND LAVISKA SHENAULT JR.:
“He is a really good football player. It is fun to watch him on tape. He had four touchdowns against us last year. They (Colorado) scored 28 points and he scored all of them. You better be ready for him. There are times when you may not hear from him, but they will get the ball to him in big moments. They know when they need a play, they will orchestrate a play for him, whether he is in motion or in the backfield as quarterback. Their quarterback does a really good job throwing the deep ball. That is what they do well. He really has a nice touch. We have to know where he lines up. So, we will see if we can slow him down.”
ON HEALTH AFTER PHYSICAL GAME:
“As far as health-wise, I think we are okay. We were a little sore. That was a physical football game on both sides of it. There are always going to be some guys that are sore obviously. But, that is football."
ON OFFICIATING IN LAST GAME:
“They never have a home game. It is tough on them. A lot of things happen in games. I do not get involved in judging the officials or screaming at them. It does you no good. It gets you on television, but I do not really want to be on television. The play that they are talking about is kind of in between because Cam walked up to the box. But, as he was walking the ball was about ready to be hiked. That was the issue. He walked up in the natural zone where you have to be set. He was not set long enough and they thought he was hurdling over their guy. It happens. I can say some other things, but I will not. They missed a call. Sometimes they miss calls. I have been in some games where they miss calls. I understand it. I do not say anything. I don not make a big deal out of it because it is just football. We were fortunate obviously. But, there were some other things that go along with the game and we could do this for the opposite team. I do not do that. We were able to win a football game on the road against a very good football game. A lot of things happened in that game. There were 17 fouls. They had 10 and we had seven. So, I will just leave it at that.”
ON DEFENSE DEVELOPING MORE CONTINUITY:
“They are starting to get a personality. There is a lot of improvement there. If you are not a great defense, then you would not give your team a chance on that last series. On the road, that is when you become really salty. They have limited points to keep us in games. This week it is going to be hard because (Colorado) these guys can score. They average 36 points per game. They have a (Steven Montez) quarterback and wide receiver who will both be playing on Sundays. We better get ready. But, they have done a good job of keeping us in the game. That was the whole issue we had at the end of last season. We will have to play defense early. We might have to play defense the whole season this way. I do not know. You are on scholarship to play defense, so go play defense. Your job is to not let them score. I lived that world my whole life. It is hard. You have to have tough-minded players to do that because every quarter you would want to have a lead. Sometimes, it may not happen until late. When it happens, you then need to close it out defensively. We are still working.”
ON CLOSING OUT CLOSE GAMES:
“We are just trying to find a way to win games. Every week, there is always a plan to try and win. This week it was to withstand the onslaught in the first half because these guys have got out to big leads against their first two opponents at home That is all I talked about all week, just make it ugly – as ugly as we can. And if we do that, all of a sudden, the script changes and we take the fans out of the game. We take the emotion out of the stadium and it goes flat because they don’t have the lead. We are not throwing on the road, against a really good defense with a freshman quarterback and two freshman offensive linemen. That does not bode well for anybody. I don’t care who you are. We did not want to get into that game, and so that was the plan. We made people turn the channel saying ‘I don’t want to watch this’ because there is no scoring. And that’s okay because I was loving it. I was sitting there saying ‘we are doing good right now boys.' And we went into the locker room and I said ‘okay, half the plan is done, now we have to go finish it.' To their credit, and maybe they do not know any better because they are so young, they just say ‘yeah Coach, we are going to go do this’. We went out and they just kept playing and that’s just what they do. Good for them and good for the coaching staff, because we didn’t change what we thought we needed to do to win. We just stick with the plan, do not deviate unless they make you change. Right now, we are playing good enough defense where we can punt the ball and move the ball some, play good in the red zone, force the kicker to miss some kicks. Even if he made the kicks, we are still within a score. We still have a chance. You just want a chance, man. That is football. Just give yourself a chance. Do not muck it up. That is hard for young kids because they don’t understand that sometimes, but they were good enough to figure it out and we got out of there with a win.”
