BYU Cougars College Football Pregame Quote, 10/24/2022

New week. We’re coming into the last third of the season. I’m excited about the matchup and playing at home. It’s a short week with the game on Friday, so we have to spend some time on corrections but also get moving on preparations for our opponent with East Carolina coming into town. They’re a really good, well-coached team with a lot of good athletes. They can do a lot of things on offense. Defensively, they’re tough up front. All three of their phases do a great job. At the beginning of the year, they had a chance to beat NC State and probably should’ve with a field goal. This game comes at a good time for us right now. They have our attention. We don’t have time to feel sorry for ourselves. We have to get rolling and working hard. We have to show that we can get back to our identity.

On generating disruption on defense:

We have to get stops. The problems we’ve had are breakdowns in execution. That falls on the coaches demanding it and getting the right guys to do it. We simplified the scheme a little bit so we could see where we needed to add certain players but also where we needed to make corrections. We need to get more out of our guys and have the certain standard we want them to deliver. On the defensive line, disruption we need to get up front and get to the quarterback in the pass game and get tackles-for-loss in the run game. That will make it easier for our linebackers and next level guys to see the same gap the running back sees and fill it.

On the team playing with a target on their back:

We used to be the hunter and now we’re becoming the hunted. We watched East Carolina play against UCF with the mindset that UCF was going to the Big 12, and East Carolina did a good job beating them. The film is right there for us to see. East Carolina has every bit of our guys’ attention. We can talk about it all we want but the proof is what we see on film. The guys know this is a really good team coming into town. We’re going to get back to what we’re good at, our identity and make sure we play our brand of football. We have to show that on the field, not just by our name. We need to return to who we are.

On the defensive staff:

As a defensive staff, we work together in game-planning. That’s the entire staff, including our analysts and graduate assistants. We have a number of guys in that room that have been defensive coordinators before. It’s wise for me to listen to what they say. They come up with a menu, with the plays and I decide on the personnel. We need to execute better. It’s not about the plays or the calls, it’s about executing better. Ilaisa Tuiaki is working full-time with the defensive line.

On East Carolina’s offense:

Their pass game has some air raid background, but they also have a big, physical offensive line and can run the ball. We’ll have to handle the balance they bring. They have a really experienced quarterback. He has a strong arm and is really big, he can run the ball too. This is another opportunity for us to take on a big quarterback who can run. It’s an opportunity for our defense to show a lot better than they have in the last couple of weeks.