Jax State Gamecocks College Football Pregame Quote, 09/19/2023

Every game is a big game. We start just five straight midweek games and, it’s going to be quite the grind. I think it goes from five days to six days and six days to seven days or something. It’s going to hit us pretty quick, but we had a good open week. I thought we got better in a couple of areas and got one or two guys healthy, but unfortunately, we have one or two guys hurt as well from the last game. So we’ll, we’ll adjust and move on. With it being Homecoming, it should be great weather. It should be a nice crowd against a really good group of five team that’s done an amazing job. Coach Creighton has them to where they’re a bowl team about every year, so we’ll see what happens.

On The QBs:

Well, the way I look at it, we have two starters and we’ll see who performs better this week in practice. I wouldn’t hesitate to have either one of them start. Logan (Smothers) has done some good things and he’s learning but, Zion (Webb) knows our system and he’s reliable too. We’re probably going to the game plan with both of them in mind and having two starters and figure out who the first guy will be probably by after Thursday practice. We’ll, we’ll see how they practice.

On RB Anwar Lewis’ availability:

He’s got to be in game shape. He’s working really hard. I know he’s frustrated but it’s been a long process for him and everybody’s kind of frustrated because we want him healthy and ready to go. It’s no use for us to play anybody that’s not 100% or close to 100%. He’s better, he’s closer there now than he ever has been. This week, today, tomorrow, Thursday, we’ll really evaluate him. When you’re that inactive with a lower body injury, you lose some of your fundamentals, but a lot of things, you lose in your conditioning, you’re not in shape, you’re not used to running and the way we do things, everybody’s got to be in shape. He’s slowly gotten himself into better shape in the last couple of weeks and this will be a big week to see because when he’s healthy, 100% he’s a really good player. If he’s not in shape, he’s not ready. At the end of last week, I saw glimpses of him getting better and better and we’ll see what happens with him in the next couple of days.

On ball security:

You have to make good decisions offensively; you don’t want to throw the ball. They have guys that, that are kind of like big safeties and they have good ball skills, so you don’t want to give them gifts with just throwing the ball up there because they’ll pick it off. That’s what they did in the last game, a couple of throws. They were just throwing up there and they went and got them and that’s what they thrive on. Like I said, it’s ball control and you turned over on offense. We’ve been good with that for the most part, we have one turnover or something. That’s going to be key for us and you don’t want to play so conservative that you don’t take a chance or two. But at the same time, you know, you can’t give them extra possessions because they’ll shorten the game and have long drives and limit your possessions.