Boise State Broncos College Football Pregame Quote, 10/02/2023

We are, as we come off our last non-conference game, we obviously didn’t achieve the goal in the last one, but we’re excited about what we have in front of us. That was the theme for our team yesterday as we started off on a new week. We corrected from the previous game as we move forward. But the bottom line is we still have the opportunity to attain our goal and pursue a Mountain West Conference Championship.

We are 1-0 in conference play. And it will be a 1-0 mentality as we move forward. We worked yesterday. We had a good Sunday practice after a long travel and getting back late into Sunday morning. The team came with great focus and energy. They’re excited to get into conference play and get moving forward.

Throughout the course of the season, we’ve learned a ton already. Everybody knows that. Now it’s time for us to be able to move forward and learn from our experiences and grow. That starts with us as coaches and as a team together and the commitment we made together yesterday to move forward, and it showed at practice. Again, coming off a long travel and getting back early in the morning, the team practiced extremely well yesterday.

On the Quarterback situation:

Obviously, we made a decision in the game at the end there, last week, to put Maddux Madsen in because we’ve seen what he’s capable of doing in the pass game. So, I love the competition that we have. I love the fact that these two guys are guys that support each other, guys that are going to help each other. We’re going to find the right mix. If we use two quarterbacks, which we plan to in this next game, it wouldn’t be the first time that it’s been done. To be honest with you, I don’t see a problem with that. It’s what’s best for the team and it’s what’s able for us to be efficient throughout the course of the game.

We’ve proven that we can run the ball. We’ve proven at times that we can be efficient throwing the ball. For us, as a team, as a staff, as players to bring that together, that’s the most important thing.

How do you, in the new era of college football with the transfer portal and everything else going on, how do you, as a head coach, have to weigh what’s best right now for the team to win with what the effects of that may be down the road based on the decision you make?

Yeah, we’re worried about this week and this week only. To be honest with you, we’ve learned from the past and we’ve moved forward into this week and what is the best thing for this week, for this team, to be successful? Like I said at the start, that 1-0 mentality, that’s all that matters. We are focused on this right now.

We have the ability, we have the talent. It’s putting it together and becoming more disciplined with the course. That starts with us as a staff, how we lead that. It even starts off the field because the off the field leads to the on the field. How we create the discipline off the field within the facility, within the meeting rooms, within how we practice, we’re able to then grow it. We have the ability, we have the players, and we have the opportunity to put it together now as we go into conference play with the right mix.

Every week we talk about how we are going to see different defenses from week to week. You’re going to see that. What calls for one week, there’s maybe opportunities. Early in the game last week, we knew there was going to be an adjustment. And a lot of bodies come to the line of scrimmage, which did a nice job creating some things and TG hit some passes beyond the second level of the defense that we are expecting to see. That helped us start fast last week. What will it be this week? And how do we get ourselves off to a fast start? Then it’s the consistency, as we’ve talked about, as we adjust and we go through the game.

We’re able to use the players we have, the personnel we have. We’ve seen at the quarterback position what we have. We’ve seen at the running back position. We’ve seen guys step up and grow. We’ve seen guys step up to wide receiver position. We’ve seen guys step up at the tight end position. With Riley [Smith] out last week, Matt Lauter did an awesome job both in the run game and had an explosive catch. And obviously, at the running back position as well, with what not only Ashton [Jeanty] has been able to do, but also Breezy [Jambres Dubar].

Coach, this week in practice, looking at the two quarterbacks, what will you specifically be looking for? Will you be looking differently for each quarterback because they are so different?

You know what they are. They are, but at the same time, we want to create a consistency for the offense. There are things that we did at the end of the game when TG [Taylen Green] wasn’t in there that we want him to be able to do and we expect him to be able to do from a pass game standpoint and the drop-back pass.

On a typical week, as we all know, the first team quarterback gets the majority of the reps, somewhere along the lines of 80 to 20. We’re going to push into that just a little bit to give and know to give ourselves a great idea of the mix of which we can because we got two guys that are capable. It’s nothing against TG. There are some things that he needs to do a better job of. We’ve discussed those and he’s very well capable of doing those things. And we fully support him on those things.

