BYU Cougars College Football Pregame Quote, 11/11/2019

On game scheduling during the season:

I get the team ready to play every week. The goal is to match the expectations of our fans and what the players have for themselves. This is another week for us at practice to get ready for this weekend.

On Zach Wilson’s availability:

If he’s cleared to go, then we should see what happens. Baylor has done some great things, but I’ll leave it up Coach Roderick and Coach Grimes to figure what gives us the best chance for victory. We’ll have to see how Zach progresses with his healing. We’ll know more after practice and as he heals day-by-day. Zach already has made a lot of improvement from Thursday to Saturday.

Developing seniors at final home game:

We’ve been able to work a lot together in the last few years, especially with establishing the team culture. We’ve worked hard with giving them feedback. I’ve seen them grow to leadership during my time here. Dayan Ghanwoloku for example would barely say a word when I first got here. Now he’s a vocal leader for us and it’s been awesome to see his voice grow as he’s become a natural leader for the team. His teammates have really started to follow him. He and several others have stepped up for the team. The past years have gone by really fast. I know they’ve put a lot of hard work into establishing the team that we are right now. I’m looking forward to seeing how their work and sacrifice will contribute to the future of this program. This week will be focused on those seniors and sending them out the right way. We want them to have good memories of their last game.

On Dayan Ghanwoloku changing to the cornerback position:

I’m not sure if that will be a permanent move. Troy Warner and Chris Wilcox will both be playing this week, so we have to figure out our depth chart and rotation. We moved Dayan right in the middle of a drive and once we moved him over to corner, he was ready for it and I thought he performed well. Luckily, we have players that can swing and go between corner and safety. We have some flexibility and we want to get the best 11 on the field.

On Idaho State:

They put up a lot of yards. Even last week, they only had five points against Eastern Washington, but they average about 160 in the run game and 240 yards in the passing game. Last year, I know they were putting up a lot of points and stats. For us, we’re going to respect every opponent we go against and this week we are focused on playing at our best and doing it for the seniors.

On starting 13 different freshmen:

We have some really good freshmen that have stepped up and we have others that have been forced to play because of depth charts and injuries. It shows that our evaluations are working. There’s a lot of freshmen that didn’t get as much attention coming out of high school, but we’ve been able to develop them in the weight room and at practice.