Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders College Football Pregame Quote, 09/06/2022

Going out to Colorado State, they’re a completely different team than they were last year. Last year, they were 3-9. They lost a lot of close games last year. But they’ve changed their team.

They’ve got seven new starters on offense that are transfer guys. Five of them came from Nevada with Jay (Norvell). So, they’re very familiar with their offensive scheme. They’ve got a couple of receivers, a couple of offensive linemen, quarterback all came from Nevada, so they know that offensive system. It’s a very diverse offense. They had a tough matchup in Week 1 last week against Michigan, but they do a lot of different things schematically offensively that will challenge us.

They’ve got good skilled people, a good running back. Their quarterback, it was his first start at Colorado State, and he’s a very good player.

Defensively, the same thing. They’ve got four new starters that are transfer guys. Their two corners are really good. Their two defensive ends are very athletic, dynamic, very good pass rushers. Their middle linebacker is a really good player as well. This is a very good defense, obviously, and their kicking game is really good also. Their punter transferred (in), he’s an Australian-type punter, transferred from Nevada as well. He’s experienced also. So they’re very sound in the kicking game. Defensively, they’re going to base out of a four-man front, they’re going to pressure you. As much pressure as we saw last week, I’m sure they’ll amp it up a little bit more.

We’ve got to be ready to go. Had a good practice yesterday and excited about this opportunity this weekend.

On the challenges of scouting off a blowout loss, like CSU had against Michigan in Week 1:

They were trying to do what they do, day and day out. They had five starters that were in this offense last year when they were at Nevada. They know what they’re doing. There was a mismatch at times. Michigan is Top 10 in the country, they’re a good football team. Anytime you’re playing a new staff or new team this early in the year, you’re always going to back and watch last year’s game film. We’ll watch last year’s stuff from Nevada, we’ll watch last year’s stuff from Montana with their defensive coordinator. You try to watch as much film and gather as much information as you can from the previous year.

On the biggest priorities on getting better this week after losing to James Madison:

It was obviously a tough outing, disappointed in it, but we’ve got to find a way to get better and go to work. We did that yesterday. We played a lot of people that (was) their first time ever playing college football at the Division I level. Four new guys up front, two of our top five wide receivers were out with injuries. We replaced all three linebackers from last year, both safeties and a corner, so there were a lot of new people for the first time against a really good team. And that’s not an excuse, it’s a fact, it is what it is. We’ve got to get better, we’ve got to get more consistent.

Offensively, in trying to protect the quarterback number one, we’ve got to do a better job there to give Chase a little bit more time to get through his reads. We’ve got to be more consistent and get better in the running game. And that’s not just an indictment of the running backs, it’s not just the offensive line, it’s everybody. We had some opportunities in short yardage there that we didn’t execute the zone read, especially there on fourth down. We’ve got to get better on little things like that.

Special teams, we didn’t cover our punts very well, and that forced our defense on the short field, especially in the second and third quarter. Field position is critical in any game. I thought we put our defense in a bad position, especially in the second and third quarter. (JMU) scored 37 points in those two quarters. They didn’t score in the first and scored seven in the fourth.

But we’ve got to be better defensively. We gave up way too many big plays, explosive plays. We’ve got be better there, we’ve got to execute better on the back end in the passing game. I thought up front, we did a good job, we pressured him. We did a good job in the run game. We just have to be more consistent in the back seven in the run game and in the passing game.

On preparing to play at altitude:

Drink, make sure you hydrate. You can’t really do anything about the altitude. It’s a long flight, I told them yesterday, really towards the end of last week to start hydrating a little bit more because any time hydration is an issue, you don’t wait until the day of the game or the day before the game. It’s got to be something that you’re cognizant of and you do on a daily basis for weeks, for months, that you take care of your body.

We’ll talk about it, we’ll continue to talk about it. It’s a long flight. You know any time you fly for a long period of time, you get dehydrated. It’s a three-hour flight, so we’ve got to do a good job of making sure we hydrate on the plane and, obviously prior to getting on the plane, do a good job of preparing our bodies for that.

But I’m not going to make a big deal out of it. You start talking about all that kind of stuff and I think it just plants a different type of thought in their head.