There’s nobody in this building that wants TG to be more successful than the coaching staff, his teammates, and as well as if Mad Dog [Maddux Madsen] gets his opportunity to get in there. That’s the awesome part about it. We will, in terms of the game plan and what plays certain people, it’s going to be consistent.

There might be a few that are specific, but otherwise we want to see the efficiency out of both guys. And obviously we’ll proceed from there on. But that is what we’re going to go off of and being able to see the right dosage within the game and being able to play two quarterbacks efficiently throughout the course of the week.

Regardless of what happens this week, do you plan to use two quarterbacks on Saturday?

Yes.

You kind of said that Taylen [Green], through the last couple of weeks, has shown really good things in practice. And for whatever reason, it hasn’t translated to the game. How do you guys as a coaching staff evaluate a quarterback competition with a guy who is doing all the right things in practice? And then maybe sometimes it doesn’t translate to the game?

There are certain things in practice that always show up in the game. That’s the case. That’s why we practice. How we do it in practice, especially later in the week. Earlier in the week, you’re facing a new structure on defense. You’re facing a new structure on offense.

At this point, we’ve seen a variety of things on both sides of the ball from our opponents. But each and every week, there’s still subtle changes and adjustments. There might be checks at the line of scrimmage based off a certain looks that the defense is giving you, whether it’s a check, a run to run check, whether it’s a run to pass check, a pass to run check.

There’s those certain things that come up every week that we need to be more consistent with and have that carry over from where we’re at in the middle to the end of the week and the end of the game, and then the operation of how we communicate those things.

What was the initial thought process in putting Mad Dog [Maddux Madsen] in for that third series?

We went into the game knowing we were going to give him the series. Again, like we said, we’re working on building the depth of our team. We’re going into conference play now. It’s to accomplish our goal. Like we said, we’re 1-0 in conference play. We’re going to take a 1-0 approach each and every week. And so to prepare ourselves and know our personnel, we know our personnel. We know what we have. We know what we have at all positions. Good or bad or indifferent, we’ve had guys step up because of the injuries. And we’ve gotten to see a lot of different guys play. Now it’s time to put it all together as we work in the conference play.

You may not have decided this yet, but will there be a set number of dry weeks or will it be situational?

Yeah, we haven’t decided that yet.

What did you learn from going through a quarterback competition last year that’s influencing you this season?

Again, last year has nothing to do with this year. And the two quarterbacks we have right now, we’ve got these guys doing some things really, really well.

You talked about seeing the facts and things of the game. Is it just a confidence piece? Like what helps really push that or facilitate that?

Yeah, there’s no question. That’s what we’ve been working to grow as we move along here and throughout the course of the season is being able to, when we get done with one game, what did we do well? How did that stem from our preparation? What are the things that we want to get better at, that we need to get better at? And what are the things we’re going to implement from a preparation standpoint, not just on film at the meeting? Then it obviously goes into, what do we have the confidence? What are we efficient at running? Again, this is a personnel-driven game. We’ve got to implement the things into the game plan that’s going to help us win, to help us be successful on both sides of the ball. But ultimately, it’s got to fit our personnel as well.

How does Maddox [Madsen] make this offense different on game day?

In terms of his ability, I mean, we saw at the end of the game there. We saw what he’s able to do within the pass game. He’s shown to do that in practice. There’s a reason why we decided to make that decision at that point. We felt like based off of what we had seen in practice, not only through the course of fall camp and into the season, Maddox [Madsen] runs the two-minute drill against the first team defense and you see his efficiency and what he is able to do and the way he’s able to operate.

We’ve been able to, like I said, we know our personnel. He’s very consistent as he goes through his progressions. He was able to get the ball out on time. And we had some shot plays. We were first and we got a penalty to go first and 15 down there in the red zone at the end. We call a play that was a keeper progression route and the defense handled it and he went quickly to check down and went from first and 15 to a touchdown. Those are the things that he’s shown to be able to do.

When you kind of mentioned get the ball out on time, we didn’t mention that in the game. How, kind of a specific question, how important is that not only to help receivers get open at times, but we saw when Maddox was in there, there was a lot of yards out for the catch too, because I feel like you knew when the ball was coming out.

