Louisiana Tech Bulldogs College Football Pregame Quote, 10/13/2020

It’s great to win. When you came back and had the opportunity to really break it down and watch the film, there are a lot of things we have to get better at as a football team. We were fortunate to win. I was really excited about the defensive performance in this game. Defensively, with 10 new starters on that side of the ball, these first three or four games you’re teaching a lot of lessons that, as we talked about before, maybe should have been learned in spring practice and fall camp with what you’re doing. We’re kind of learning in the fire. Learning in the heat of the battle. We’ve learned a lot of lessons in the first three games, and we are making improvements. I’m starting to feel really comfortable with the two deep and depth chart that is starting to formulate on defense. We have some guys that are really stepping up and doing some good things. The BYU game was a great learning experience for our team. Going on the road and playing the way we did, they were embarrassed. They want to be good. They’re a proud group. They came back and had a great week of practice, and it showed in the way that we performed. Defensively, we gave up 10 points in that football game. They played really well. They played fundamental, smart football. It wasn’t about necessarily making plays as much as it was about 11 guys playing together, playing fundamental football, holding their gaps, not trying to do too much, and it showed. The results were impressive.

Offensively, it was the worst performance that I can remember being a part of here at Louisiana Tech. We struggled at tackle. I know we talk a lot about the news that we got on Friday with our starting two tackles being out. Two guys had to step up with Walker Hankinson getting his first career start and Biron Rossell having his first game back since his injury a year ago at Marshall. He was a little bit rusty. I don’t think we played the way that we’d like to have played. We had way too many loss yardage plays. We struggled protecting our quarterback in the passing game. We have a young quarterback, inexperienced quarterbacks back there that we had to make some adjustments to what they were doing against us. I don’t think we handled those very well. We learned as coaches some things we have to do a better job of, that I have to do a better job of, because we do have inexperience. It’s not what we know or what adjustments we make, it’s how comfortable does our team feel making them? With that, I got frustrated and we decided we were going to run the ball. We were going to be safe. We were going to stop going backwards, and we’re going to punt it away and make them drive 80 yards against our defense. That was the game plan coming in, and we were able to find a way to get a win. When you don’t play well really on offense and you don’t play that well in your kicking game, it puts an awful lot on your defense to find a way to win. I’m really proud of the players, the way they competed, the way they stayed together. That continues to be a strength of this team is how close they are. It would have been easy to start pointing fingers in that game, but yet there was a lot of encouragement on the sideline and I really liked the attitude of where we were.

On players who stepped up in the UTEP game:

Some guys that really stepped up and played well were our receivers on offense continue to play at a really high level. We’re catching the ball really well and they’re really focused, dialed in and they’re competing hard. Center Kody Russey and Joshua Mote, the two guys with experience on our offensive line, are playing well and doing some good things. Defensively, I could sit and talk for a long time about our front four and the progress that they’ve made and the leadership of guys like Milton Williams and Trey Baldwin and the job that they’re doing. The emergence of the two freshmen that are making their presence known on this football team in Tyler Grubbs and Cedric Woods. Cedric Woods played an outstanding game for a young corner. You can see him getting better and better and his confidence building as he’s going on. He will continue to learn and grow. Both of them will continue to grow and learn as the season goes on. It was great to have Maki Carabin back to give us a little bit more of a rotation there at linebacker. He played really well for us as well as some depth guys up front. Mykol Clark got in and did some really good things for us. Some of those backup defensive lineman in Tristan Allen played very well. We had some guys have to step up. Gerald Wilbon, our nose guard, was out. Tristan Allen went out early. Malik Wells stepped in there and did some decent things. Eric Kendzior continues to play really well. A guy like Levi Bell has had a limited number of reps, so we have to get him more plays in the defense. There were a lot of positive things to build on defensively. Khalil Ladler did some good things at safety with Bee Jay Williamson. With Jaiden Cole having a targeting call and being removed from the game, those two carried the load and really played a solid game at the safety position. Overall on the secondary, we kept the ball in front of us and we didn’t give up much big plays. A lot of things to build on with it.

On things to work on after the UTEP game:

Obviously, the kicking game woes continue. We punted 10 times in that game and didn’t have one of them over 40 yards. I’m really frustrated because I watch both players in practice go out and compete at such a high level. We just have to find a way to get them a little more comfortable back there on game days where we can go and see the talent and potential they have. If anybody gets to the game early and watches them warm up, you’re going to ask why we don’t play those guys because those guys have talent and they can do much better than they are. We just have to do a better job as coaches of bringing them along. The kickoff return is a shame for a team that was competing so hard defensively and had only given up 10 points to let them back into the game with a long return like that. We’ve got to do a better job. We have some youth and inexperience, some young guys out there like Jamison Kelly, who will learn from it, and a lot of players out there. We have to get that straight and get much better. They’re really zeroed in with what we need to do. Overall, it’s great to win. It wasn’t all roses. It wasn’t all positives. There’s some things we need to grow on from it. It’s a great learning experience for our team. Hopefully they’ll understand that as we go through this season, we are going be a work in progress as we go through all 11 games. We’ve got to keep getting better. Some of our faults showed up on the field on Saturday.

On Marshall:

This week, we have Marshall. I have great respect for Doc (Holliday) and the job that he’s done there. It’s early in the season, but you’ve got the number one in the east and the number one in the west facing off this early in the season. It has all the billings to be a great matchup game. Marshall’s a really talented team on both sides of the ball. When you look at them statistically, they are top two in the league in almost every category offensively and defensively. When you look at what they’ve giving up scoring both on offense and on defense and total both on offense and defense, this is a very physical, experienced, fundamental football team. They do a really good job with their coaching staff of coaching them. They play extremely hard. They’re a physical bunch. This ought to be a heck of a challenge for us here at home.