Oklahoma State Cowboys College Football Pregame Quote, 12/29/2021

I wanted to ask at the PlayStation, did you get yours yet? Is that on your Christmas list? I know you said you wanted a game console for Christmas. So what does that mean for you to get one?

It means everything because it’s all I’ve wanted for the past year. So I got it. Everybody else got it. So there’s no excuse to, like, duck any smoke on the game. We all got the same game. We all got ‘Call of Duty.’ Give me about a month and I will be going crazy!

How does that change how you are away from the field? That can be time-consuming. How do you balance that now, knowing that you have a ‘Call of Duty’ game you can play all the time?

It won’t change too much. It will just give me something else to do, like an extra hobby, something like that. The only thing it will change is I just will be playing the game instead of watching TV.

Brennan, last year, the bowl season was really big for you. You had the big breakout game against Miami. Among the other young receivers, has there been anybody that’s really stepped up during bowl season?

Jaden Bray. Jaden Bray and John Paul Richardson and Bryson Green. All three of them have had great bowl prep. They are just working their games, come in clean. They are taking this really as a chance – like, what I did last year, as a chance to get in that game against a great team in Notre Dame and just show what they have.

I think they are taking this approach very seriously, and I think they are going to be great in the game.

Brennan, looking at the Notre Dame secondary, similar to other parts of your roster, they figured it over the course of the year. What have you seen when looking at them and scouting them in preparation?

They go man-to-man. If you’re any DC, you want to go man-to-man, that means you have trust in your corners and safeties. I know they have Kyle Hamilton, but I know he’s declared for the draft. But if you can play man-to-man majority of the game, with N as your top coverage, then you have a lot of trust in your corners and your safeties, no matter who you go up against.

I mean, we have a lot of confidence in ourselves, too. So it’s just going to be mano a mano out there, most of the time.

You covered it up with the secondary. The only follow-up I have is: Beyond ‘Call of Duty,’ what is the first game you are going out and getting?

I got 2K as a Christmas present, but I’m not a big 2K player. I like to play Madden. So that ‚Äì oh, yeah. I like to play Madden. I want to get a skateboard game, a Tony Hawk game, something I’m good at. I don’t like to just play just to be playing. I want to be good at it, because I like to talk trash.

I think he might be in the room with you, but I wanted to ask you about Tay [Martin]. What’s it been like to work with him through his career? What’s it like to have his super-senior leadership with your receiver group this year?

It’s really good. Tay be funny. He funny all the time. We joke around. We have fun. He makes practice fun for all of us. He brings that leadership. He can give us experience and advice like, Hey, this might not work in a game; this might not work in a game. So just having that.

And even the stuff off the field, like being here and being able to go out and, of course, being safe, but having fun and stuff like that, he can offer advice, like, I don’t think you want to do this; I don’t think you want to do that. So having that extra big-brother mentality with us on the field and off the field.

Let me ask about when you guys finish up Saturday and you are leaving the stadium and you are looking back on this season, what are you going to miss most about this particular team?

Just how close we have gotten. I think this is the closest I have been with a team since maybe, like, high school.

I’m friends with so many people that’s leaving: Kolby (Harvell-)Peel, Tay [Martin], Brock [Martin], Malcolm [Rodriguez]. I’m close with all of those guys. Oh, no, Brock is coming back. My bad, dang. The super-senior stuff is getting me.

I’m close with a bunch of seniors and a bunch of guys leaving and whether it’s going through the draft or transfer. So it’s just going to be ‚Äì for me, it’s going to be weird, next year, when we are working out, not looking over and seeing Malcolm telling me to put more weight on the bar; or Tay telling me what he did last night; or talking trash about 2K or something like that.

That brotherhood is just going to be really ‚Äì of course, you can always build it again. But it’s always unique when you win with one team and then next year, pieces and parts, they change. So I think that’s just going to be the hardest thing for me, honestly.

Oklahoma State has managed to tout over 30 points per game throughout the season, and you kind of just touched base on it. What has made this offense click and be so successful? And secondly, how are you planning to attack this hard-hitting and very talented Notre Dame defense?

I think one of the things is our toughness and just our personality, the way we approach the game. I mean, you can have ‚Äì anybody has a game plan until you get hit. I think even early on in this season where we came out and we had close games, like we didn’t fold. We didn’t waver. We didn’t do any of that. Our toughness just prevailed.

Whether we are running the ball or whether we are airing it out or whether special teams is making a play on that, I think our toughness really shows. And I think that all starts with the work that we do in the winter and the spring and the summer. I think that is what really shows with our scoring.

How are you planning to attack this Notre Dame defense?

Oh, yeah, from a receiver standpoint, like I said, it’s mano a mano most of the time. When you’re in one-on-ones, Spencer [Sanders] is getting pressured, you have got to get open quick and give him an outlet. You have to play tough.

They are big and physical and stout. You are going to take some hits, but you got to get back up. And everyone has to be on the same page. You have to be smart. You have to be disciplined to beat these guys. They are top five in the nation for a reason. They are not just going to come out there and lay down.

You just come out there being disciplined. Everyone doing their assignments. We have been practicing for about a month on this. Going into the game, we’ve practiced every single play that we probably could run. As long as we get out there and don’t make any mistakes and just do all of our assignments and everyone does their 1/11th as Coach [Kasey] Dunn says, as long as everyone does that, I think we should be fine.