Rice Owls College Football Pregame Quote, 09/10/2019

Before we dive into the football part of it, I want to give an update on Wiley Green. He’s been evaluated by our doctors and all imaging and testing has come back negative. Obviously, a lot of prayers were answered on that one. Besides the soreness in his neck, he’s doing much better. We’re going to continue to evaluate him and we look forward to getting him back sooner rather than later.

Talking about the game on Friday night, as we go back and watch the tape, there’s a couple of good things that we see, to say the least. The biggest one to me is that we continue to play very, very hard. I love that they are playing for each other. They are playing with passion the way this game demands and we’re really making some good progress there. I think we’re fighting on every play. We just have to find a way to quit allowing big plays to happen to us on defense. A few plays in particular stood out in that game. There was a long pass (and) the 96-yard run. Offensively, we have to continue to be more efficient. We have to end up with the ball in the box more than we have in these first two games.

I talked to the team about being consistently resilient. I don’t think there’s any other way that you can have those words go together. Temporary resilient doesn’t really work. As you look at the game, we showed some resiliency. We responded the way I would want us to in a lot of cases, especially right after Wiley’s injury. You see our team convert, put the ball in the end zone and then our defense makes them go three-and-out. We had a great punt return on special teams by Austin Trammell and we end up putting that score in the box to make it 14-14 before the first quarter is over. That’s the type of resiliency that this team has to have. It’s the way we have to live and we have to be able to do it for four quarters. That’s our charge to them.

Wake Forest; I look back at them and I think they are a really good team. I think they are a really well coached team. I think the 23 seniors they have were a big difference. I think their experience was too much for us for four quarters. Some of the things they were able to do on both sides of the ball allowed them to execute their game plan better than we did. In our case, a lot of it was because we went away from our technique when things got tough on both fronts of our offensive line and defensive line. We have to find a way that when things are tough, we fall back on our technique and on our training. That’s exactly what we’ve got to get them to do; is be confident in themselves and in what we’re teaching them. We’re going to continue to work through that.

The bottom line is we’re not quite there yet to beat that team. We felt like we had the ability to on the field and certainly at times it looked like we did. But, we have to keep making progress. We’re just not quite there. But, once again, it’s better today. I’m proud of the guys for that.

This week, we have a pretty good football team coming to Houston to play us. Obviously, Coach (Tom) Herman and his staff do a great job. They’ve rebuilt the culture at Texas. Everybody knows where that program was and what the perception of it was before he and his staff got there. I think it’s a place that, right now, has as good of athletes as anybody in America. Everybody talks to me about how this guy may not play or this guy is ruled out. At the end of the day, they are going to replace them with another incredibly athletic, five-star recruit. That will be what we see. The big thing that I think is cool is the opportunity for our guys to play the University of Texas. To play at NRG Stadium, and NFL venue. I think it’s going to be a ton of fun for our kids and it’s a great challenge. It’s why our kids came to Rice. I’ve said it before, anytime we talk about our schedule. Why did they come to Rice? Well, they came here to get a world-class degree and to play big-time college football. You think back and on Thursday we celebrate the 57th anniversary of (John F. Kennedy) giving that speech right out there. I think we all know it but why does Rice play Texas? Why do we choose to go to the moon? Not because they are easy but because they are hard. That’s going to be the challenge that we accept (and) we embrace as a football team this week. Our players are going to be prepared. We’re going to go out and play incredibly hard and the rest is going to take care of itself. We’re going to control the controllable. We’re going to go into this game and be prepared for the fight that is going to present itself at 7:05 at NRG Stadium.

On how encouraged he is about the steps they are taking as a program:

I’m definitely encouraged by the steps we’re taking. I mean it when I say it’s better day-by-day. Every day we can stack in that mindset it’s better. But, also, one of the biggest things that we stress in this program is finishing. We’ve got to find a way to finish. But, the resiliency, the fight are things that are positive.

