UAB Blazers College Football Pregame Quote, 10/14/2019

Every week is a championship game. Any time we go on the road, it’s tough. The Alamodome is a tough environment. UTSA was coming off a good win against UTEP. We knew it was going to be a tough game and it was. I’m really just proud of our guys. I thought there was some adversity in the game even though we led throughout. A couple times in the red zone, we would have loved to get touchdowns, but I thought the offense really moved the ball well. A couple crazy things happened. Tyler ran into the official one time and turned the ball over. I don’t believe I had ever seen that. We got a ball batted, so the defense had to have a stand down there. It was just a really good, hard-fought game by our guys. I was really proud of them going on the road and getting that win. Fast forward to Old Dominion, if you turn on the video and watch them against Virginia, they led most of that game. Against some well-known FBS teams, they have played really well. They struggled a little bit against a good WKU team, and then they were back-and-forth against Marshall at Marshall. Just like last week and other teams we play, they’re right there. There’s not a lot separating the teams that win and the teams that don’t win. I’ve known coach Wilder for a long time. He is a terrific coach. In fact, he has one of my former coaches on the staff. They are a well-coached, good-looking team. They know it’s another conference game. They’re wanting to get a win. We are going to have to be ready. We have an open date coming up next week and then we are on the road, but we cannot look ahead. This is all about this game and what we do and how well we can keep playing.

On facing UTSA’s No. 1 pass defense:

It is multi-layered. We are the No. 1 defense and they were the No. 1 pass defense. That was one stat we did not have. Now we have that one. I say that being funny. That sounds kind of arrogant but defensively, you can talk about defensive stats. Defensive stats win games. Sometimes, offensive stats lead to selfishness. We are always trying to be careful with that. Defensively, if we shut them out, we win. We kind of brag about the defensive stats. That was kind of an offensive-defensive thing. We started with them being the No. 1 pass defense in the league. They had a few of their DBs at midfield talking to our receivers before the game, which didn’t hurt us any. It was kind of a defensive thing. We were No. 1 in a lot of categories. Right now, we have the No. 1 defense. I’m really proud of our offense, and not just the receivers. Tyler and the offensive line blocking as well. But they’re blocking on the perimeter, so there are a lot of good things. It was a challenge and it was fun to see them step up to that challenge.