North Texas Mean Green College Football Pregame Quote, 10/29/2019

We’re obviously disappointed after this past Saturday night – coaches and players alike. We know one got away from us. Ultimately we didn’t play as well as team in order to have the success we want. We have a lot of things to work on and get better. We had an opportunity in all three phases to win that game. Defense, we have to get stops and get off the field. Special teams, we had a field goal blocked. Offensively, we scored a touchdown and have a crucial penalty. When it’s all said and done, we all had an opportunity to win that game. I know it’s disappointing, but we have to be able to overcome adversity. It’s my job to help this team grow every day and part of growing is being able to overcome adversity and if I’m not able to do that in adverse times, I’m not really doing my job.

On rebounding from last week’s game:

You have to rebound. It’s a hard pill to swallow. It’s never easy when things don’t go your way. Like each and every week you have to come in and correct those mistakes on Sunday. At times, it’s tough and it’s not easy to look yourself in the mirror and know you made some mistakes but you have to man up and own up and you have to put in even more work to get it fixed and corrected and go out and have a great attitude and practice as hard as you can and get better. That’s ultimately what it comes down to. We all have to face adversity and it’s challenging, but we have to fight through it.

On what the defense could have done differently:

Make sure we’re aligned correctly and doing our assignment. Making sure we get them to the ground and tackle at the point of attack. We just have to do a better job overall defensively in the second half. To play that well in the first half ‚Äì the focus was there and intensity was there ‚Äì and at times in second half once the ball was rolling in the other direction, we got hesitant. It’s coaches and players alike, it’s not just one of us. We have to put the players in position to be successful and the players have to make plays. We have to get better and improve.

On RB Tre Siggers:

I thought he ran the ball extremely hard as always. He started getting in a rhythm. He wasn’t 100 percent and that just shows his grit and his toughness to make some of those runs. He was successful in the run game. He’s been a great weapon for us and we need to continue to find ways to get him the ball, but also take care of him and get him back to 100 percent.

On this week’s UTEP game:

They’re physical. They’ll play extremely hard. I know Coach [Dana] Dimel does a great job. He’s on year two of trying to get that program rolling. The intensity is there on tape and guys are playing extremely hard. They’re physical in all three phases. It’s always been a great challenge. Us and UTEP, they’ve been tough games since I’ve been here. We have to prepare the right way and when we do we have to go out and make plays.

On what happened in the second half defensively:

We had a number of different issues. Getting off the field on third downs. Missed tackles, missed assignments and missed alignments. That’s not all on the players. We have to make sure we’re getting them in the right situations. When we’re not, that’s on us. You’re never going to be perfect on calls. You have to understand but you have to let the guys know, ‚ÄòI made a bad call there.’ But over and over again, if you’re not aligned right to where a guard can get up on you on counter, we just have to get better as a team, not to beat a dead horse, but we have to get better as a team. It’s our job, as coaches, to get better.

On UTEP’s running game:

The running back is very physical and they’re really good up front and they’ll utilize the quarterback run game. Off that they’ll throw play-action passes so they create challenges.

On Tyreke Davis’ move from S to LB:

He’s made the transition well. He’s made some plays, like all those guys. We’re far enough into it now that you ought to be extremely comfortable where you’re at. Those linebackers have made a lot of plays for us and they have some strengths we haven’t had in the past but they also have some weaknesses we haven’t had in the past. They have to continue to grow and continue flying around and making plays.

On QB Mason Fine’s performance:

He’s been great. I thought this past week, he played his best game for a number of different reasons. It was some of the checks and his energy on the sideline and being a great teammate and trying to be positive in and out of huddles. I thought he did an unbelievable job overall. We have to grow from that and have more guys step up and bring that energy on the road. When things go bad we have to do a better job of overcoming adversity. It’s not going to be perfect, but we have to do better as a team.

On WR Jyaire Shorter:

He’s a big, physical guy and he’s been really good at making competitive plays on the edge. He’s a tough guy to bring down and he’s continuing to get confident. The more reps he gets, especially in a game, he’s going to be more comfortable with it and the quarterback will trust him more and the coaches will trust him more and call those plays.