Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders College Football Pregame Quote, 09/13/2021

I’m anxious to get started in conference play. San Antonio has got a good football team, youknow they beat Illinois in their first game and waxed Lamar last week pretty good.They’ve got a really good football team, got just about everybody back from last year and they beat us outthere 37-35, so we’ve got to have a great week of preparation.We’ve got to get ready to go because this is a really good football team and like I said earlier, conference play is critical. It’s a tough place to play, it will be loud there, so we’vegot to be able to handle that and be ready to go. We’re really looking forward to it and we’re excited about getting this week started.

On UTSA offensivelyand if there are any similarities between them and Virginia Tech:

Iwould say probably the biggest similarity between the two is they both want to run the ball first. San Antonio is going to do that, they’re going to try and establish the run, which they’re going to hang their hat on. They’re going to take shots and try to get some big plays over the top. I’d say the biggest similarities are that philosophically they wantto establish the run, so we’ve got to be ready to handle that. I would say that’s the biggest similarity, but they’re an explosive offense, they scored a lot of points last year against everybody and scored 37 against Illinois and 54 two days agoagainst Lamar, so it’s an explosive offensethat puts points on the board.But to me, it all starts with the running game.

On UTSA defensively:

Again, they’re a really good defense. They run well, they’re fast, they’ll come after you and mix up their pressures, they’ll try to get you behind down and distance on the chains, but the big thing is just their overall team speed on defense. They’re an attacking defense and we had some plays last year where we gave up some tackles for loss and they got us behindthe line of scrimmage, so we’ve got to do a good job. It’s a really fast, typical Conference USA defense that all the guys can run, especially their linebackers and the back end, the secondary.