San Diego State Aztecs College Football Pregame Quote, 10/10/2023

Number one, we have to be resilient. That’s what we’ve talked about as a team. We have to be resilient. Going in having a bye week, sometimes those are good. Sometimes those are bad. You never know. The one thing that’s bad about it, you have the bad taste in your mouth of the Air Force game for another week. From that standpoint, both Hawaii and us are coming off of a bye, both teams are two and four. We have six games left that are guaranteed. We have to take each game one at a time, and we want to play more than six. So that’s part of it. We’ve had some adversity, there is no doubt about it, and some of that is self-inflicted. Some of it is just not finishing on things the way we want to finish. Part of that adversity helps you with your mental toughness and that’s a big part that we have talked about as a team. We played three of the top five defenses in the country, so you give them credit. We have to get better obviously, but it tells you a little bit about where we’re at and who we’re playing. We want to correct the performance and the behavior that we have at times out there. That’s one thing you do during the bye, you get a chance to self-scout, look into what we’re doing and those things and correct the performance that we don’t want. I would also say we just have to continue to get better and grow as a football team.

On the biggest challenges that Hawaii presents:

Number one, their quarterback is really a good player. Their wide receivers are gifted. Two of them, I think, combined for 68 receptions. They’re quick, they run good routes. I think they get the ball out defensively or offensively. Their offense is similar to what you saw in Idaho State. The ball is going to come out fast. We’ve faced the quarterback three years ago. He’s a good football player and does a nice job within the offense. Defensively, typically upfront, they’re going to really try and create negative plays. That’s one thing that they’ve shown a little bit. I think statistically some of those lie a little bit. When you look at who they played, they played some pretty good football teams.

On Hawaii’s inability to run the ball:

I think they’ll try and run the ball, I think they always want to try and do that. I think we’ve got to do a good job of shutting the run game down, and then really focusing on the quarterback and what he can do.

On the Hawaii Quarterback:

He can move the pocket, but he’s more of a pocket, pro-style quarterback. I’ve thought he’s been good for the last three years, and he’s a guy that can move his feet and can get out of the pocket, but he’s more of a pro-style quarterback.‚Äù

On if he’s had two bye weeks so close together before:

I haven’t. You get the schedule and all that and it is what it is; you’re going to play the schedule. Then you see the first bye week and you’re all good, that’s good timing. Six games right in the middle. Get a little healthy, rest a little bit, get some younger guys a little bit more active to see where they’re at. But then you got two games and then you got another bye. That’s different for me personally. Bye weeks are funny because I think I told the story when I was at Michigan, we played Northwestern and it was a good year for them. Pat was the linebacker for them and they were playing well and they were tempo. No one else was really running tempo. We thought we had a week off and could really prepare for it. We got our butts kicked. There’s a bye week, I think at rest the guys more than anything. I think we had a good bye week and we had a pretty good day yesterday. So, we just got to continue to work and continue to improve as a ballclub.

On importance of recruiting players from the Hawaii area:

There’s no doubt, from the kids that we’ve had here in the past, the ones we have now, and the ones we’ll have in the future, I think it’s really important. The high school football scene and the dedication to high school football and the love for the islands are really big and so it’s important for us.