Jax State Gamecocks College Football Pregame Quote, 10/06/2023

Today is really our Tuesday and I judge it by how the kind of practice we have. This is three games in 11 days and four games in 17 days, so this is the hardest stretch of it. No question that it is impactful with injuries and your turnaround is short and you lose a travel day because you are traveling and when you get back at three, four, five in the morning, you are probably losing a half a day the next day. We all know what it is, but the biggest concern is academically, these guys have class on Tuesday and Wednesday, so you hope that they can stay up with their schoolwork. I think if we had lost the last two, I’d be complaining more, but we won the two.

On seeing any fatigue on the players:

No, we are purposedly watching them with the GPS, so we know the yardage and strain yardage, but we are mindful of that. We only had one practice in pads last week and this week, we will have two days in pads, but just shoulder pads. The practices are shorter by maybe 20-25 minutes shorter now than what they would be in a normal week. I am sure after the next couple of games, we’ll need the time and have a day or two off. The players had yesterday off, but the coaches will probably need a day off sometime soon.

On conditioning, especially in the second half:

I think it is a factor and I think all the teams we have played are in good shape too. We take pride in that and we don’t run 100s or 40s after practice now and we really don’t do it much in August. We think our tempo in practice and the way we run practices, even though they are not long, helps us get in and stay in shape. A lot of times, on some teams, your second and third teams are not as in shape because they don’t get as many reps. With us, our twos get as many reps as our ones.

On having six different guys leading in receiving yards:

I think if you had a go-to guy, everyone would say that is their go-to guy and to make sure you have help over the top, we don’t have that. Obviously, Sean (Brown) had a big game and as Logan (Smothers) Zion (Webb) get more comfortable in the system, the distribution should be pretty equal with all of our skill guys. The biggest thing is recognizing the defense and throwing it to the guy that is most open. There is a lot that we can do to find our open guys better and that is going to be a big point of emphasis for us. It is not just finding and seeing the open guy in a timely fashion, its getting them the ball in our system.

On Liberty:

They are very athletic and they pulled it out last night. Thei quarterback is very dynamic and he has shown that and it is a hard thing to prepare for in a week, especially a short week. They do a lot of option, triple option stuff in a bunch of different looks and motions, so you have to be very disciplined defensively and probably playing the best quarterback we have played this year. They are the best skill players we have seen all year and defensively they are athletic. They are undefeated for a reason, I think many people picked them or Western (Kentucky) to win the league and they have done a good job so far. Jamey Chadwell has done a great job wherever he has been. It will be a big game and we hope to have a great crowd for what we think is our first-ever Tuesday night game in Jax State history. We hope the students will come out and I know the band will be there and they really helped us last week. I told them after the game that they were great support.