Rice Owls College Football Pregame Quote, 09/21/2021

Hats off to Texas and how they played. Bottom line, for us, we know we can’t beat a very, very good football team if we make mistakes. We just made too many on film. We went back and watched it with our kids yesterday and there are some things we want to correct and put ourselves in position to battle a program like that. Again, that’s a very, very talented football team looking back. I’m very impressed with Coach (Steve) Sarkisian has done.

Throughout the game, we battled some adversity, as you do in college football. We had a couple of players go down and we had some guys step up. For the first time in my 24 year career, we got down to our third quarterback in the course of a game. It happened on the second drive of the second quarter. Jake (Constantine) is a guy who we brought in here with high hopes. He really made a lot of progress through the spring. Due to injury, he was not able to participate in training camp. He went through three or four days and he really hasn’t practiced since August 9 until last Monday. He had taken zero reps with the one’s or two’s. I was just so impressed with a couple of things. I was impressed with the way Jake was able to come in and really manage everything, get everything orchestrated, make plays go and find the open guy and deliver the ball. I was also impressed with Coach (Marques Tuiasosopo) and how they communicated on the sideline and how they got him some calls that he was comfortable with. So, there was some good therefor sure and, again, some lessons learned.

What we talked to the team about yesterday, is the Ted Lasso thing, about being a goldfish. The happiest animal in the world is a goldfish because it has a 10-second memory. That’s what we talked about. We needed to learn from it and then we had to flush it. We’ve got to go 1-0 this week. I fully believe we’re better than how we’ve played in these three games. We should be better and we will be better. We have to start proving it on game day. I’m really looking forward to the opportunity. We talked about a new season starting yesterday and we are completely on to Texas Southern. So I’m really excited about that and being back at Rice Stadium this weekend.

On what he’s learned most about his team through these first three games:

I think we’ve learned more about individual players. We learned who would be able to step up in those situations and no matter who the opponent was, be able to get their job done and do their 1/11. That was great information that our coaching staff needed. Sometimes, people can do it in practice and can’t do it on game day. Unfortunately, we’ve learned that about some guys. Unfortunately, because it’s a meritocracy, we’ll have to make some tough decisions and changes, and changes that nobody wants to make. But, I love these kids. I told them in their living room that, that’s one thing they can count on is that everything in this program will be earned. It will be a meritocracy. If someone is not getting it done, or somebody is getting it done better, then they will get that opportunity.

On getting their confidence back before Conference play:

We need another game. It doesn’t matter who we play, we just need a chance to get back on the field. We’re so ready to work. The guys came out and had an unbelievable practice yesterday. I thought the juice was great. We need an opportunity to get that feeling out of our heads. That’s why I’m really trying to make everything about Texas Southern. We’re trying to make everything about what we can control going forward. Look, that was a much more talented Texas team than we played two years ago. It was not even close. The talent level, the running backs, what they were able to do was really, really impressive. Defensively, it’s hard to say you’ve made some progress when you didn’t score any points. But, we ran the ball a little more effectively than we have (and) and little more consistently. Jake was able to jump in there and be 12-of-15. I think we were 80% passing the ball. We’ve got to be able to create more explosive plays. That’s something we have to be able to do. Maybe it will be able to happen when we get a chance to play someone that is not Texas. We’ll be able to put our kids in situations to get that done. That’s what we’re looking forward to. But the talent level; I’m not down on the talent level. It’s the most talented team that we’ve had in our four years and it’s not close.

On the game plan at quarterback:

Jake (Constantine) and Luke (McCaffrey) split the one reps yesterday. That’s kind of how we’re going right now. We’re going to continue to get more information on Luke as we go. We see all the progress that Jake made throughout the game and yesterday. Both quarterbacks were firing it well at practice. Jake is really doing some good things. We’re excited to see where he can go this week and what he’ll look like in a game after getting practice, which should be a very good thing.