UAB Blazers College Football Pregame Quote, 11/15/2021

What a great game on Saturday. I told the players this morning that this is something that you can enjoy, and it was something that we all did enjoy after the game. Now it is moving on to a great opponent. Let’s go back to the Marshall game. I think it was two teams that really knew what was at stake. The vibe from our team, the comradery it couldn’t get much better. I was so proud of how they played together. I see all of these things at the hotel, I see them at pregame, I see them at halftime and how we practice all week. Obviously, it was a big deal Marshall celebrating their 51st anniversary of the plane crash and all of the things that they put into that. So just from a historical standpoint ‚Äì I’m an old history major ‚Äì what a neat time to be there and see that unfold. They had a lot to play for, and that is what the game looked like. I thought it was a well-played game, not a lot of penalties, they let us play. Top to bottom, offense, defense, special teams, very solid. To find a way and win at the end and this guy (Grayson Cash) making a big play was huge.

Looking ahead, what UTSA has done was unbelievable. They’ve had an unbelievable season. Coach Traylor has done an incredible job. We have been seeing this thing building. We’ve been looking at the players and I think we’ve been seeing them for three years. These guys have helped grow with their program and now here they are in their senior year and some of them super seniors. They are really good across the board. Offensively they are very dynamic, they’ve got the great running back, they have a quarterback now that can do it all. They are big upfront. They put points up on everybody. Defensively, really impressed with them. They are physical, they tackle, they are big, they run well. I know the special teams coordinator, I coached with him, he does a great job. Across the board they are a great team. The atmosphere, I know this is a big deal to them. Obviously having played in the Alamodome before, it’s loud even with not that many people ‚Äìit just is. I’m sure they will have it packed out. We know that we are going to have to do a good job with snap counts. As we told our kids, our dream is to be playing for a championship at this time of the year. Obviously, we will have one more if we can get through this one but we are not looking ahead yet. So proud of them from last week and now looking ahead to UTSA and it should be a great one.

On peaking at the right time:

I think we are. Everything that we do is to peak at this time of the year. We’ve had more injuries than we ever had and some of that is just because of the schedule we have played. It is what it is there, and our guys have fought through it. Last week was top to bottom the best game we have played. It was how they played and how we played together was special. Obviously, UTSA is playing good ball too, so we will see what happens. I think that was our best game of the year.

On S Grayson Cash:

I’m just so proud of this guy. To see him evolve. I told this story when he had the interception returned for a touchdown a few weeks ago. He was an offensive player when we got him and we needed him on defense. He was glad to do it. To see him and the evolution from the beginning to last year when started tackling well. He had always defended the pass well, but he started tackling well. He had a really good nose for the ball. We were laughing at how he fell on the ground ‚Äì that is what we teach him to do when we intercept it to win the game ‚Äì he fell. He’s going to say that he did that on purpose, I don’t know if he tripped on the grass or what. He’s done a great job for us and really a credit to his community in Trussville where he comes from. We are really proud of him.

On what it would be like tobeat a Top-15 team on the road:

I think those are all of those motivators. I’m sure for them, I see what they say and talk about ‘To be the Champ you have to beat the Champ.’ and playing at home so they’ve got their motivators and we’ve got ours. Anytime that we’ve played an undefeated team ‚Äì it doesn’t get any bigger for us then the conference championship ‚Äìthat is what we work for, that is what this is. Them being undefeated and ranked makes it even bigger, but it just tells you how good they are ‚Äì because they are ‚Äìso we know we got our work cut out and we’ve got to do a great job in practice this week.