Louisiana Tech Bulldogs College Football Pregame Quote, 10/22/2019

Reflecting on the Southern Miss Game:

Going back to the game Saturday, it was an extremely physical contest. One that probably lived up to its billing of the intense rivalry game that it is between two teams that came out and both played incredibly hard. It’s a game that over the last two years has come down to one possession, and this game was no exception in the way that it was played. Both teams competed incredibly hard. I think Coach (Jay) Hopson has done a great job with that program. His players are disciplined, fundamentally sound and they’ve won a lot of football games. I thought going in that it was going to be a great challenge for us to evaluate our growth from the start of the year. I was really proud with the way our team went out and competed. They competed with great confidence.

We found ourselves down 14-0 early on. Nobody panicked. Nobody flinched. There was nothing negative on the sideline. Nobody was pointing fingers. Truly it was a ho-hum ‚Äòlet’s go get this’ attitude. I never felt any negativity on the sideline. I never felt like there was a threat of losing the game. I was just really proud of the focus and determination from our football team. We were down 14-0 and ended up winning the game by 15, which I think speaks volumes for our leadership.

I thought a lot of guys really stepped up and played well for us. Malik Stanley being one of those guys. He’s been very unselfish ever since he came in here as a grad transfer. He’s played a backup role, but he’s been solid for us. He’s definitely been a guy who can give us quality reps, and Saturday was his day to step up. I thought he did an incredible job.

I don’t think you can talk about the day without talking about the performance of Amik Robertson. His performance was truly a one-man show. What he and our defense did that game was great to see. Southern Miss had thrown four interceptions in six games coming in, and we picked them off four times on Saturday. Amik’s three interceptions were all great feats of athleticism, knowledge and a won’t-be-denied mentality. On two of them he was guarding another man, saw the ball in the air, and went and made a play. Truly special performance from him. But on every one of those plays, we had pressure in the backfield ‚Äì whether it was Ka’Derrion Mason, Willie Baker or Courtney Wallace. We had pressure in his face and made him get rid of the ball sooner than he may have wanted to, which gave our backs a chance to go make plays.

I was really proud of what our defense did in the second half. They held Southern Miss to just three points. One of the keys to both sides of the ball was in the red zone. Offensively, we were down there four times and scored four touchdowns. They were down there four times and scored one touchdown, two field goals and had a turnover. I think the red zone production was a huge difference in the game. Coach (Bob) Diaco and his staff have done a great job in red-zone defense all year. I also think that Coach (Todd) Fitch and Coach (Joe) Sloan and the offensive coaches have done a great job of putting plans together down in the red zone to give our guys chances to score down there.

I couldn’t be prouder of Bobby Holly for scoring his first touchdown. We ran that same play four years ago when we played Middle Tennessee, and he fumbled the ball down on the goal line. No wonder that his resolve was so strong to get into the end zone on Saturday. He got hit twice and took both of ‚Äòem like a champ and lunged across the goal line ‚Äì just an incredible show of effort on his part.

I thought J’Mar (Smith) continued to play sound, smart, solid, confident football right now as a quarterback. It’s great to see him as comfortable as he is in the offense and the confidence with which he’s playing as a senior quarterback right now. He’s making plays with his feet. Making plays with his mind. Making checks at the line of scrimmage. Using his legs to prolong plays to get the ball downfield. He’s doing it all right now.

I’m really excited about being able to win, but I’m most proud of the way our team approached the game, It was never about Southern Miss. It was not a revenge game. It was not a rivalry game. It was the next game. It was about us improving and eliminating some of the mistakes we had made up until this point. As I told the team, this wasn’t about the past or the future. It was about playing in the present. I certainly feel like our players did that through the course of the football game.

On moving ahead and facing UTEP:

We leave this game and move on to UTEP week. This is a team that has our team’s attention. You don’t have to go any further than putting on last year’s game film. It was a tie game with six minutes to go when J’Mar (Smith) took the naked bootleg and ran it in from 40 out to out us up one score. The game finished with them on the 20-yard line trying to put it into overtime. ‚Äú

UTEP is physical and fundamentally sound. They give you problems in what they do schematically ‚Äì both on offense and defense. I know defensively, they run a very unique system and I think Dana (Dimel) does a great job with his staff and his team. They’re competing very hard and playing physical. I know people want to look at their record, but they’re in every game. Nobody has just lined up and put gaudy numbers up on them this season. You put on the film of this team, and as you watch it you continually ask yourself ‚Äòhow is this team 1-5?’.‚Äù They’re going to win football games this year. They’re on the right track. They’re playing too hard and too fundamentally sound. I know they’ve been playing multiple quarterbacks, so we’re not really sure what we’re going to see there. They have every offensive alignment, personnel group and formation under the sun. They give you a lot of different looks on both sides of the ball.

We know it’s never easy to win a conference game in our division on the road. We’ve got to hit the reset button, get back into a 1-0 mentality and understand that the only way we’ll play well is if we put our focus where it needs to be ‚Äì which is on our preparation as we go into practice starting today. Really looking forward to the opportunity to get it going again this week and take on UTEP and the Miners.

On the difficulties facing teams with long sustained drives:

What UTEP does by controlling the ball, is that they limit your opportunities on offense. They control the ball and limit your possessions. I know at Rice, we had four possessions in the first half. To put that in perspective, I believe vs. UMass we had 17 possessions in the first half. They (UTEP) do a good job of controlling the ball and the clock. Like I said, they give you a lot of different formations and personnel groups, which makes it difficult to attack any one thing because they’re so multiple in what they do. That’s one of the things that makes them very difficult to stop. That’s going to be the challenge that we have. We’re going to have to be very good on offense, because we’re going to have limited opportunities with the ball.

On the status of Adrian Hardy and Isaiah Graham:

They will be at practice today and are cleared as they can go. We’ll put them through individual and see how they’re feeling and how much they’ve progressed. Hopefully they’ll be strong and ready to go. We’ll learn more today, but right now I’m expecting both of them to be back and to play.

On the key to this six-game winning streak:

Somebody asked me the other day if this is the best team I’ve had, and I said I’m not sure, because we’re still writing that book. We’ve had games where we needed our defense to show up because our offense wasn’t playing at the expectation level that we have for ourselves. Meanwhile, there have been games where our offense had to score 40 points to give us an opportunity to win. I don’t know if it’s our best team, but right now, both sides of the ball complement each other very well. That’s the ultimate goal. You want to score one more point than your opponent. Whether that’s winning 10-9 or 43-42. You just want to find a way to score one more point than they do and right now, that’s what this team has been able to do. It’s a very unselfish team. It’s not about statistics or accolades. It’s about finding a way to win a game. That’s where we’re trying to give up our individual identity at this point to talk about what we’re trying to accomplish as a team. The team goals are bigger than any one individual’s goals. I think this team has really bought into that, and it’s a testament to these seniors.

On avoiding a letdown this week:

There’s always distractions. Each and every week you’ve got to step up and play again. We’ve got to turn our meter up and go out and play every game with the same level of intensity. Anybody can beat anybody. We’ve got to be smart with what we need to do to prepare for this Saturday. We’ve got to turn our dial back up this Saturday at 7:00 to go play. I don’t think a letdown is an option right now. We control us. We need to make sure we put the appropriate work in this week to give us the confidence to go play this game. You can make all the excuses in the world for why a letdown is a possibility, but we’ve worked too hard and gone too far to give it all right back.