Rice Owls College Football Pregame Quote, 11/12/2019

Good afternoon everyone. For you Game of Thrones fans out there, like the House of Stark would always warn us, ‘winter is coming.’ After my walk into work this morning I would say it’s probably here! With that, we’ll bundle-up and continue to practice football the way we need to in order to finish out this season.

We had a great bye week for our team and me personally. We got to see some cool things. We got to see those young guys practice like we always do during a bye week. We got some people healed up. We had one of my old bosses, Rex Ryan, come in and talk to the team which was a whole lot of fun. I had a chance to go recruiting along with most of our staff, kind of spread out across the nation. I got to go watch a game in Baton Rouge (La.) and see some high school football at a very high level. It was a lot of fun for me. Last night I got to hang out with Tina Langley, our women’s basketball coach. I love talking to her every chance I get. We love talking culture and motivation. I think she is outstanding, and I was trying to get some of her ‘mojo’ while she was at the radio show last night. So, great week! It really allowed our team to refocus and recalibrate so we can go into this stretch and finish this season the way we want.

Upcoming Middle Tennessee Game (Nov. 16)

This Saturday will bring a good and big challenge as we go on the road to Murfreesboro and play Middle Tennessee. They are a very good football team. They are another team in Conference USA who played a pretty rigorous out-of-­conference schedule – Michigan, Iowa and Duke. I think they have battled through it, and you can see the results of their schedule in play. This is a great team in Conference USA in Middle Tennessee. I think Coach Stockstill has been a constant. I think what he has done for that program has been so impressive over the test of time. They do a great job of preparing their team.

They are a team that likes to run the ball, and is doing it extremely well. Everything on offense goes through their quarterback, which is like a lot of systems, but this is really extreme. Asher O’Hara is their leading rusher but also doing a heck of a job completing passes down the field. He’s a great player who is going to put a lot of pressure on our defense. We’re going to have to be assignment-sound for some of their option attack. We will have to find a way to get him down on the ground.

On defense they have a safety group that is very good. A senior, Jovante Moffatt, is one of the top tacklers on the team. You see how active he is every play. He is coached by their defensive coordinator, and I am sure that is part of his success.

They are a great challenge for us. We are going on the road in a conference game, playing a team that has talented players. They have been bit a little by the injury bug, I have read in coach Stocks’ comments, but this is a game where we will have do all the things we talk about each week ‚Äì play extremely hard, protect the football and get in the endzone and score some points. That will give us chance to win this game.

Not only do I look at coach Stockstill, I look at their coordinators. Their offensive coordinator, Tony Franklin, was at Cal when I was at Stanford. I’ve seen him build great offenses everywhere he has been. I am impressed with what he has done over his career. Defensive coordinator Scott Shafer was at Stanford before I got there. He was the defensive coordinator at Michigan before becoming the head coach at Syracuse. He has an aggressive scheme and his players play extremely hard. Their running backs coach is Jeff Beckles, who is a dear friend of mine, but more than that, he coached me in high school when he finished playing at Florida State. I think he was the first receiver in Florida State history to bench 400 pounds. He ended up coaching me, and it will be great to reunite with Coach Beckles this weekend.

Taking questions from the media.

Coach do you have an update on your starting quarterback?

Obviously we were very pleased with some of the things JoVoni Johnson was able to do in his first start (Nov. 2 vs. Marshall). I though he moved the chains pretty well against a good Marshall defense. He was 8-of-9 passing in the first half, and I thought that was an impressive start for him in, the very first of his collegiate career. Tom Stewart is the other (quarterback) we are going to have on the ready. We’ll take a look at how practice goes for those two guys. Whoever is healthy and gives us the best chance is who we’ll trot out there.

Is starting in the backfield and the amount of a backs playing or rotation time based more on each player’s respective strengths and style, what you’ve seen in the most recent practices, or based on a particular opponent?

It’s whoever has the hot hand. That’s no secret. It’s not just Aston (Walter) or not ust Charlie (Booker). There’s also Nahshon Ellerbe and Juma Otoviano. We trust all those guys and they can all have roles. Now some people may have plays earmarked for them going into a particular game and that’s where we’ll go – like last year Juma rushed for 224 yards in his first start. We’re confident in all our guys and it’s whoever has the hot hand.