South Alabama Jaguars College Football Pregame Quote, 11/01/2021

On if this week feels different:

Yeah, it’s ‘Belt’ week. I think you have to embrace rivalries, I’ve been a part of a lot of them at a lot of different places and this one is fun. When you have an in-state rivalry it’s always important, especially when you have bragging rights and there’s recruiting on the line and the opportunity to build momentum for your program and also push some momentum off of another program that you have to compete against. I think it is an exciting deal, it’s fun for me because I’ve been a part of this rivalry before; we had a tremendous win in 2017 the last time I was a part of this rivalry in taking the ‘Belt’ and bringing it back home to Mobile.

On starting the second half better:

We’ve obviously shown in the second half that we can come out firing on all cylinders, we’ve done that probably as consistent as anything this season except for this past week when we didn’t do a very good job especially with how explosive we were in the first half and the first four drives of the game. Here is what is exciting about our team right now, particularly on offense: we have Jalen Tolbert, Jalen Wayne, Caullin Lacy and Jake Bentley, we’re able to create explosive plays downfield, but we’re also putting drives together and that to me is where you build consistency in a program. If you can have drives like 99-yard drives after going and scoring a touchdown already, putting those drives back-to-back where you can convert, stay on schedule on first and second down, convert on third down and execute in the red zone we’re showing that we can establish ourselves offensively as a team that can move the ball down the field. How consistent can we become in that? We’ve shown now that we can do that in the first half, coming out of halftime and finishing the game, but can we do that consistently over and over again when it matters most?

 On Troy LB Carlton Martial:

I think Carlton Martial is a phenomenal football player, the way he runs to the football he is very instinctive. There are linebackers who are great athletes, but if you don’t have instincts at the linebacker position you’re never going to maximize your abilities. Carlton is not the biggest guy on the field, he’s not the fastest guy on the field. But he plays with tremendous instincts, he’s fast enough and he’s big enough, and that to me is the makings for a great linebacker. He reminds me in a lot of ways of Bull Barge ‚Äî who we had here a few years ago ‚Äî but I think he does a tremendous job of creating energy for his team. You can tell he is the leader of that defense and they play so hard in large part because of a guy like Carlton Martial.

On Troy:

I think, first and foremost, they play very hard on defense, they are one of the top teams in the country in sacks and tackles for loss and they create a lot of takeaways. We have to be comfortable being uncomfortable against them, they are going to get us in some second-and-12 situations and we are going to have to operate and find a way to convert on third down and keep the drive alive. The one thing they have shown on top of that is that they’ve given up some explosive plays, we have shown that we can create explosive plays and no different than any other game we’ve won we have to capitalize on the explosive play battle. We also have to stay on schedule enough, and when they do get us off schedule we’ve got to be able to capitalize on second and third down to be able to make that back up and keep the drive alive. From a defensive perspective, we have to get the ball back for our offense. If we can create more opportunities to create these explosive plays it’s going to give us more opportunities to score, and that means being great situationally. We have to be excellent on third downs, we have to be great in the red zone and we have to win the explosive play battles from a defensive standpoint so that our offense can go execute at a high level. Turnover margin, explosive play battle, situational football ‚Äî those are the things that until the end of time will be really important. And they always show up in rivalry week. The one thing I would add to that is playing with a relentless physicality, the most physical team typically wins in a rivalry game.