San Diego State Aztecs College Football Pregame Quote, 11/26/2019

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, and you know, I’m thankful for a lot of things. I’m a pretty lucky guy and I imagine most of you in this room are, too, so it’s a good time to be thankful for a lot of things. We’ve got a really good football team coming in here. BYU’s an exceptional football team. They had a period when they were struggling when the starting quarterback was out with a hand injury … They’ve been playing at a (high) level since he got back. Since he’s been the starting quarterback and he got back, it’s the best football team we’ll play against all year to this point.

On quarterback Ryan Agnew’s availability and who might play in his place:

We’re going to keep him off his feet today and tomorrow and see how he feels on Thursday … Carson Baker and then Jordon (Brookshire) would play after that. Mark Salazar is hurt, Joe Green our freshman quarterback is hurt. We have five quarterbacks (but) only two of them are healthy.

On if there’s a reassessment of goals now that a conference championship is out of reach:

That’s our number one goal, but guess what, we’ve done a lot of really good things this year, really good. Statistically, (we’re) one of the best defenses in the country. I think I’ve been told this, we’re the only college football team and pro football team in the state of California that has qualified for postseason play the last 10 years. That’s pretty darn good stuff. Now, I’m telling you that’s pretty good stuff. We have eight wins already, so we’ll have a winning record no matter what happens the next two games. We’re going to get to play in a bowl game. No matter what happens, we’re going to get to play in a bowl game … Our primary goal is to win the conference championship and you can say it’s a terrible season because we didn’t hit our number one goal. Anybody in this room that hits their number one goal all the time, you shouldn’t be sitting in this room because you’re a multi-billionaire and you should be having a good time. So if you don’t hit your number one goal but you hit about 50 other ones, it’s a pretty darn good year no matter what happens in the next two games. We’ve had a great year. We have great kids in our program. We’re losing a bunch of really good seniors and the naysayers out there can say whatever they want. We’ve had a great season.

On the Aztecs’ senior class:

I’m really proud of the senior class because I think they took a leadership role. I think toward the end of last season, we did not play the same way we normally play. We didn’t play as hard. We didn’t play with the want-to we should have. In the offseason, we re-established what this program is all about, and it doesn’t happen unless your leadership buys in. And this senior class bought in. They’ve made a huge difference. Good, bad or in between, they’ve always had the right attitude about it and it’s been team-first, so this this senior class has done a great job. I don’t know how many of them are NFL guys. Most of them are not, so the next two games (are) the last two games they’ll ever get to play. I can still remember the last game I ever played, so I know what they are feeling, especially the ones that know they’re not NFL guys. I know exactly how they feel, and so it’ll be strange and sad all at the same time, but I think our senior class has done a great job.

On competing as an independent football team versus playing with a conference affiliation:

I’d much prefer everybody being in a league. That’s my personal feeling, but I’m sure every school that is independent is independent for a reason. Some of them, they can’t afford the scheduling because the league they would be in they’d have to travel great distances, so they can’t afford that kind of thing. Some of them think they can make more money by themselves than within a league. So I’m sure if a university can make more revenue being an independent, that’s probably a smart thing to do. I mean, there’s a lot of reasons for doing it. I wish everybody was in a league because I think eventually there’s going to be a national tournament. And I think unless your Notre Dame, all the independents are going to be left out except Notre Dame.

On whether the list of independent football teams will shrink or grow:

Well, I think that if you look at all divisions in football ‚Äîand I don’t know the exact facts, so don’t take it for gospel ‚Äî the number of football teams if you count all divisions of college football are increasing. At the Division III level, they’re adding college football teams in order to get more males on their campuses. So there might be some Division I teams that will drop down to Division II or Division II teams that drop down Division III because of financing. But the likelihood of them dropping football is getting less and less all the time for reasons I don’t understand. But it has to do with federal funding. So I’m talking about something I don’t understand, but I know that the Division III level has increased the number of football teams they have.

On whether if he would coach an independent football team knowing there’s nothing to play for:

Well, I think they are playing for something. I mean, BYU’s already got a bowl game lined up … So there are there are some advantages. You can set your own schedule. For teams like BYU and Notre Dame, that’s not hard. For a team like New Mexico State, they have a hard, hard time developing a schedule. I think they play one team twice home and home [Liberty]. So when you’re an independent at their level, it’s very, very difficult. If you’re an independent at BYU and Notre Dame’s level, it’s not, and you can set your schedule so that you have a really good chance to win and you can set your schedule that you are a prime candidate to be in the playoff system once the playoff system is expanded. You’re not counting on being the league champion or being a divisional champion and playing a league championship game. You don’t have to win all those games. All you got to do is go undefeated so you can set your schedule so that you go undefeated. Guess what, if you’re Notre Dame, you’re in the national championship game or the tournament, you’re in the national tournament.

