Miami RedHawks College Football Pregame Quote, 12/06/2019

COACH MARTIN: Yeah, just obviously crazy excited to be here in Detroit playing for the MAC championship game. Obviously, crazy proud of my team. The players fought through a lot this year. Our league everybody knows is crazy bound. So there’s a lot of really, really good football teams and a lot of really even football teams. And our kids, with the help of the assistants, did an unbelievable job of sticking together and persevering. Anybody who’s listened to me talk about our team for the last 12 months knows how much I respect these kids, not just as players, but who they are as people. Pretty amazing season to find ways to win as many close games as those kids did.

We’re super excited to be here. We’re super excited to play Central Michigan. Obviously, they’re an incredible story, too. With their one year turnaround, going from 1 11 to MAC champs on their half is pretty amazing with a new staff. A credit to their players, a credit to their coaches, a credit to them finding a way to meld together and work together so quickly. We know they’re a great opponent. We’re excited about the challenge, we’re very, very saddened by their recent loss of their radio guy and we want to make sure everybody knows from our end that we heard about that, and that it’s obviously a very, very tough situation to deal with anytime something like that happens. We’re excited to take on the Chippewas tomorrow and we think it should be a great game.

Coach, how special is it for you to be able to be here after taking over this program in the state it was at to finally get to the MAC Championship game?

COACH MARTIN: It’s awesome. Anytime you get to play in a championship game, it’s awesome. But, obviously, if you take over a program that was 0 16, we did a good job to getting it to 22 straight, losing our first six. Then just seeing the process and the growth of our team. A lot of our seniors weren’t here at the very beginning, but they were here close enough to the beginning that they’ve gone through some tough times and worked their tails off to make a difference. They have turned this program back around. Obviously, Miami’s a very, very proud football program, very proud athletic department. And for these kids to know for the rest of their lives that they were a part of, you know, turning the bleakish years of Miami football around and getting it back to have an opportunity to play in the MAC championship is something that I’m sure they’ll take with them the rest of their lives.

This question is for Doug and Tommy. You guys have both been around for a while, but you’ve never been to Detroit in the MAC championship game. Are you nervous for this game more so than others or are you kind of treating it like any other game?

DOUG COSTIN: I’m not treating it any differently. And I could probably say that about the rest of the team. We’ve been in a bunch of hard games, a lot of big spotlight games. We see this as just another one of those games. I feel as if we were to put too much pressure on it, then we wouldn’t be able to perform like we know we’re capable of.

TOMMY DOYLE: Yeah, I think I agree with Doug. No one’s too stressed out or uptight about the game. We played in some big games this year, so we’re just looking forward to playing tomorrow.

Coach, I just wanted to ask you about your time at Grand Valley State and how that shaped you into the coach that you are today.

COACH MARTIN: Obviously, I had a great 10 years at Grand Valley State. It’s an incredible place. We won a lot of games, won some championships. Obviously, I was still a fairly young coach. When I got there, I was an assistant for Coach Kelly, and then obviously it was my first opportunity to be a head coach. Whenever you make a transition from any job where you get promoted to the next level, obviously, there’s a huge learning curve.

So learned a lot in my 10 years, had a lot of fun. It’s a tremendous place as you well know from being over there and kind of got me heading in the right direction in the coaching profession and also gave me an opportunity to be a head coach at a young age and kind of learn under fire and try to keep things going. So great experience for me. Every stop you make in coaching or playing shapes who you are in the future and obviously a lot of the lessons you learn from success and certainly the lessons you learn from failure are things that you can improve upon in the future.

For the players, how does your nonconference slate of playing in venues like Ohio stadium prepare you to come into Ford field and keep your composure?

DOUG COSTIN: It definitely prepares us, you know, obviously loud environments, a lot of hostile environments. Even just other MAC opponents we’ve played this year, they’ve all been hostile environments that we, I feel like as a team, we kind of enjoy that moment of coming to a stadium like that. I guarantee you tomorrow, it’s going to be the same way. We’ll see it as just another hostile environment. Kind of like a road game with it being a Michigan school we’re playing. And definitely we kind of feel like sometimes we like to thrive in those situations, definitely brings out more of an edge in a lot of us.

Tommy, from an offensive side of things with the young quarterback that you were protecting, Brett Gabbert, just talk about what the confidence level of the offense has grown throughout the year as he’s grown as a freshman this year.

TOMMY DOYLE: Yeah, we’ve always had a lot of confidence in Brett, like at Kinnick stadium, it was a loud atmosphere. He had a great huddle presence and we were able to execute our offense, and from that moment on, we had all the confidence in the world in him.

Coach, obviously the question of the week has been surrounding Brett Gabbert and his health: Do you still expect him to play tomorrow and do you have any other guys that are questionable for the game?

COACH MARTIN: Yeah, like I said to somebody earlier this week, everybody’s going to play. I don’t know that I could keep any of them out, to be honest with you. No, Brett’s doing fine and he’s going to be able to play tomorrow. We have some other guys that are nicked up, but adrenaline’s a wonderful thing. Again, I think if I said, “Hey, I don’t think you’re quite right,” I think they would choke me and stuff me in my locker and go out and play anyway. So all the guys that are a little bit nicked up, you know, you’re in week 13, even the healthy guys have something going with them right now. I think our kids are more than excited to be here. And like I said, I don’t know that I could keep anybody out if I wanted to.

