Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders College Football Pregame Quote, 10/03/2022

Obviously, (UAB is) a really good football team. They lead the conference in rushing, they control the ball, their quarterback is very experienced, Dylan Hopkins. Has played a lot of snaps for them, does a great job protecting the ball and running their offense. It’s a really tough, physical offense. They want to come in and run the ball on you. We’ve got to do a good job defensively of stopping the ball and slowing it down because they’re very talented. They’ve got some really big a dynamic wide receivers that can stretch the field vertically.

They had a tough one last week, they’re 2-2. They’ve already had their open date, so they’ve only played four games. But looking forward to this opportunity and this challenge to go down there.

On what Rice did well to get past UAB:

Rice is a really good team. I think Rice is very underrated, it’s a tough place to play. They’re going to do what they do. A lot of their games are close games, not only this year but in years past. They did a good job, I don’t know (what) to say that the did to get them off their game because I thought UAB played good. They had a chance to win the game, they had a sack-fumble on the last couple of plays of the game, so they were right there to win it. Had a chance to win it. UAB was able to run the ball, had success running the ball. It’s not like Rice went up and down the field on them. 28-24 is a close ball game.

On UAB’s defensive strengths:

I think it’s their whole defense. They don’t give up a lot of big plays. They don’t have a lot of sacks, but they do push the pocket because they’re so big up front. Their linebackers run really well. On the back end, like I said, they don’t give up a lot of big plays. They keep the ball in front of you and make you go the long way. All 11 of those guys on defense, they’ve been in this system a long time. They’ve all got a good understanding on what they want to do.

On if UAB looks similar under Bryant Vincent as they did under Bill Clark:

To me, there’s not many changes. Vincent had been their offensive coordinator there for the last four or five years. The defensive coordinator had been there for the same amount of time or longer. So those two guys, even when Bill stepped down, schematically offensively and defensively, didn’t change. You weren’t bringing somebody in that was completely different from what they’ve been doing. They’re still a tough hard-nosed team that plays hard every snap.