UAB Blazers College Football Pregame Quote, 09/16/2019

Coming off an open date is always interesting. Everyone handles them a little differently. Two in one year is a little different for us. People always ask what I think of an open date. I think there is some good, but then there is the worry of what does that do to your psyche and how do your players return. Obviously, there is the health side to it which is a positive. Having a second one coming up later is a big deal for us. We got better last week and it really gave us a chance to look at ourselves. We looked at South Alabama of course, but we tried to look all of our upcoming opponents and who we are going to play. It was a good solid week.

On to South Alabama. Being able to help start that program is a big deal to me. We lived in the Mobile area for five or six year, my kids went to school there. I have a lot of great memories about Mobile and Baldwin County. They have a really good coaching staff. This game is going to be really important to them and it is really important to us. It’s the next game – in-state. It’s like what we talked about with Alabama State. Scores and records are a moot point. Their team knows our team, our team know their team. I think you can really throw that stuff out and know that it is going to be a really hard fought game.

On coaching at South Alabama:

I think the thing that was exciting to me about coaching at South Alabama is that I had offers to maybe be a position coach, but to help start a program was something I wanted to do. Me and Joey Jones went in there together. We really took it from nowhere. From building buildings, adding turf fields, recruiting from scratch, scheduling games. All of those things were what I was excited about. And to watch that program grow has been great. I saw a player talking about how we put a locker on a slab on concrete. Kind of like we did here when we brought it back when we said, this is the vision and this is the dream. The city of Mobile was really good to us. They bought in to all of things we were trying to do. Like I said, I have great memories there. They are doing great things and have high expectations. But it was the start I needed to be where I am today.

On completing deep passes at Akron:

For us, it definitely wasn’t a loss on that Friday (after Alabama State) but our guys felt that way and we said ‘Let’s come in here and get better.’ And that is going to be a weekly thing for us. The only way to replicate the game is to play in the game. Whether they haven’t played before or it’s a bullseye on your chest, whatever it may be, that’s what it’s going to look like every week. But yes, it was good. After a little bit of a slow start the defense came around. We built a good a lead, and give Akron credit because they didn’t quit and that is something we have to work on. We have to finish a game. We had opportunities to move the ball in short yardage situations and we wish we could have some of those back. Those are the things we focused on this week. Continually just trying to get better. But it was good to go on the road and get a win, especially with us struggling in that second game, it was great to get that win behind us.

On playing an in-state team:

The recruiting process always starts in-state and it starts locally. We have some great ties down in that area. That’s a big part of it ‚Äì how you do in these head-to-head matchups. They are selling their school, we are selling our school. When you look at a head-to-head matchup that is always important. Obviously in recruiting, that is a part of the process.

On Tyler Johnston III:

For us it was ‘Alright, what is the next step?’ A lot of the things he worked on over the summer. For a quarterback, it’s what’s the next thing for you? He has thrown the deep ball well, but it is working on the other things – the running game, managing the team etc. It is a constant state of evolution. He is definitely improving and that is what we want to see from everyone on the team, especially the quarterback.