ON WHEN THE DEFENSE WILL GET RECOGNITION:
“In sports, regardless of what sports you cover, offense brings fans to the stadium because people want to see scoring. Unless you watch a soccer game, then you sit there and they might score they might not. It might be one to two or three – and my girls played soccer, so I get it. People want to see points. We want to see action. Everyone wants to play defense the last two minutes when you have the lead. But we are in a world now in which everything is on a screen and you can go to something because your mind going fast and they are scoring. You play defense and it may not be pretty. Why would they not talk about it? You have got a freshman quarterback, a running back (Eno Benjamin) that almost rushed for 2,000 yards last year and some people say he is not playing well. I don’t know about that. He has scored three touchdowns in three games. He has made big plays in big moments. He scored a touchdown when we needed a touchdown. I get the yards, I get all that. But, he is dealing with a situation and he has not blinked. He goes in the huddle on the first drive, with the offense, before they go on the field and he’s screaming, telling them ‘this is going to be hard today’. That is the first thing this guy says. He says, ‘this is going to be hard, but do not worry about it, just go play’. We all get it, we have a freshman quarterback and the guy has won three games. In this win, he was big down the stretch with his legs. The guy took off and ran. It is fourth and 13 and this guy takes off. He saw the coverage and converted. And Eno (Benjamin) gets out of the backfield and shields the guy and he (Jaden Daniels) runs to the first down sticks. Then he clears the pocket and runs down the side for five. He made two gigantic plays with his legs and so it is worthy to talk about because he is a freshman. The quarterback always gets talked about, every sport. In football, they talk about the quarterback. Like the quarterback in Arizona, he runs around and makes some plays. I get it, that is what happens."
ON RANKINGS:
“Well it is really good, but it does not help you win games. We can tell you that from last year. We got hit in the nose, rankings went away. There are probably some other teams this week that got beat. I have always said this, especially in college football, there are so many personalities with the young people on your team. That is why there are upsets every week. It always happens because you do not know what these kids are going through when they leave the building. We do not know all the things they are dealing with in their brains and how they compartmentalize all that stuff, and how they deal with it. To me, that is why when I watch college football, there will always be upsets, or at least always close games. It’s a game of passion and when the passion becomes emotion off the field because of events they have dealt with as student athletes. We forget about that. We forget they are student athletes. They have a lot on their plates. It is not just about being a football player. This is not their living. Now, some of them want to make a living out of this, but they actually have a social life. So how does that affect them on Saturday? As a coach, you do not know. We do not babysit these guys, they just come to work, and they smile. You do not know if they have a problem or not. Now some of them will come into your office and talk to you. So, that is what makes college football so unique. This is why you watch every Sunday and you scratch your head. It is nothing new to me.”
ON KEEPING COMPOSURE IN BIG MOMENTS:
“We work on those things in practice. Now, there is no one out there, there is crowd noise. We will go in the bubble and have the crowd noise. We practice this stuff, and hopefully it works. But the quarterback (Jaden Daniels) was good, I talked to him before they went out there. I said, ‘Hey look, this is it, you got to do something.’ He said ‘Coach, we are going to be good’. I said ‘Okay, go do it’ and he did. When he was done (with the drive), he walked back over to me and said ‘Coach, you good?’ and I said, ‘I’m good now, I just hope the defense can stop them.' There was not a doubt in his mind that they were going to be able to move the ball. That is how he felt. But that is who the kid is. We have some very good conversations on the sidelines, it is very interesting.”
ON DJ DAVIDSON INJURY:
“When he went down, I said, ‘You cannot hurt Mandrake, how can he go down?’ I told our trainer ‘that is Mandrake, get that guy back on the field, he is okay, that’s Mandrake. You cannot hurt Mandrake”. And luckily it was not bad, but it looked bad. We cannot lose him right now. He got back in the game and he played good.”
ON IMPORTANCE OF WINNING:
“As far as recruiting, I think it helps you. When you are playing national games, you get exposure. I think the thing that helps us the most is if you’re a freshman in high school, or a senior in high school. You are saying to yourself, 'Man, they play a lot of freshman there’. And we do. That was not intended, that is just what we have. They understand that if you go there they will let you compete and if you are worthy, you get playing time. That is a little bit of our program. It helps when you win, and so we are doing okay. It is kind of fun.”
ON VETERANS WARNING YOUNGER PLAYERS AGAINST EVENTS OF LAST SEASON:
“That is the conversation you want from your leadership group because sometimes players do not realize when you have these opportunities that they don’t happen a lot. When you are rolling like this, we are not even playing consistent yet on offense. That is going to be mentioned this week, not only by the players but by the guy sitting here (Herm Edwards). Hopefully they listen, because last year we did not listen. It went to deaf ears. Not to say that San Diego State was not a good football team, but we went down there and they put it on us.”