Louisiana Tech Bulldogs College Football Pregame Quote, 10/20/2020

On the Marshall game:

Looking back, as we always do, last week was a tough loss here at home. It was the first loss we’ve had in almost two years. It was a difficult loss because as bad as we played in some areas, we still felt like we had a chance to be in the game. That was the unfortunate part. We let it get away from us. There’s a lot of things that we could learn. As a matter of fact, as a team, we’re probably even encouraged. Marshall has a really good football team. Their defensive line was really active. They have a really good running back and an experienced offensive line that’s been together for a long time. A redshirt freshman quarterback that is going to be really, really good in some of the throws he made around the field on Saturday night. They’re a very talented football team. The thing coming out of it I don’t feel like it was our best shot. I say that because we can play much better than that. That’s one of the driving forces. We are certainly trying to do everything we can to win the west regardless, but we certainly would look forward to a rematch with Marshall if we could clean some things up and take care of some things to get ourselves in that position. A lot of guys on defense played really well. Our defense competed against a really good offensive football team. Offensively, unfortunately, three of the first four plays were sacks. It was hard to watch in some parts and really exciting in others. What we’ve got to do and where I feel it was a building force for us as an offense or as a football team is that we were able to come in here and watch the film and see some of the mistakes that we’ve made. Truly, with our depth chart and all of the changes that have been made in it over the last five weeks, I feel like we’re coming to the end of spring practice or fall camp and I feel like the depth chart is starting to take shape across the board down all 22 spots where we’re really starting to formulate not only a starter, but a backup where we have a little bit of depth. Being able to watch this film, this team has been able to see a lot of the mistakes that we made that are correctable mistakes. They weren’t physical errors, they were more mental errors in things that we can do a better job of to try and get better. That’s the battle cry of this football team right now is improvement. We lost to two football teams that are both ranked in the top 20. As a young team coming in here with 10 new starters on defense and a new quarterback, we knew there were going to be trials and errors early in the season and, hopefully, we can learn from them and start to be a little bit more of an experienced team in the second half.

On UTSA:

I’m really impressed with (UTSA head coach) Jeff Traylor and the job that he’s done in that program. It is on a real upswing from where it was the last couple of years. You can see the players playing with energy. They won the first three games of the year. Even though they lost the last three games, they lost to BYU, UAB on the road and Army who are three quality opponents. They lose them 27-20. They’re very competitive with what they do. They’re a big football team. They’re a physical football team. They run the ball. Offensively, they have a tailback who is leading the country right now with 700 yards rushing. They have a big offensive line that is very similar to what we just played where they try to control the ball. They’ve played multiple quarterbacks, but because of injuries, they have two quarterbacks that are out right now. Then they’re back with Frank Harris who they began the season with. It’s a very talented team offensively. I look at their defense. Their defensive line is certainly the strength which concerns us a little bit because the offensive line is probably where we had the biggest bumps in the road and the most hurdles to climb with some of the rotating starting positions and who we had the opportunity to play and who has been available and the production that we’ve had out of the position. We have to get better there. They’re certainly going to be a challenge because UTSA has a really good defensive line. They’re big and they’re physical, so that will be a challenge for us because I don’t care how well your receivers, quarterbacks or running backs are playing, your offensive line is involved in the passing game and your offensive line is involved in the running game. We’ve got to shore some things up there and get better and hopefully having Antawn Lewis back this week is certainly going to help us. They’re a very talented team. They’ve got a kicker who has the longest streak in the country in field goals made. Then they have a punter who I think is number one in the conference and fourth nationally in yards per game at 45.8 average per gross punt. We know it’s going to be a challenge playing down there in the Alamodome. We’ve always had dog fights with UTSA. It’s always been a hard fought game. It’s always a game that’s gone down to the wire. I remember a couple years ago we went down there and had to kick a field goal at the end of the game to win. It’s always a dogfight. It’s going to be a competitive game and it’s a conference game on the road. I wouldn’t expect anything less.

On how important Saturday’s game is for LA Tech’s goals:

It’s important. They’re all important. You want to be as a good as you can be. Right now, the biggest focus is on our need for improvement. That’s why I said as disheartening as the Marshall game, after the players had the opportunity to watch the film on Sunday night, I felt we went out and had a very spirited practice on Sunday night. They realized how good they can be. They realized how close they are. The strides we’ve made the last three-to-four weeks on defense from where we were. Getting Trey Baldwin back and he’s all over the field with 16 tackles and doing that. But, playing fundamentals and playing in the system. They’re seeing how when they play as 1/11th in the system that we can be a really quality defensive and offensive football team. That really showed up in the film. There were a lot of good things and a lot of great plays that you could see where everybody does what they’re supposed to do there’s nowhere to run. It’s a gain of two-type play. Then the next play when you play a great running back like (Marshall redshirt junior Brenden Knox) and one guy gets out of his gap and all of a sudden, there goes the seam and how trustworthy you have to be to play on this defense. There were a lot of positives in this game. Believe it or not, morale-wise it’s actually a booster rather than a deflation because everybody can see just how close we are and how we have to keep getting better. Everything from here-out, we have one left that’s not a conference game, we only play one other team from the east. The rest of them are western division teams. You start talking about UTSA, Rice, North Texas and UAB, you still have a lot of good football teams that are on your schedule that you have to play in your conference. We just have to take it one at a time. We have to get better this week. We keep saying if you want to change the future, you have to focus on the present. If we want the results we want for the future, the big goals that you talk about, we have to get focused in the present and what we have to do to get better. Because if we don’t improve, we’re not going to see different results.