FIU Panthers College Football Pregame Quote, 10/18/2022

On this week’s opponent Charlotte:

I know Will Healy their head coach well and he is an excellent young coach. I remember when he went to Austin Peay, and I think they’d lost like 30 games in a row, he turned that program around. Then at Charlotte and they’ve been struggling a little bit this year, but they play extremely hard, a lot of energy. And last week, they had a chance to be UAB and played really, really well against UAB who’s perennial power in our league.

So, you know, first of all their quarterback Chris Reynolds, I believe he was picked preseason first team all-conference or second team all-conference, he’s thrown for a lot of yards and done a lot of excellent things there. They have two excellent receivers in Grant DuBose and Elijah Spencer. Spencer, I think it’s he’s making tons of plays, doing an excellent job

And then on defense, last week was one of their best outings and they played really tough, they have some guys are making plays. They had a lot of injuries on defense, which has hurt them a little bit. And so, we’ll go down there and do all the best we can in the game and it should be a beautiful day down there in Charlotte.

On Charlotte QB Chris Reynolds and how they plan to defend him:

Well, we just looked at a lot of different things that they do against similar type defenses or similar type coverages. And you know, every team kind of does little different things so, we’ll look at that. Chris Reynolds, he had an excellent game last year. Those receivers did a good job in the game, and then every game he’s been the quarterback in they’ve done a pretty good job offensively. He’s been able to make plays and has great pocket presence and able to move in the pocket and still keep the ball alive. It’s something that I noticed that he does really well. He’s able to stay alive in the pocket, he has a unique ability to escape but it’s not escaped to really run as much as it escaped to make them throw. And that’s where they make a lot of their big plays where he’s able to escape and make nice throws downfield and do different things like that.

On DL Davon Strickland’s impact to the team:

Davon has come back and done real well. Last two games he’s played well. We’re kind of bringing him on a little bit little slow. They’re bringing him back into to pace with everything. And perfect. He’s kept improving and improving, improving. We’re excited about what he does this week. He’s a good leader, great young man and excited about him being back with a team and pushing hard through everything.

On OL Lyndell Hudson Jr.’s progress throughout his collegiate career and what he brings to the team on offense:

Lyndell is an excellent talent at tackle. Phenomenal young man really fun to be around great, great personality. He just he was kind of beat up during fall camp, which kind of set him back a little bit. And then he’s fought through a few little different injuries, been able to play with them and do a good job and so been really pleased at Lyndell’s progress in the last three weeks. When he’s out there for our football team, I think it makes a big, big difference for our offense. I think it really does enables us; we haven’t gotten into the endzone as much as we’d like but we sure are moving the ball better than we did early on. And he’s been out there when we’ve been able to do that and he’s a critical part. He’s a critical part of our offense, and we need him out there playing so we definitely hope he stays healthy and keeps doing well.