Louisiana Tech Bulldogs College Football Pregame Quote, 10/19/2021

On the UTEP game:

It certainly wasn’t one of our better performances. I’m very disappointed with the way we performed on Saturday. There was certainly some silver lining in what happened Saturday in watching the progression of our defense and watching the way that they really came to life after the first quarter. In the first two possessions, we gave up 14 points and went down the field and scored. They did a great job on first and second down, but on third and long we gave up conversions. There were about four of them in the first two drives that were 3rd and 7-plus that we gave up and they went down and scored. But, after that, David Blackwell did a nice job of making some adjustments.

We lost Baylen Buchanan and we got out of some of our man coverage and got a little bit more into zone. Some guys came off the bench and did a great job, especially as the game went on. With Baylen being out, Elijah Hamilton and Zeno Hannibal did a really nice job coming in and playing corner. It was nice to have Kody Fulp back and a little bit of depth. Maki Carabin continues to play really well for us. Allen Walker did a really nice job. Brodrick Calhoun came in and created a turnover. At safety, both Khalil Ladler and Myles Mason. I’m just talking guys off the bench. Even upfront, it was nice to have Willie Baker back. DJ Jackson came in off the bench and created a turnover. What the young freshmen, Ben Bell, Kershawn Fisher, Joseph Mason, are adding to an already pretty stout group upfront when you look at the way Deshon Hall, Keivie Rose, Tristan Allen and Mykol Clark are playing added with Trey Baldwin, Tyler Grubbs and Ezekiel Barnett. Jaiden Cole had a great game. He’s very active in what he’s doing. BeeJay Williamson. You just have some guys who are playing really well. The buy-in factor is really high. They are really starting to believe.

Our defense continues to emerge. We talked here last week about a really good UTEP team that liked to run the ball, yet we held them to 102 yards rushing on 44 attempts for 2.3 yards per rush. We held them to three points outside of the first quarter. In the first quarter, we gave up 14 and then gave up three in the next three quarters and created four turnovers. Our defense did everything they could to give our offense a chance to get back into it and to give us, as a team, a chance to get back into it.

The disappointing thing was the number of points we were able to put on the board. Again, some guys played really well. When I look upfront, Joshua Mote, Abraham Delfin and Kellton Hollins, those three guys inside continue to play well. Biron Rossell had dinged up his shoulder. Chris Fournier had dinged up an ankle. Those guys kept fighting through trying to make it work. Marcus Williams Jr. continues to play well. Bub Means, Tre Harris and Isaiah Graham are playing really well for us at wide receiver. Jacob Adams continues to be a big part of what we’re doing offensively. But, unfortunately, the story of this game was we had five trips into the red zone and we scored three points. It’s something we’ve done a pretty good job of so far this season in getting into the red zone, but, unfortunately, we weren’t able to create those trips down into the red zone for points. We ended up with three turnovers as an offense. We had two fourth down stops where we didn’t make it to stop drives which was frustrating. For myself, I probably put Austin Kendall in some tough situations. Probably got too much into a drop-back game too early especially with the way the defense played in the second, third and fourth quarters. It was frustrating to perform the way that we did. I give UTEP an awful lot of credit. They have a really good football team. They did a really nice job defensively. But still, we could play much better. As a head coach, I have to do a better job. As assistants, we have to do a better job of trying to find a way to put points on the board and keep them out of the end zone.

On the homecoming game against UTSA:

This week, it doesn’t get any easier. We just played a now 6-1 UTEP team and now you have an undefeated UTSA coming in here who is 7-0 right now. They’re ranked 24th and 25th in the two polls. It’s going to be a great challenge for us. I’m glad we have the opportunity to come back home. We haven’t been home in about a month. It’s homecoming, so for everybody that is out there that hasn’t been back to Ruston in a while, we’d love to have you back to not only see all the new facilities that have been built on campus with the new dorms, the new chemistry building, seeing what’s going on with the athletic complex with the new soccer field, softball stadium and baseball stadium. Little Ruston is really starting to grow up. We would love to have you back. We need you for your support with playing at home in Joe Aillet Stadium. It’s homecoming and we’d love to see everybody here.