San Diego State Aztecs College Football Pregame Quote, 10/22/2019

Well, we’re moving onto to the next game. Obviously we were in exactly the same situation last year, same record. Didn’t play exactly the same teams but very similar teams and we went to Nevada, so it’s the same state. We went into Nevada and Nevada beat us. We really struggled after that winning games. Our league is such that there isn’t any dominant team in our league. But there’s no easy gimme’s in our league either. UNLV has struggled here lately but all you have to do is turn on the film and watch them against Vanderbilt and you can see how good they can be. They’ve just been inconsistent. They are a talented football team that has a world of potential that just hasn’t hit their stride. Now they hit stride against Vanderbilt which is a Southeastern Conference team and it wasn’t even close. They outplayed Vanderbilt so bad is was unbelievable, so I was assuming that Vanderbilt wasn’t any good. Then I saw last week where Vanderbilt beat Missouri, who was (ranked) in the (Top 25). So obviously UNLV has some excellent athletes and can play really, really well at times. The idea that we are going to go in there and just win the game is ridiculous.

On UNLV freshman quarterback Kenyon Oblad:

Well I would like to know who the starting quarterback is going to be. Because they have three guys listed, (Kenyon Oblad) is listed as the starter and he has played very, very well as a true freshman. Has good touch on the ball, good accuracy with the football, buys time with his feet, doesn’t run it a lot, but buys time with his feet. The other guy on the list (Armani Rogers) that was the starter to begin with this year, he’s a great athlete, throws the ball pretty well, and runs it really, really well. He’s still their second-leading rusher. The other guy on the depth chart at quarterback is the guy (Max Gilliam) that played against us last year and beat us. All three of them have talent, all three of them play well, even though maybe inconsistently, they all three play really well at times. They all require a different defensive scheme when you play against them, so basically we’re spending only a third of the time on defense than we normally do when we know who the quarterback is going to be.

On how much more work it is when you don’t know who the starter is going to be:

It’s not more work really, because you can only practice for so many hours in the day and we keep our practice schedule, once we get into the season, exactly the same. So you get a third of the reps, a third of your reps against what you think one quarterback does well, a third against what the other quarterback does well. You split your practice into thirds. So consequently you’re nearly as prepared if you were spending all those reps on just one quarterback.

On going back and forth between turf and grass fields:

I hadn’t even thought about that, but yeah. Every week we practice on both. We spend half of our time on grass, we spend half of our time on the turf. We used to practice on the turf when we were going to play on the turf field and we would practice on the grass when we were playing on the grass field. But there are so few grass fields left in this world that that’s kind of a waste of time. But I do think grass is softer, grass is easier on players, so we spend half the time on grass and half on the turf because I think it’s good for the players to be on the grass. They get their legs back a little bit better and when we spend half of the time on the grass we don’t wear it out either.

On UNLV’s running back Charles Williams:

He’s as talented a running back as there is in this league and when he is hot, he makes them a whole lot better of a football team. He’s one of those guys that can make you miss, he can run through arm tackles and if he gets out in the open, he’s fast enough to out run you. So he’s a challenge in his own right that makes you honest against some of the other things they do because he’s so good at carrying the football.

On the keys to the offense and defense this week:

(The) offense needs to do what we did in the second half against San Jose (State) and that’s to control the line of scrimmage and be able to run the ball. When we needed to throw it to get a first down, throw it and catch it and get a first down. Now that’s a positive, I think if you count both the offense and defense, the best we played all year was in the second half against San Jose (State). I didn’t think we played worth a darn the first half on either side of the ball, but we played well on both sides of the ball in the second half against San Jose.

On if he is surprised on Tony Sanchez having tough time at UNLV:

I think Tony is a really good coach, he’s proven that he is a really good coach. You never know unless you’re in the situation yourself and in the program yourself. I mean around here after we went 6-1 early in the season (in 2018) and we had a below par second half of the season everybody wondered what was wrong. I mean it could’ve been something wrong, it could’ve been we had a whole bunch of our good players hurt, it could’ve been a whole bunch of different reasons. So there’s no telling what the issues are there unless you’re within the program you don’t know what they are. But, he’s a really good coach, a really good guy. If they give him time like they should he will get it right.

On overcoming all the penalties last week in the win at San Jose State:

Anytime we have an issue we try to correct it in practice so we’re working on certain things in practice. The ones that get you are the illegal procedures where your offense and linemen move before the snap of the ball or those kind of things. Those are concentration errors, so you have to put them in those situations in practice and hopefully get them to concentrate better in the game and not get those kinds of penalties. Those are penalties that can be prevented. Some penalties are just on how, you can’t prevent, it’s just how the official happens to see them at the time. But an offensive lineman moving before the snap of the ball, you ought to be able to prevent that. That has to be done in practice and we’ve been doing that, we’ve been trying to do that in practice.