Charlotte 49ers College Football Pregame Quote, 11/02/2021

I’ll start with last Saturday and it’s disappointing that we’ve had two straight conference games where it has not been close in the fourth quarter. Not only is not acceptable to lose here, it’s definitely not acceptable to not be competitive in the fourth quarter. The games have gotten away from us and I think that we’ve got plenty to work on and we’re nowhere near where we need to be. I am really, really excited about this week and this opportunity. I think that our football team has responded really well and we talk about that a lot. I know that sometimes that hasn’t led to the wins and losses that we’d like, but I’m really proud of what this team has been able to accomplish thus far, knowing that we’ve got a long way to go and much more to accomplish.

We’ve got a really difficult, physical football team coming in here. Mike Bloomgren has become a really good friend of mine and I’ve got a lot of respect for him. He was the offensive coordinator at Stanford, had some pretty good players there and has brought that philosophy to Rice, which whenever he took it over, was not a job that people across the country were fighting over. I think that he’s done an amazing job of changing a culture and recruiting players to his system and developing a physicality about his football team. They’re going to run the football and control the line of scrimmage and take shots. They’ve played multiple quarterbacks this year, I know one of them got hurt last week against North Texas, but the other two are both really good players, both very different, so we’re prepared to see either one of those, especially with a week of preparation. One of them is actually Luke McCaffrey, Christian McCaffrey’s brother. It will be a really difficult game.

Defensively they’ve got good size, they’re physical and the possessions are at a premium. They do a really good job of controlling the line of scrimmage, a lot like us, try to win time of possession, so it will be a shorter game than we’ve seen recently. I’m excited about the challenge again, I understand where we are, know where we want to go, not satisfied, but fired up about who we have in this program, what these guys have been able to do. I’m excited to get back to work and go fix some problems.

On Rice:

I think their offensive line is big, physical and they get in really heavy personnel, they’ve got a fullback in there at times that’s an extra offensive lineman. They’re going to run your typical old school, Stanford-type scheme that Mike ran when he was there and have physical running backs, a bunch of them, that run really hard. I think their quarterbacks are both really accurate and can also extend plays. I’ve been impressed with both of them, that they’ve made plays when things have broken down. They’re going to make you defend the entire field, meanwhile control the line of scrimmage and control the clock. What you don’t want to do is get in a panic offensively that you’ve got to score every single time. I think they’ve had some 20-plus play drives this year, so they’ve done a great job of establishing their gameplan and I know they’ll look to do the same thing Saturday.

Defensively they will bring a bunch of different pressures ‚Äì they’ve got big, physical linebackers, I think their defensive front is really good. Secondary-wise they’re going to create pressure and be able to get safeties involved in run fits and their corners do a really good job of playing the ball in the air. They’ve been able to eliminate some big plays, but I just think they’re well-rounded. They’re well-coached, well-rounded and it’ll be a really good football team coming in here.