Yeah, so there’s a big piece of that too. It’s staying within time in the pocket. It starts with our feet, right? And our eyes as we work through a progression. But then Maddox did a really good job of not only putting the ball where it needed to be throughout the progression, but putting it on wide receivers where they can get some yards after the catch. And the wide receivers, the running backs, proved that they can do that. And we were able to do that too.

Again, Matt Lauter had one of the most explosive plays we had this year from the tight end position. And T.G. [Taylen Green] did a phenomenal job putting it on him. When T.G. [Taylen Green] was in there, the defense was putting a lot of numbers in the box, which we were expecting. They had not done that on film in their previous games. We weren’t expecting to get that. T.G. did a great job handling and taking what the defense gave us on the perimeter.

We’ve hit a few deep throws over the second level of the defense because of how they were working towards the line of scrimmage. They’re both doing good things, okay? That is the benefit for us. Again, we’ve used two quarterbacks here at Boise State before to give us the best advantage, to be the best offense we can, giving our team the best opportunity to win. And again, we’ve had conversations with the guys on our team, let alone the two quarterbacks, and everybody supports each other and wants to do what’s best. We are really excited to get on the field and use both of them.

We spent a lot of time talking about Taylen Green’s X’s and O’s. From the outside, he doesn’t look like he’s playing with as much confidence as he has in the past. On the inside, how do you approach that?

Well, I think there’s been things that we’ve done consistent from last year to this year. There’s things that we’ve done better. Again, I went into some of the things that we have done a really good job of at the line of scrimmage, because it’s not just when that ball snapped. There’s a lot that goes on prior to that ball being snapped, and he has grown in that area, which gives us an advantage to get ourselves into the line of scrimmage and get ourselves in the best play for the look that he’s given. Now, that’s not the whole offense, right? But there are things in the game plan that involve those decision-making, preparing to make those decisions at the line of scrimmage.

From the standpoint of his efficiency in the pass game, it’s consistent. We’re working to build that forward and expand into the drop back pass game more. But the consistency of where we are at last year and through, we track all this, through spring ball, through fall camp, where his numbers are right now are similar to what they have.

Defensively, obviously, it hasn’t been quite up to the standard defensively. You said after the game, I, I, I a couple of times. I mean, do you need to have a bigger role in terms of the play calling, or what do you do personally, I guess, with the defense struggling like it is?

There’s no question, and I take responsibility for it. I take responsibility for it. How I can impact, how we can impact, okay, our players are the most important thing. The structures we create. You know, a big part of that, too, is how we can develop the depth, how we’re continuing to develop the depth of our defense. We’ve played a lot of guys this year, which is great because these guys are getting experience. We’ve talked about the guys that have stepped up. It starts with me creating a higher level of consistency of how we’re executing. From first down, to third down, to fourth down.

That’s where it starts for me, and making sure that we are emphasizing the proper things that it needs to, to the proper things that need to be emphasized to be a successful defense. We know what those things are. We’ve done it before. Each and every year, it’s a different look. It’s new players. It’s what do they do well? What aren’t we doing well? And to be honest with you, we have all the ability. We believe in our players. And it’s about finding a level of consistency that starts with our discipline, and how we play the fundamentals and techniques that make the scheme. I’m excited to get back on the practice field.

We’re going to have a huge challenge this week. We’re playing, again, another very good quarterback that is a multi-year starter, that has length, a wide receiver, and is shown to be able to push the ball down the field. So here comes the next challenge. How will we grow this week? How will we grow as a defense in the entirety of how we are up front at the line of scrimmage, and how we execute within the back end, and how we bring it together?

Let me just try to touch on it, but when it comes to your defense, is there anything that has to happen when you give up explosive plays to get better results? Is it limiting big plays, shutting down the run pressure? I mean, is there anything that is a concept that can help with snowballs?

It always, it will never change. The things that come down to eliminating explosive plays always start to the communication and the pre-snap being on the same page. It always starts with that. We gave up a touchdown last week because we didn’t communicate well, and we had an error in the boundary side of our coverage that allowed for a touchdown. We can fix those things. That starts with us in making sure that we fully understand, that our players fully understand what we are doing and when we are doing it, and then the communication on the field, how we set that.

