Jax State Gamecocks College Football Pregame Quote, 11/21/2023

We have the campus to ourselves this week with Thanksgiving week, so we get to see the guys around a little bit more with our own meals and everything. Obviously, it is a big ball game and it is our last one ‚Äì we hope we get a bowl game, but we don’t know, so it could be our last game for the season. It is against a very good team and basically to see who finishes in second place in the league. We know the challenge in front of us and they are coming off a big win over Auburn and they pretty much controlled the game and a it was a great win for them. Our guys will be focused and we will have to play really good football.

On New Mexico State’s defense against Auburn:

They are sound, really well coached and they are not out of position and they tackle well. That is what they did against Auburn, they tackled well. They got off blocks and their guys stay on them. They have done that against everybody, and they have good football players, but they understand their scheme defensively and offensively and they play hard.

On New Mexico State Head Coach Jerry Kill:

I have known Coach Kill for a while and it looks like they have good structure and sound in their schemes in all three phases. They have made some big plays on special teams. Their quarterback is a really good player – a winner. He throws it, runs it and you can just tell that he has great command of what they want to do. He is the key to their offense because he makes so many plays and has a presence about him that gives him confidence.

On getting younger players in the game vs. LA Tech:

We had several guys go down with our corners going down. We wanted to get Cam Vaughn going at wide out because he had progressed some more and I like our young guys. We have a good group of young offensive linemen and I am usually hesitant to play those guys early in the game and out them in for the fourth quarter. We played a lot of guys and doing a lot of evaluation going on.