UAB Blazers College Football Pregame Quote, 10/07/2019

What a night. First, getting behind early, I’m really proud of the way the guys fought. The offense played really well early on and kept us in it until the defense could make some adjustments at halftime, which turned into an extended half. It was really one of the wildest games I’ve been part of. I’m proud of the staff and the players. They were making good adjustments at halftime and through the delays. Coming back, handling themselves and doing the things they needed to do. We finished up those last six minutes after midnight. It made for an interesting weekend, but I’m really proud of our all of them. Going to UTSA, it’s always a tough environment to go play at their place. It’s really loud. There’s a lot of noise. Having played there before, it’s always interesting. Coach Wilson and those guys came off a really good win. They lost their quarterback against North Texas, but their backup came in and played really well. They kind of adjusted and are doing the things that kind of fit him. They play solid defense. They’re good in the kicking game. Once again, it’s another tough conference game. Here we go again on the road. We’re back at it.

On road games:

Any time you go on the road in the conference, it’s different. Like we said before, I think there were some things about that (WKU) game that we would love to have back. You just look at individual performances from a turnover standpoint, which is not a big characteristic of us. What does a road conference game look like and how important it is? We have been on the road already at Akron. You just put all those things together and have to be better on the road.

On the lightning delays:

I’m a stickler for details and how they are in the locker room leading up to the game. We had to let them relax a little bit. Every time we would get ready to go back out, we would get another delay. The strength staff and nutrition staff kept those guys hydrated and kept them fed. Over a long period of time, you’re burning up all those calories and we have to replenish them. We were pretty prepared for the delays, you can always be more prepared, but I think we handled that well. I was proud of them to come back out and play pretty well in the wet conditions. We had no balls on the ground. We had no turnovers. We had no bad snaps. We had to snap the ball from punt formation multiple times. Our punter did a great job, along with our snapper. Those are the little things that don’t always get noticed unless you have a problem. I’m really proud of that.

On eating during the lightning delays:

Everything you can think of. We keep bars in there. It’s really funny how that’s changed. If you have been to our practices before, we actually feed them in our breaks. That’s something I’ve been doing for a while, whether it’s pickle juice or gummy bears. Some of them are eating pretzels. It’s kind of that same habit in a game. We do a lot of nutrition bars and things like that. They were staying fed and hydrated.

On Tony Fair:

Tony’s really so quick and nimble for his size. That was one thing even I was surprised about. We challenged Tony this week. Coach Tatum said we have to have more production out of him. He stepped up to the challenge. We always come back on Sunday and it’s funny when a guy is really challenged. Lucious (Stanley) was really challenged. It’s funny when you say, “You need to produce more,” and you see it. It is good to push them. It is good to make them better and hold them to a standard. He played well.

On fumble recoveries:

A lot of it is just how things go sometimes. For us this was very intentional. We made a big point this week on takeaways. If you saw our sidelines when we got some of those takeaways, it was something to see. It brings tears to your eyes to see guys get that excited about something we have worked so hard to do. We made it a big point of emphasis. They do what you ask them. And Kris Moll, if there’s somebody who is better at tackling and getting takeaways, I would like to see them. He is really good at it. Rice’s whole game plan is not turning the ball over. They had one bad snap which was attributed to the rain, but the rest were things that we made happen. That’s what you want to see as a coach.

On Spencer Brown and the running game:

We consider all those guys co-starters. We will kind of do it by committee. (Jonathan) Haden is the veteran of the group, but we have had Lucious for a while too. It was really good to see him step up. The good news on Spencer is that it is not his foot and it is not broken. It’s just how fast can he get back? He’s going to be back at practice this week so we will just have to see how long it takes. We’re just thankful it’s not his foot. He is not out for the year. He was the first guy in here getting treatment today. We will just have to see. It will be a day-to-day thing. He thinks he is going to play, so we’ll go from there.