Rice Owls College Football Pregame Quote, 11/09/2021

I liked the way we prepared last week. We went into Charlotte with the right mindset. We started the game off the way we wanted to and did some good things. In a zero-sum world, it was a difficult loss. After watching the film, I think we did some really good things to be proud of. We dominated time of possession, we ran the ball well. We stopped the run well and we had a lot of really good individual performances. A lot of guys had their best performance in a Rice uniform. Guys like Ari Broussard, Cole Garcia and Jordan Dunbar. Antonio Montero played as well as he has. He’s had some great games here but he played as good as he has creating a big-time turnover that gave us a real boost there. But, unfortunately, when you don’t find a way to win the game, it’s hard to celebrate those things. So that’s tough. But, we’re going to celebrate every victory. We’re going to talk about the good and we’re going to learn from the bad as we always do and watch the game with a critical eye.

Talking about the flow of the game, I think for three and two-thirds quarters, we played about as well as we needed to. We certainly left some opportunities out there like you always do. We played good enough to win and we weren’t able to capitalize down the stretch and that’s really disappointing. We had a couple of plays here or there, as you do in any overtime game, that are just different. You win the game and you win it in regulation. The thing that I talked to the team about yesterday is that pressure is a privilege and being in overtime is just an opportunity to win the game right then and there and go celebrate in the locker room. We need to understand that overtime is a great place to be. It’s something that we’ve earned and it’s just another step for us to learn to finish those games.

But, we still have everything in front of us. We’ll continue to grow and trust our process. It’ll take an army. It’ll take every one of us to finish this season the way we need to. I have full faith in our players and staff to be able to do so.

Talking about Western Kentucky, we know that they have a dominant offense. They have a great quarterback and they have been playing as good a defense as they have all year. They’re creating turnovers. They’re really playing solid in all three phases. They’re really good on special teams. They get after it on special teams. So, it’s going to be an unbelievable challenge for us.

On his key takeaways from the Charlotte game:

The biggest thing is that we did some things technique-wise that were really, really good throughout the game. When the game is on the line and we have a chance to win a college football game, we’ve got to go green at that time too, more than ever before. We’ve got to fall back on our technique and our training and not abort those things. Because when we do things right, we’re pretty hard to deal with. If we try to do someone else’s job in addition to our 1/11, it’s just too much. There’s a reason why the schemes are built the way they are. If we just do our job and finish that game out, we’d be feeling really good right now. That’s the feeling we’ve got to get to in those pressure situations and understand that pressure is a privilege.

On what he’s seen from the safeties:

It’s always a next man up mentality. That’s the way it has to be in football. But when you lose George Nyakwol and when you lose Treshawn Chamberlain, guys that have played a whole lot of football and two of the anchors that we counted on this year, really the only elder statesmen back there is Naeem (Smith) in terms of directing things from the safety room. Now you’ve got young guys stepping up and making plays. You’ve got Gabe Taylor, you’ve got Kirk Lockhart. When Plae Wyatt’s gotten in there, he’s done a good job. So, they’re doing well, but there’s a little bit of trial by fire right now from the back end.