Jax State Gamecocks College Football Pregame Quote, 10/02/2023

It’s another short week, six days this time but really five days if you count our travel day. It’s been a good week so far, obviously the turnaround is really quick. We gave the guys the day after the last game off. Middle Tennessee, I think our guys got a lot of respect. I got a lot of respect for their program. Obviously, Coach Stockstill and I worked together, and I have a lot of respect. He’s got a tremendous coaching staff and their record is misleading. They’ve played probably the hardest schedule in our league. I mean, two SEC teams and almost beat one of them. They’ve got really good players and as I said, Stock has done a great job. I think they were 8-5 last year and won the bowl game. Our guys are smart enough to watch, they’ll watch the film and see what the challenge is. So Last week’s game, we enjoyed it and for about 12 hours and then we moved on. We know the challenges we have as we get on the road tomorrow.

On the celebration after the game vs. Sam Houston:

To go on the road in a conference and overtime to win, those are always kind of extra special. I saw a graph afterwards that there was a 99.9% chance at one time that we would lose – So you’re telling me there’s a chance. We played really poorly, some of it was their doing, we played really poorly in the beginning of the game and the whole first half. Thankfully, nobody kind of hung their heads. I told the team at halftime, I wasn’t ranting and raving. I said, listen, that’s in the past. We talk during the week about living in a moment and don’t worry about what just happened, don’t worry about You just worry about the next play obviously we were able to get that done. All wins are good and conference wins on the road are really good.

On winning close games late on national TV:

I always think we entertain one way or another. It’s like people go to watch a NASCAR race. A lot of them just want to go and see a wreck or something. We could be a train wreck at times but our guys are playing hard. I think that’s the one thing I’m most proud of is that we’re playing hard all the time and that’s obviously the expectation and one of the tendencies that we build our program on. I think we may be in some close games and we’re going to have to win some close games to have any kind of season. Both of our conference games have been really close down to the last minute. The rest of our schedule, we’re going to be battling in there and hanging in there to the end. We’ll try to find a way to win.

On the midweek schedule:

I noticed it after the first game, not as much in the last game, but I still think people are still learning that, hey, Conference USA is playing the entire month of October in the midweek. It’s the new reality show, Conference USA football, right? So I think that will continue to grow because I also saw somewhere like now there’s 49 games in the next 50 days – either pro or college game on TV. We know that we have four games in 18 days or something. I know by the end of end of this month I’ll probably be fried, this October has been nuts but we all know it going in and I think everybody in the league is doing it. The only complaint I would have is that most of the teams are 5-6 or seven day windows, but so is your opponent. I think we have one game where we got six or seven days and our opponent has 12 or 13 days beforehand. I don’t think that’s really fair, but it is what it is. I think the exposure that we’re getting now, I think we’re getting some exposure nationally and that will continue to be the case over the next several weeks or really the rest of the year. I have to be very cognizant in our practice schedules. Our practice is a little shorter and last week we didn’t do any practice in full pads. Last week it was such a short, it was five days, but really, it was four days because we’re traveling. Our Saturdays and Sundays are really like Tuesdays and Wednesdays for us. We’re letting them sleep in and going in the afternoon. I’m a big believer in the benefits of a good night’s sleep for our players. We try not to do anything early in the morning and we’re reducing the practice schedules a little bit, but you still got to have enough time to prepare. Your depth is going to be challenged. We’re probably going to be out a couple of guys this week that if we had a normal schedule they probably would be playing. I’m sure everybody else has got a few guys banged up too so it’ll be the case for the next several weeks.

On Middle Tennessee:

The defensive front is big and has been really good. I mean, even Alabama had trouble moving on them at times. They have got some athletic guys offensively, stocks (Coach Stockstill), always recruited good skill guys and he always had good quarterbacks. They’re a tempo team like us, they will push the tempo and go fast. They can play at a really high level, so we have a lot of respect for them. Athletically, they look like not just a solid group, they are like a really good group of five program. They’re going win a lot of games this year. They have played the toughest part of their schedule when you play Alabama, you play Missouri and Colorado State is pretty good football team Western Kentucky, according to a lot of people picked them to win the league. They have played a really good schedule and our guys know that.