On the impact of BYU ever deciding to rejoin the Mountain West:

I think that if BYU came back to our conference it would be a positive. Because they have a national audience and they have history that proves that they’re a good football program, I think it’d be a positive they were if they were back in our league.

On whether or not it’s worse to lose a championship by a wide margin:

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I’d feel a lot worse if we got beat by 45 and I think our team would feel a lot worse. To have a chance right to the very end to keep the game going and still have a chance to win, I think all championship games ought to be like that. I think any time you play for any kind of championship you hope that both teams are equal and it’s a highly competitive game and it comes down to the end. I think all championship games you would like to be like that.

On whether his current players are aware of the history of the BYU-SDSU rivalry:

No way, no how. So if we want to build up this big rivalry with BYU, the only ones that know are me and maybe (assistant coach Jeff) Horton. You know anybody that’s over 60, we understand, but anybody under 30 has no idea how he heated those rivalries were because BYU was one of the top teams in the country for years and years and years. So people shot to try and knock them off. Our boys have no idea about any of that. I had to tell him the other day that some of their players are 25 to 27 years old and they looked at me like my head was cut off. See, they don’t they don’t even know that part of it. They watch them on film, so they know they’re darn good football team, but they don’t know all that other stuff. I told them they’re the most mature football team were going to play. They have no idea what that means. But from the age of 18 playing against 24- and 25-year- olds, you in this room, how much different were you at 25 as compared to 18? There was a huge difference. There’s a thing called man-strength that you get about 25 or 26 years old. You don’t have it at 18. No matter how much they think they are a grown man, they are not.

On what would make BYU come back to the Mountain West:

I already just mentioned that I think that BYU would be a very strong addition to our league and would help our league entirely and I think they’ll come back if people don’t schedule. If we will not schedule them so they have an unbelievable hard time of developing a schedule, that might make them come back into the league. I don’t have anything against BYU. In fact, my mother and father are alumni of BYU, they both graduated. They met there, they got married there, I was born there. I mean, I have nothing against BYU and I think they’d be a strong addition to our league. And the way to get them back is to not schedule them. Make them hunt and peck and try to find the schedule. I mean, half their schedule or three-fourths of their schedule are Mountain West Conference teams already.

On whether next year’s defense can build on this year’s outstanding performance:

First of all, those statistics don’t mean a darn thing to me until after the season’s over and we do our evaluation of the program and evaluation of everything. I think there’s a chance for a very strong defense next year because most of them are coming back. I mean, we lose a couple of really good players, but we have a whole bunch of guys with a lot of experience that are coming back. So the chances of being really good on defense next year are in a very positive light.

On whether it’s been hard with the Jekyll-and-Hyde nature of the offense from week to week:

No, I think that’s just sports. Every team has an identity, and some have a different identity from year to year depending on who their players are. And it’s good for people to know that even at the NFL level where they draft and pay and one of the best teams in the league has the best defense and the worst offense, the New England Patriots. I saw that on TV and it make me feel good. I mean, Tom Brady is considered the best quarterback in the league and they’ve got a terrible offense and they keep winning. So it can be done. It can be done a whole bunch of different ways. Some people believe you outscore everybody and everybody’s happy, and some people play good defense and control the football and you have a chance to win no matter how you do it.

On comparing this BYU team to others in the past:

Well, they look like the old BYU team to me the last three weeks. Which means they’re pretty good on defense and really, really, really good on offense. Now, I told you already they had a three- or four-game span there that they didn’t play very good and their starting quarterback was hurt. Well, he’s back 100 percent and they look like the BYU team of old to me. They can run it, they can throw it. No one ever stops them. They score a whole bunch of points and their defense is good enough to keep the other team off the board.

On BYU quarterback Zach Wilson:

Yeah, he’s like all of the good ones now. He’s very accurate with the football. He can throw the deep ball and then if there’s no throws there, he can hurt you with his legs.

On what Jordon Brookshire and Carson Baker bring in case Ryan Agnew can’t play Saturday:

I don’t know. It’s a bad answer, right, but I don’t know. I haven’t seen them in live action since spring practice and that’s an unfair evaluation because you’re playing ones against ones, twos against twos, threes against threes, so I’ve never seen either one of those quarterbacks with our number one offense. So I have no idea and I’ve never seen them against the other teams’ number one defense, so I have no idea what we’re going to get.