Boise State Broncos College Football Pregame Quote, 12/29/2024

Q. Getting to the quarterback, how much fun is that when you get all the way there and you are the guy that brings him down? How much pride do you take in that?

AHMED HASSANEIN: There’s no better feeling. There’s no better feeling than getting to the quarterback and getting him down and everybody cheering for you. This is the whole reason I do it. It’s the whole reason why I play football. Everybody gets excited, and everybody is happy.

When I get to the sidelines, everybody is excited and happy that I took him down. I get a huge honor in that, and hopefully I can do it for a long time.

Q. And Jayden Virgin-Morgan, how much do you complement each other?

AHMED HASSANEIN: You have both edges, both edges you have to worry about. He complements me. He double teams. I complement him more. We’re a team. His success is my success. My success is his success. I’m so happy for him.

He came such a long way. And if I make a play, he’s so happy for me. We are just figuring out a way to do celebrations. It’s fun. It’s about teamwork. It’s about teammates and brotherhood. Again, we are really connected together. It’s been an honor playing with him.

Q. You mentioned he [Jayden Virgin-Morgan] has come a long way. In what ways?

AHMED HASSANEIN: He’s been playing an edge for how many years? Two years. He came as a running back or a tight end. First year in college, he doesn’t play much. And now he is a true starter, and it’s huge for him. It’s big. And he works very hard, and he’s very humble. So, I’m really happy.

Q. Penn States does a good job protecting the quarterback. What have you seen that you will have to kind of get over if you are going to get to Drew Allar?

AHMED HASSANEIN: Absolutely. He’s a much bigger body. If you watched the film, like, they don’t get him down. He’s a big quarterback and a heavy quarterback to get down.

Our goal is just to aim low and target low on him and, at the end of the day, man, just being relentless and having fun. That’s what it’s all about. Just put the ball down and don’t get down on yourself.

If you got blocked or a bad play happens, just stay at it first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, and finish the fourth quarter. And going out there and having the passion and the desire to excel, that’s what it’s all about, going out and celebrating each other.

Q. In what way have you embraced the “count us out” motto?

AHMED HASSANEIN: I embraced it. I embraced it my whole life. I still embrace it. I’m talking about me personally. If you look at my whole career, my whole time, like, people don’t know who I am. People still don’t give me enough respect, which is okay. Sometimes you just look at it that way.

When you look at the team, we just need to stay focused and do that. We have always been counted out, counted out, counted out. That put a chip on our shoulder to go out there and accomplish something that we have never done. And just going out and having fun and be like: Okay, you are going to count us out, please do it, because we will prove you wrong.