The second thing is always about our eye control, and how our eyes put us in position, put our feet, put our body in position to execute and win our one-on-one with the fundamentals and techniques. And this game can become very, very complicated. You can run whatever schemes you want on defense. The bottom line is it comes back to those. We say it all the time, the fundamentals and techniques make the scheme.

And we do have the players that have the ability to execute the fundamentals and techniques that have shown to do that. We as coaches got to create an environment where it’s an expectation and a standard in our players. Again, we had a great meeting yesterday, a great discussion, and we broke off in the position meeting rooms, and we had a great practice where that is going to be the priorities as we move forward.

This game can become very complicated. We can look for all these, what is the answer? What is the answer? It is very simple. Playing great defense starts with discipline and mentality. That’s where it starts. That’s kind of the message for the last five weeks. Where has kind of been the disconnect in terms of the coaches and then getting the players to buy into that? So, I mean, regardless, to the contrary, we’ve actually did things better. We tackled pretty well, I mean, considering what we were talking about the week before. So, is it going to change overnight? Growth takes time, okay? We’ve got young players in there. We’ve seen certain players do a better job and play better.

Seyi Oladipo played really well last week, okay? Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about how much better Seyi played last week. Let’s talk about what Marco did last week. Let’s talk about Zion and how Zion stepped in there. And now in absence of Alexander Teubner, how Zion [Washington] has done a better job, you know, and is learning, growing in his urgency and his focus and how he’s coming because he’s wanting to do his job better and grow each and every week.

It’s not going to happen overnight, but it will happen because his team is committed to doing that. Yeah, so, I mean, again, it comes down to the same things. We didn’t handle our technique, you know, on the right side of our field goal team, the way we should have, and it cost us.

That’s something that we, as a coaching staff, have to be on throughout the course of the game. So that in those critical moments, you know, we don’t, we talk about it all the time, special teams going to change the game.

The previous week, we won the game by three points. That could have been the deciding factor in this game as well, but it comes down to consistency and the execution of how we’re operating on the field goal team. Jonah [Dalmas] has proven to be very consistent, and it’s our job to make sure we protect and give him the opportunity to do so.

You’ve been the head coach now for three years, and when it comes to making decisions about fourth downs, or whether you punt, whether you kick, do you let analytics influence those decisions in any way?

We let the analytics of what our team does well influence those decisions. We do have, we do take the course of what analytics say, but we adjust them to what our team does well.

You mentioned the quarterback for San Jose State. I know you haven’t faced him here, or you faced him at any of your previous stops, but what have you seen from him?

We haven’t played against him, but being in the same conference, we’ve gotten to see him play a fair amount, you know, and being able to see what he’s able to do through the air. He’s a very accurate passer. As we talked about, he’s got wide receivers that have shown to be very productive, but he’s a strong runner too. I mean, he extends plays with his feet. He’s not a guy that has to get out of the pocket, but he can get out of the pocket and make throws on the run. He’s a guy that is able to extend plays, you know, into run plays that aren’t designed that way. And he’s shown to do that week in and week out.

What about San Jose’s defense? What sticks out about them?

They’ve done a really good job, you know, in the pass game that it shows. I mean, they’re number 13 in the nation when it comes to their pass defense, their run defense. You can look at stats and all that. They’ve done a good job. They played Air Force. You know what that is. So we’re looking at a defense that this, well, overall a team that has played, you know, their opponents are 18-2. So they’ve had a challenging schedule.

When you turn on the film and look at what they’ve done and you take the score out of it and you take the numbers out of it, you see a team that is going to come in here with the ability and capability to be successful. They’ve shown that on the field already this year. They’ve got a defensive front that’s going to play physical. They’re secondary on film looks to be one of the better ones that we’re going to play.

Shea [Oladipo], what does his performance mean to you, to the team, and it’s overall kind of attitude or spirit, if you will?

