Utah State Aggies College Football Pregame Quote, 11/11/2019

On beating Fresno State:

It was a tremendous win for the guys. They battled like crazy and found a way to win a game just like they’ve done in many Mountain West games. Somebody has had to pick up one side of the ball or the other. Special teams has been a key factor in all of those victories. That held true in this game. Offense, obviously, was productive and did a nice job. It was great to see the offense as a whole be able to do what they were able to, to keep us in the football game and give us a chance. Special teams had a huge play in the end there, obviously. Dominik Eberle was the Mountain West Special Teams Player of the Week and that’s well deserved. The whole crew did a nice job of protecting him in that moment, and never underestimate the snapper and the holder in those situations. That’s not an un-stressful scenario. I’m really proud of the guys. It’s a great victory against a tough team, and a tough opponent. This league has proven to be exactly what we thought it was at the first of the year. Everybody is kind of beating each other up it seems as we continue to go through here. We have another great team coming in here this week.

On Wyoming:

Wyoming is a very good team. They are physical and built exactly how they want to play football. They’re a tough, physical-minded group of guys. That’s who they want to be on the offensive side of the ball. That’s who they want to be on the defensive side of the ball. They’re disruptive on defense, aggressive on defense, jump up in your face and play physical. They’ve been built that way for the last few years and it’s obvious that they’ve had a lot of success on the defensive side of the ball. Offensively, the success they’ve had has allowed them to win football games and play their style of football, which is smash mouth, take a chance. They want to run the ball physically at you. When they throw the ball, they’re going to throw the ball effectively and do it through a bunch of different personnel groups. It’s a giant challenge. We talked about it way back when in January, then we talked about it again in spring ball, then we talked about it again in fall camp to get yourself to meaningful games in the month of November. That’s exactly what this group of guys has done. They have battled and battled and battled. It’s fun to watch them grow and develop and continually watch young guys step back and take advantage of opportunities as the opportunities presented itself. If they step up and play well, they stay on the field. If they don’t, there’s another guy who is jumping and chomping at the bit to get in there and take their spot, and that’s exactly the case that will be this week. You’ll see a couple new faces in there. Some guys prove they’re ready to play and some guys don’t prove ready they’re ready to play. You have to be ready to play when you walk into those moments and those situations. I’m excited to see a couple of new faces hop in there this week and see what they can get done. Preparation will start, and away we go. I’m excited about it.

On what new players will play against Wyoming:

Eric (Munoz) at inside linebacker. He’s going to have that opportunity. He had it last game. It’s his show. It’s well-deserved in that situation and that opportunity. He got in a little bit in the last game. He needs to take advantage of this opportunity. He’s waited for it, so he’ll have that opportunity this week. (Kaleo) Neves will continue to grow on special teams. He’ll move into some repetitions at the inside linebacker, also. He’s earned that right. You have to get your best players in a position and young men that are ready to play. He won’t necessarily get in the game unless we lose a couple guys, which, obviously, we hope doesn’t happen. Neves will now be in a position to get off of the scout preparation team and come over on the defensive side and get some reps in that setting. The young guys are continually stepping up. It’s well-deserved, and it’s fun to see where they’re going and how they’re going about it.

On the defense making the right plays at the right times:

I’m just proud of those guys making those plays in that moment. You go for it on fourth down, and it’s either going to be a good decision or a bad decision. There is no way around it. It’s going to be one of the two. Obviously, we didn’t get it, so it was a bad decision on my part. Then those guys had to step up and make a play. We strung out the fly sweep there in a good spot and allowed Shaq (Bond) to be able get physical and make a nice, physical tackle and make good decisions on the sideline which was great to see. Jacoby (Wildman) made a fantastic play. He split the offensive line in half that were trying to take advantage of blocking in that situation. He snapped through there and made a play. The penetration from the other guys was pretty good. Players make plays, players win games in those settings and those situations. The defense did not play well. They played poor. We have to get better in that situation. They all know it and we all know it. They never lay down or quit or say, ‘Woe is me.’ They kept on battling and their eyes were right and they made plays. They had an opportunity to do it, and they did it. It’s awesome to see when your back’s up against the wall and it hasn’t gone your way, that those kids still fight. It just shows how much they care about each other and they care about the university. They’re going to keep on playing regardless of what happens. We’ve been through that. We’ve had ups-and-downs all year. The defense found a way to get us through the first three Mountain West wins. Special teams and offense didn’t play poorly all the time, but didn’t play as well as they wanted to, obviously, which we know. We can go back and look at all those things, but the crew found a way. When they had to run the ball against Colorado State, we handed the ball to Gerold (Bright) 36 times for 179 yards. The defense played well. David Woodward grabs the ball out of a guy’s hands and scores a touchdown. It’s crazy how some of those things have happened in league games. This game was no different. The offense was powerful. They’ve moved the ball down the field. They’ve scored when they’ve needed to. Were they perfect? Absolutely not. The defense will need to improve in order for us to continue to go, but when it had to happen, they did it. Here we sit 4-1 in league play. It’s awesome to see them keep fighting and battling for themselves and for their school. It means a lot to me as a coach to see them keep on fighting.

