BYU Cougars College Football Pregame Quote, 09/09/2019

On what he learned from the offense and defense after watching film:

Obviously there’s a lot of things that we need to get better, and we’re trying to get to our best. The focus is that hopefully we’re going to be performing at our best this Saturday. We want to take advantage of the opportunity to have a ranked team coming into our stadium again. There are a lot of things in all three phases that we can adjust and improve on. We made some improvements from week one to week two, but I’d like to see it continue.

On Tennessee and the Vols’ environment:

The fans that were there were awesome. It was a cool experience for our players. The noise level surprised even some of our coaches. Coach Grimes mentioned that he’d never heard that place that loud before. There were some things that were surprising to us, but I’m really pleased with how our coaches responded with adjusting some of the things that we did on both sides of the ball. We were able to make it work, but that’s because I have coaches and players that can make things happen.

On how having BYU fans there that impacted the game:

Yeah, they were loud. We could hear them throughout the game cheering and making a lot of noise. It was a cool place to be. It was a nice environment, great experience for our players and I hope it was a great experience for our fans too. The people in that area in Tennessee, in Knoxville, were awesome. They were really good to our families and friends that were there watching the game. They were good to our players too, it was great hospitality.

Thoughts on USC’s freshman quarterback:

Kedon Slovis, he’s an impressive kid with good composure. I watched him last night on film. He’s poised and made some really tough throws. Obviously, he’s very effective. I think he went 28 for 33 and 377 yards. He has some really good weapons around him but I think he showed some really good maturity and poise in the pocket and was able to throw the ball with good timing.

On Micah Simon’s performance in the Tennessee game:

Micah pours his heart and soul into this program. There are some things that people don’t see, he puts a lot of effort into the program and into the culture. I was really pleased with him with the plays he made. But, it doesn’t really matter to him if he catches the football or is blocking. He takes a lot of pride in this team being successful. I’m just happy that he’s one of our leaders, one of our many leaders, and I rely on them heavily to help make decisions and get their feedback and as we collaborate this year.