There are things that we know that Shea could have did better in a couple of weeks ago, you know, the things that we want to come out. He did that last week. And that’s why, yeah, we got to be better overall. It’s a big, big picture. We have to be, there’s no question about that, but there’s guys like him that stepped up last week and practiced like it and took the urgency and the detail. And that’s all we need is we need guys to keep growing that way. You know, we need guys that take that, take the approach, come here every single day. Like, I’m going to get better and do my job better this week than I did last week. Us as coaches too. And that’s what happens.

I mean, Shea made a few plays last week, whether it was in coverage and or his tackle in the open field on the tailback when we brought heavy pressure and he got out. For anybody, it would have been a very difficult tackle. And because of the things that we asked about last week, what we’re going to do to fix and drill tackling, the way he executed and took the grass and took all the space and ended up the proper leverage and the proper finish. That was awesome to see.

That was a big-time moment for everybody knowing how hard we worked on that, which could have been very easily if it wasn’t executed, it could have been an extremely explosive play for them.

At this time last week, you were kind of raving about the tight ends and their blocking. And you know, this week you were able to get Matt [Lauter] involved on all three passes. You know, just what could he bring to the pass game?

Yeah, I mean, we have two guys that are capable. You know, when Riley [Smith] is healthy. We got Riley, we got Matt. Matt has shown, I mean, Matt, as we’ve gone through this season, he just continues to get better. And he obviously was involved in the pass game. He’s shown the ability to create separation. But when you turn on the film and you pay attention to some of those blocks in the run game, we get pretty fired up about what he does for the team in terms of handling his job at the line of scrimmage.

The fan base here is pretty passionate, and obviously they’ve had a lot of success around here. I mean, there’s some unhappy fans or a little bit uneasy, I guess, with what’s going on right now. What would be your message, I guess, to the fan base with where the program’s at and what’s ahead?

Yeah, there’s no question. And I get it. This is my brotherhood, too. nWe didn’t accomplish what we wanted to in the non-conference. That’s the bottom line. There’s no excuses. There’s nothing. But what we do have is an ability to grow forward because our goal is still sitting right in front of us. We are 1-0 in conference play. We’re going to take that approach every single week. We have the ability in this room. We will grow it from our experiences. Each and every week, we’re going to grow forward from here. Again, we got a team that has been willing to grow and learn.

We just got to do it more consistently. How our leadership will step in and lead these things, how our coaches will step in and lead these things will give us the opportunity to do it one week at a time. And as we step into conference play, that is the most important thing. It’s going to be exciting to see what our offense is capable of doing, building off of what we’ve done. And then, obviously, I’m excited to see how our defense grows.

I’m excited. Yeah, have we been the standard on defense? We haven’t. It doesn’t mean that we can’t grow into that. It doesn’t mean that we can’t become that as we work into conference play. We’re going to play challenging teams. We played a challenging non-conference schedule. The Mountain West is no different. The Mountain West is going to present challenges week in and week out.

Have you evaluated your personnel thought process and how everything went. There was a lot of talk after the game on the fourth and one decision. You said it was pretty simple. You didn’t get the look you wanted, and you kicked. And it’s easy to second guess now with how the field going to block. But do you look back and say you would have done anything differently there?

Yeah, we’re not going to second guess it. I mean, we went into it the look. I’ll be honest, the clock’s running down. We’re trying to get the look to make sure that we’re putting our team in the right position. And we weren’t able to see and make sure we had the look we wanted. I’m not going to second guess that. How many points did we win by the week before? How many?

Three.

Exactly.

I almost feel silly to ask, but was this [Ashton Jeanty’s] most physical performance? You use space a lot of the time, but you look what Ashton [Jeanty] did last week – is it the most physical game he’s had to play as a Bronco yet?

Yeah, I mean, we talk about defenses are going to do what they need to do from week to week in terms of what they want to work to take away from an offense. They put a lot of bodies in the box. They put a lot of bodies in the box, which creates opportunities elsewhere. And we’ve got to be prepared for that each and every week.

The other teams are watching film too. They’re going to see what we’ve done successfully. But within that too, I’m excited to see how we mix it up with the variety of things that we can do in the run game. Had a low heavy dosage of too much of our inside runs in the last week. And when we adjusted and worked to some of the other things in the run game, we got a little bit more space. And so as we work from week to week to see how teams are going to play our offensive front, we have the ability to put ourselves in a position to be successful.