Rice Owls College Football Pregame Quote, 11/16/2021

Let me start out by talking about Russ Anderson Day this Saturday. We, as well as everyone else in Conference USA, will be wearing RDA stickers on our helmets, celebrating the life of Russ Anderson. Last April, we lost Russ. The conference lost Russ. They inducted him into the Hall of Fame, which I think is well-deserved. I’m very thankful that I got the chance to get to know Russ a little bit and see his love for Conference USA. The thing that was always evident to me about Russ is, whether it was a student-athlete, a coach, or anybody covering the conference, he would go above and beyond for them at all times. Again, he loved this conference and Russ is missed. I’m glad we’re getting the chance to honor him.

Going back to the Western Kentucky game, Tyson (Helton) has done a great job at Western Kentucky. I think the best thing that he’s done is recruiting Bailey Zappe. Bailey’s a phenomenal football player. I knew how good he was going into the game but watching him in person, he was phenomenal with the timing of getting the ball out, to the decisions he made. He’s a scrappy dude as well. I think we knew this going into the game that we would have a very small margin for error when you’re playing against one of the best offenses in college football. Every mistake you make against those guys, they’re going to expose you. We didn’t execute well enough to come out on the other side with a win.

Moving forward, we talked to the team about how important this game is. How excited we are to go into the Sun Bowl and play Coach (Dana) Dimel’s team this weekend. We’re extremely excited for this opportunity, excited for this team to get another chance to play. They’ve worked really hard for a few weeks now and I’m thrilled that they get an opportunity to play again and I hope we get to come out the other side so they can get paid for all of their hard work.

On Aidan Siano:

Aidan is a guy that we saw on recruiting film and fell in love with instantly. He’s sideline-to-sideline, making plays. My concerns with recruiting Aidan were never if he was good enough, it was whether we would be able to hold onto him throughout the whole recruiting process. We were able to get him and his family to fall in love with this place and this team. I’m so thankful that he’s here. I’m thankful to see his role grow pretty much every week of the season to the point where he’s now a starter for us. I’m really excited for him to be in that role all week in practice and get to see the results against what we know is going to be a physical offensive line from UTEP. Those guys are going to come off the ball and they’re going to have running backs raging at you. So, we’re going to need Aidan and Desmyn (Baker) to play their butts off, along with that defensive line. One thing we know about UTEP is that they do a great job of making all 11 play on defense. Everybody on the field for you is going to have to tackle. They’re going to make your corner have to tackle. They’re going to make your safeties tackle repeatedly. And that’s fine. That’s what we’re going to sign up for. So many of those runs will be inside. Our (defensive) line and our linebackers will be a key.

On the passing game:

It’s been great to have August (Pitre II) back these last few weeks. Statistically, he had a great game, but it was far from his best game. We’ve got to get him to be more consistent. He’s so capable. August has a chance to become a dominant receiver. It’s great to have him in the lineup. Cedric Patterson II again, you saw him catch the post for the touchdown and make sure he got his feet in. That was good. The most consistent receiver we’ve had for a month now and who’s playing at such a high level is Jake Bailey. He’s taking advantage of every opportunity that comes in front of him and he’s making defenses pay. To the point where, in critical situations, he’s getting doubled a lot. Sometimes still finding a way to win or sometimes taking those doubles and giving the guys on the outside an opportunity to go one-on-one and win their matchup. So, all of those receivers are playing well. They’re doing some good things.