Florida Atlantic Owls College Football Pregame Quote, 08/22/2022

On the depth chart:

After the scrimmage Saturday, we have a good understanding of who’s going to be in the two deep and who’s going to also come along and help us in other areas. We’re excited about the guys we’re rolling with. We’ll be getting some guys back from injury so that will play a factor as well.

On finishing fall camp:

We had a really good training camp. It was tough, it was physical, but it was different. Our players were different in the way they went about it. We always tell our guys about ’embracing the suck’ because camp sucks and we were in camp a lot longer than we’ve been the last two years, but our guys truly embraced the suck, and they came out to practice. I don’t recall having a bad practice, and a lot of that contributes to our leadership on our football team.

On the running back room:

Larry (McCammon III) is going to start for us, but you’re going to see multiple guys playing. You’re going to see a lot of Johnny (Ford). You’re going to see some guys, but Larry will start it off. You never know how games are going to go, but it’s great to have a room like that where you can go to any one of those guys and feel good about them being in the game and not worry about changing the gameplan up.

On playing a conference opponent in Week 0:

That first game, you’re trying to get all of the cobwebs out. You hear it every year that most of those games aren’t won, a lot of those games are lost because of the little details that comes to winning. You can’t beat yourself in games like this with selfishpenalties and turning the ball over.

Playing Charlotte, they have a new defensive coordinator, so we have to do a great job as coaches once we are out on the field and seeing exactly what we’re getting and being able to adjust while we’re in the game to what they’re doing. Those are some of the challenges where you don’t have any film to see exactly what they’re doing, so you have to be ready to adjust during the game. The beauty of it is football is football. You got 11 guys, so there is only so much you can do.

On facing Charlotte’s offense:

They have eight guys back on their offense. The quarterback is very good. We’ve seen a lot of him over the years and what he’s capable of doing. He’s the one that makes it go, and they have some really talented receivers. It’s going to be a big challenge for our defense to start the year off against an offense like this and an experienced quarterback in Chris Reynolds. They do a lot of good things on the offensive side of the ball with the shifts, motions, and unbalanced (formations) to try to confuse you.We have to play really sound defense and be able to align to everything that they give us.

On starting QBN’Kosi Perry returning for another year:

It’s huge to have him (N’Kosi) back. He knows the offense and this football team a lot better. Last year, when he came in August, he really didn’t know anybody. He had to come in and learn a system that he was competing with other guys for and trying to learn his teammates as well. That was one of the experiences and challenges we had to go through last year. I thought he handled it well. This offseason, he’s been on another level when it comes to leadership, off the field, in the classroom, and then studying football, he’s become a gym rat in the film room and that’s great to see.

On players receiving NIL deals:

Whenever our guys can benefit off of their name, image, and likeness, it’s always a great thing. It’s good to see our guys have been able to capitalize on it here at FAU. Hopefully, they all continue to get more. It’s good to see guys creating value for themselves.