UAB Blazers College Football Pregame Quote, 11/04/2019

Rewinding back to last week, we really felt like we had a good week of practice. I thought we had really good game plans going into the Tennessee game. We obviously knew we’d be going into a hostile environment against a team that was really improving. We saw those things. I think the turnovers hurt us offensively. That’s one of the keys to those games or really any game. We have to protect the football. The defense played pretty well. I thought they had a really good game. They had some short fields to defend and really did a pretty good job. I thought our special teams were pretty strong all night. I’m really proud of the guys coming out at halftime behind and trying to win the second half. We kept fighting and battled all the way till the end. Obviously Tyler Johnston III going down was a blow, but it was good to get Dylan Hopkins in there. He got a little bit excited on that first drive, but I was really proud of him coming in to get points at the end of the game.

Moving on to this next one, it’s obviously a huge game for Southern Miss and for us. It’s the next game. It’s a conference game. As I’ve said before, they’re all championship games moving forward. We’re going to their place, which is a tough environment. I don’t know if we’ll see anything tougher than what we just saw, so that has to be good experience for us from the noise and crowd. They have a really explosive offensive team. Coach Hopson does a really good job. He’s a defensive coach. I think he calls the defense, so they’re always going to be really strong. I think they’re right behind us in about every category. They’re also really good at special teams. As we’ve said before, we have our work cut out for us. We’ve known this game was coming. They were open last week, so I’m sure they got to spend a lot of time on us. On our open date, we didn’t work on Tennessee. We worked on ourselves and our other opponents coming up. Obviously, this is a big one.

On the team controlling its destiny:

I think that’s what our goal was early on. Somebody asked where we would hope to be at this point. I think knowing all the people we had to replace early on and how we’ve faired to get bowl eligible, we obviously want to go into the last game having every opportunity. This is what we’ve worked for. Having our own destiny in our hands with a chance to go back. Each game is going to be important, so we’re not going to look ahead. This one is going to be huge.

On the rivalry with Southern Miss:

I think if you go back in history, Southern Miss was getting all kinds of Alabama guys in their past. That really created this rivalry game. Maybe they don’t have as many Alabama guys as they used to, but I think our proximity and being together in the conference for a long time are big. It’s just somebody that you’re going to see every year, which breeds rivalry.

On Southern Miss’ offensive weapons:

They’re kind of like what we saw last week and maybe what you think about us. They have three receivers that are all dynamic. You have 16, 2 and 5, then they have other guys that also play with just unreal speed. You see that in their special teams units. They’ve had multiple kickoff returns for touchdowns out of different guys. It’s like playing a track team. You have a quarterback that’s unbelievably accurate. They have tons of formations. If you can think of a formation, motion or a shift, they’re going to be in it. You have that air raid offense with a physical approach. They’re going to put a tight end in the game and run the ball right at you too. Defending that quarterback, who’s super accurate and very athletic, and those guys is going to be a tough challenge.

On both teams having a similar mindset:

I think people don’t really understand, but I say it all the time. College football is a big deal to everyone ‚Äì every coach and every player. They’re fighting for their lives. They’re trying to get to the conference championship game. You can talk about it being a rivalry game, the next game or a home game. How much bigger can you make it? I’m sure they’ve pointed to this game all year. If how they showed up last year is any indication, it’s going to be a fight as it is every conference game, but especially with those guys. They’re really well coached and going to play really hard.

On keeping the team level headed:

We said coming in that this is really going to be like a playoff game with a championship game at the end of it. It’s playoff football to us. We try to keep that mentality all the time. I said in the press conference last week that it’s going to be the 24 second rule. When that one’s over, we’re going to be moving to the next one, period, win or lose. We went in to win the game and gave great effort, but my big concern was when it was over to get our eyes on this one and not have any lingering effects from that last game, good or bad. I hope that’s what we do. That’s the plan. We do it week after week. As I always say, what can you not do for four weeks?