Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders College Football Pregame Quote, 10/31/2022

We’re excited about this opportunity this week. We’ve got LA Tech. They’re 2-6, but it’s a very deceiving record. They’ve played a really, really tough schedule, especially their out of conference schedule with Missouri and Clemson on there, and South Alabama, who’s really having a good year in the Sun Belt. It’s a very deceiving 2-6 record. You stand up here and say that you are playing a really good team, and you guys are going to look at their record and say that I’m just full of it.

But this is a good team. They’ve got one of the most prolific passing offenses in the conference this year. They throw the ball all over the place, they’ve got good receivers, quarterback, skill guys. They’re doing a really good job offensively, scoring a lot of points,

they’re averaging over 30 points a game with the people that they’ve played. So that’s a credit to Sonny and his players and his offensive staff. We’ve got to do a great job in this week in studying them and preparing for this offense that we’re going to see, because it’s going to be a drastic difference from what we saw last week to this week.

Defensively, again, these guys are athletic, they can run. They’re doing a really really good job of making you got the long way, the long road, they’re not giving up a lot of big plays. They’re going to mix up their pressures, their coverages, zone coverages, man coverages. They do a lot of that, and they’re very sound in the kicking game as well. They’ve got some really dynamic returners that we’ve got to be cognizant of.

This is a good team, but like I always say and like every coach probably says, it’s about us. And we’ve got to prepare ourselves like we have been and get ready to go on the road again and play a good football team.

On LA Tech’s rushing defense struggles:

Clemson, Missouri had a lot to do with that. Rice is a heavy run team, UTEP is a heavy run team. So I think part of it is the teams that they’ve played, what those teams do. I think it’s probably more of a complement to those teams I’ve mentioned as opposed to what they’re doing. They didn’t give up a whole bunch of yards rushing to FIU last week. FIU was held under 100 yards rushing.

On the importance of MTSU’s own run game returning against UTEP:

Really the run game showed up in that game in the fourth quarter. We didn’t have a lot of plays, we were limited possession because of what UTEP does. UTEP is one of the top teams in the country in time of possession. They don’t give you many at-bats. I thought we ran the ball a little bit better up until the fourth quarter, then in the fourth quarter, I thought we were really good. You’ve got it the last five-and-a-half minutes of the game and it’s a two¬≠ score game, 11-point game, you run it every down except once, and you’re able to milk that five and half minutes of clock.

I thought our offensive line played really well. It was probably their best and most complete game both in protection and in the run game. I though Frank (Peasant) had some really tough physical, hard-nosed runs. Especially in the fourth quarter.

On LA Tech’s Freshman QB Landry Lyddy. who started against FIU:

He’s a really good player, I know that. I thought he played really really good down there at FIU. They’ve got good quarterbacks. Their offensive scheme doesn’t change, didn’t change, so you’ve just got a different guy pulling the trigger. He’s a good player. The doubt is or the question is he going to be the guy this week? Or is it going to be their normal starter? But I think this guy is really good. He’s probably a little bit better athlete, runs the ball a little bit more and a little bit better than what they’ve had prior to the injury.

But he’s a really good player. We’ve seen enough film on him to know that if we don’t do our job, he can hurt you.