On the biggest challenge going into the game:

They’re a talented, talented group. (Sam Ehlinger) is pretty sporty, whether he’s running the ball or throwing the ball right now. So, I think there is a lot of challenges. The offensive and defensive lines are going to be outstanding challenges for our group. You just look at that offensive line over there. Bringing in the graduate transfer, Parker Braun, from Georgia Tech. That’s a pretty stout group across the board. They’re a good offensive line. There defensive line; there’s nothing we can do on scout team to prepare for a 6-2, 340-pound nose (tackle). We don’t have anybody in the program that looks like that. So, we’re going to prepare our kids the best way we can and, again, the thing that I know is that they’re going to go out there and fight. I know they have the mindset that I want them to. You know, nobody is giving us a chance. I see the Vegas lines and all of those things. But, in this building, all we can think about is the things that we can control and the fight. Our guys, right now, they want to beat you in dominos. They want to fight you across the table and that’s what we need to have. So, going into this game, nobody is going to say ‚ÄòOkay, here it is. We’ll go play for 60 minutes and let them have it.’ That’s not the mentality of this program.

If he thinks Texas may have a letdown coming off the LSU game:

I’ve been in there shoes where you play a top-ranked Oregon team. You win or lose and then you play an opponent that’s non-conference. I know the challenges that they have and I know that they are going to get their kids ready to play. But, there’s decisions that you have to make as a coaching staff, too. Do I want to play this guy who is a little banged up in this game or do I want to keep him for the conference opener the following week? So, I know the challenges that they are going through. They’re great coaches. They’ll make the right calls for their program. Again, whoever lines up for them is going to be uber-talented and whoever lines up across from us, we’re going to do whatever we can to come off the ball and fight.

On how you communicate to the players that’s it’s another game:

I think that’s the bottom line. We have to realize that this is just the next in our 12 promised games. We have to prepare the way we know works. We have to do the things that work the best way we can. The worst thing we can do is try to be something outside of ourselves or outside of our scheme because that never works. We just have to play together, stay together and just fight. That’s the biggest thing, regardless of the stage. I remember back to those AFC Championship games with the (New York) Jets. I remember being a part of those Pac-12 Championships and those Rose Bowls and that was a big part of it. Just be you. Be the best version of you but be you.

On if he thinks they are getting to the point of more than just getting better:

We’re definitely getting closer. The fact that we battled back to tie (Wake Forest) at 14 at the end of the first quarter, maybe we wouldn’t have had that resiliency in years past. We would have had the ‚ÄòThere we go again’ type mindset that I felt was a part of our program last year that we continued to battle through. So, again, those are steps. There’s a lot of things. To be honest with you, the fact that we could stand toe-to-toe and we could move the ball in short yardage. The fact that when they overloaded the box in the run game; they were running some of their pressure; we were able to attack them through the air. We had a receiver like Bradley Rozner step up and make a few big-time plays. Our quarterbacks trust him because of what he did last week in practice and now they trust him even more because he’s done it in a game. So to see that and to see Tom (Stewart) called into action; I mentioned it last night at the radio show that the coolest part of what Tom did isn’t even what he did Friday night. It’s the fact that he did what’s so hard to do which is he prepared like he was the starting quarterback last week. There’s multiple times where I walked into the quarterback room looking for Coach (Robbie) Picazzo and he was the only one in there. I think that’s why you see a guy come into the game unexpectedly, take advantage of his opportunity, throw for 63% and do some really cool things.

On the plan after Tom Stewart if needed:

Fortunately or unfortunately, however you want to package it, we played a lot of quarterbacks last year and some of them are still in the program. So, Evan Marshman is going to be the guy that takes reps with the twos right now. We also, obviously, have JoVoni Johnson who we believe in tremendously. He’s a very talented guy who we’re going to keep growing. I don’t expect to see him in this game. But, we have some guys that we really trust with some cool tools.