For Doug. You guys find yourselves once again underdogs. You find yourselves in that position for almost the entire season. Do you guys thrive in that position? Do you kind of embrace that mindset of being underdogs?

DOUG COSTIN: I mean, we have embraced it, yes. But at the same time, we kind of we don’t try to look at that. We try to go out there and focus on our opponents. People want to say who’s the underdog, who’s supposed to win, but, obviously, any given week, any team can win. Some of the better teams have beaten some of the worst teams. Some of the worst teams have beaten some of the better teams. If you don’t play to your capability every week, you can get beaten.

Doug, for you and the defense with regard to this year throughout conference play, was there a game or a day throughout the year where there was kind of that turning point moment for you guys in the season?

DOUG COSTIN: I would probably say was it NIU that was after Ohio State?

TOMMY DOYLE: It was Buffalo.

DOUG COSTIN: I would probably say that Buffalo game because we just came after, obviously, they put up 76 on us, and that week at practice, I feel like it kind of turned for everyone, like we realized this is not who we are. Obviously, we let some plays get away and obviously they did some good things as well, but I feel like that week we definitely all kind of came together, told ourselves like this is never going to happen again no matter who the opponent is, and we just felt like that week, and we felt like that week of preparation definitely prepared us for the game. Once we started playing, as you saw on the field, we started making plays. We kind of, every play on the field gave us some momentum. And I know weeks after that, we looked at each other like, remember that week right after Ohio State, remember how we played, remember how we prepared, and we’ve kind of tried to just keep that bottled up, keep using that every week when we practice.

Coach, obviously you want your guys to keep their composure throughout the game. Obviously, it’s a huge game. How do you embrace being in Detroit and playing at an NFL venue and also treat it just like any other game?

COACH MARTIN: Yeah, I think your question earlier was good. One, I think being in Kinnick stadium is going to be helpful. I don’t think it’s going to be any more electric or any less electric tomorrow than obviously going to Ohio State. Doug talked about hostile environments and obviously everybody’s saying it’s going to be a pro Chippewa crowd based on proximity and all that, but Ohio State was a pretty pro Ohio State crowd. I think our kids have been in it. And I just think I hope it’s a huge Chip crowd and a huge Miami crowd. The louder, the better, the more exciting. That’s why you’re trying to get here, to play in this type of environment. So I think our kids are going to be excited. We’ve talked all week. I don’t know the answer, if there’s an answer, how to have that fine line where you’re super excited about something, but you don’t overdo it and you make senseless mistakes because you want it too bad, or you’re just too hyped up versus not using that extra excitement. You ask the question of them, they’re way better coach speak than I am, you know. They’re pretty good at it. Nervous, like I wasn’t nervous when I walked in here, I was like this is what we’re trying to do, right? Take that nervous energy and turn it into a positive, turn it into adrenaline, turn it into hyper focus, turn it into maybe you push a little harder, maybe you block a little harder, maybe you run a little faster. So how to take that extra juice and use it as a positive and don’t have a bunch of personal fouls in the first quarter, you’re overdoing it because you’re so hyped up.

We’ve talked about it, but they’re going to have to find a way within their own framework to find their balance between being excited about being here because I know they are. I know how hard they’ve worked to get here. Not just for one year, but for multiple years. And then using that extra energy. And same thing as coaches. I can’t try to do too much. I got here because of players, you know. Now tomorrow, I’m going to win the game because it’s a big game. I got to just let my guys do what they do. We talked about it Wednesday and Thursday, like, hey, we’re going to play the call and we’re going to play the call to the best of our ability. That’s how we got here. It’s in all our minds and we’re all excited, but how do you use that excitement as positive energy and not take away, because you hear coaches, oh, our kids want it too bad, our kids, they were too over the top. And that can happen in these types of games and they won’t know until tomorrow at noon, really, how they feel at that first snap. I’m excited to see how it plays out

So, Coach, from last year, you had a three year starter in Gus Ragland leading your offense, and this year you go to a transition of a freshman quarterback. After 12 games, what have you learned about Brett Gabbert as a quarterback, and did it surprise you, what you found out this year?

COACH MARTIN: Yeah, I think we all saw it, players and coaches saw it from the time Brett hit campus. Just his poise and confidence. We knew he had some ability, but a lot of kids have ability. I think everybody that came up to me after the Iowa game. We lost the Iowa game. I thought we played pretty good and gave them a really good fight. And it’s not like we produced a ton, a ton of points, but we did some nice things on offense. But everybody was talking about, after that game, just how he handled that moment as a first game starter in Iowa and looked very composed and didn’t look jittery. Like Tommy said in the huddle, like had poise and confidence. So it just, I think who the kid is, I think he’s very calm, I think he’s very confident. Then I think he and our offense has kind of grown together. They’ve taken steps and steps and kind of the Kent State game was the first game we started really getting chunk plays offensively, we’ve kind of been flourishing ever since. I think him and the offense, and I think we’ve got those two freshman guards, too, that a lot people talk about. We only got a true freshman quarterback, we have two true freshman guards, crazy credit to Shafe and Rusty in what they’ve been able to get done this year. But I always talk about that Danny stands right in between them and Skibs and Tommy on either side. It’s been such a nice blend of the team, young guys being good players with confidence, but older guys taking those guys under their wings and supporting them because I’m sure you’ve had more than a couple interesting conversations with Shafe out there. Just our old and young blending together and really forming a team has been pretty special to watch this year.