On senior kicker Dominik Eberle being ready to kick a field goal after two games of zero attempts:

Going back even more to the San Diego State game, there were four (attempts) in that game. We were not good at getting in the red zone on offense in that football game, but he kept kicking field goals, kicking field goals, kicking field goals. That was a big part of that game. In this game in this setting, he’s prepared for these moments. He’s trained. That crew, they’re a trio now. They go out there and they’re going to rely on those other guys that are protecting them when they go into that situation, but those guys put themselves in that setting a lot of times. Dom is locked and loaded. It was the snap. It was the hold. It was there. That thing was drilled. It was right in the middle of the good hands of the thing that sits in the back of the net back there. It was fun to see it hit that net. I’ll tell you that much. He’s been through a lot of football games. He knows how to keep himself in the moment. It can happen at any time. He had an opportunity to hit a game winner, and he absolutely drilled it.

On the wide receivers stepping up against Fresno State:

There were some contested balls and we made some catches, which was great to see. The one with Jordan (Nathan), there were a lot hands up in the air right there. His hands found a way to get the ball down. Siaosi Mariner’s catch in the end zone. He’s in again by an inch and makes a tremendous play in great concentration. Then, there are a number of those catches that were out there that were nice plays. Jordan (Love) did a nice job of getting the ball out. It was great to see Jordan have that success. For all he’s been through this year and the battles that he’s been through. He’s never once batted an eye. It would be easy for him to go to the woe-is-me card and look at himself and look at the guys around him. There’s not even a sniff of that. But, to see him have a game like that, especially when there’s 50 or 60 people in his family and friends in the stands in that environment and that setting was fun to watch. I’m really excited for Jordan. He’ll have a great challenge in front of himself with a great defense, and he’ll be excited about that and I know so will the wide receivers, too. That’s last week. We’ve moved on. But, again, don’t forget that, because that’s a special three-and-a-half hours for Jordan.

On matching Wyoming’s physicality:

You match that in a couple of different ways. You match that with being as physical as you can, which is our number one priority. Secondly, if you can use their physicality to their disadvantage in any way, shape or form, especially with how aggressive they are on the defensive side of the ball, then you try to use that against them. I love the way they play defense. I love how physical they are. I love how they want to get up in your face and play man coverage. Again, they’ve built themselves to be that way. I’m all in with it. It’s a great way to play in those settings and those situations. We have to make sure we take care of the Aggies. We have to make sure we give our guys the best opportunity to be physical and also have smart offensive and defensive schemes that allow them to be physical, but yet play to their strengths. We’ve really done that the last couple of weeks on the offensive side of the football.

Going back to the BYU game, we were more effective moving the football. We had turnovers that absolutely killed us and we weren’t good in the red zone. That’s in the past now, but we can’t forget about it. Then, the staff built on that with the offense as we went into this next week. We looked at the matchups and where we matched up, we looked to be physical and take care of our business and make plays where we had the opportunity. The same thing will have to take place this week. The defensive side of the football will be no different. They are going to walk up there and they’re going to want to smash you in the mouth and if you fall on the ground, they’re going to want to kick you in the face as they walk away from you. That’s who they are, and that’s awesome. That’s a tough-minded team. I like that, too. We have to match that as we go through our preparations and understand that’s who they want to be. Football is a physical game, and, again, I’m all in for that kind of physicality activity that goes in and the physicalness. We need to play that way, also.

On Wyoming sophomore quarterback Tyler Vander Waal:

He’s a good player, but they have good players all over the place. If you want to look at the offense, the quarterback does a good job, he’s going to manage the game, he’s going to take care of his business and do a good job. The running back is good. The offensive line is big and physical. They have multiple tight ends that come in ‚Äì sometimes three of them with another guy that’s a fullback-type of a guy. Then they’ll spread it out and have good wide receivers. They have good players. Who they have beat and what they’ve done, it goes back to the same side on the defense. The linebackers are outstanding. They are big, tough, physical, run smart and have a lot of miles on them. You’re not going to trick those guys in any way, shape or form. They’re a good football team. They’ve been built for this year. They understood that walking into the year. If you listened to them at the beginning of the year, they felt like this was going to be a very good football team for them. It’s played out that way.

On if senior defensive end Tipa Galeai will be back for the Wyoming game:

I don’t know yet. We’ll have to see how it all goes. Hopefully, we can get him back. We could use that athleticism and that presence on the defense for sure.

On what he saw from the Boise State-Wyoming game:

I’ve watched the TV copy, and I’ve watched the film copy from the game. I’ll say it again, I love the brand of football that they’re playing. It’s tough, it’s physical and it’s aggressive on both sides of the ball. I believe both teams with two minutes left in the first quarter had one possession. Boise State scored with, I think, two minutes left in the first quarter, so they were getting after each other in a physical type of football game. It’s interesting to sit back and watch it. You watch this Wyoming team and this Boise State team, and they are where they are for a reason. They match up each week against the different types of offenses that they see and the different types of defenses that they see, and they have good personnel. You watch Wyoming get in that game last week, and Boise State does a lot of things, they spread it out as we all know, but they still want to smash you, too. They want to line up and knock your socks off, and they want to rub your face in it when they get up and run back to the huddle. They’re prideful in that, but they’ll also spread it out. I think Wyoming does a very nice job of understanding who they are when they’re playing a spread team, and who they are when they’re playing a tightened down team on the defensive side of the football, as well as on offense. That was a smash mouth, physical football game, and the score would obviously lead you to believe that, but that’s exactly what it was and it came down to a kick at the end.

On Wyoming running back Xazavian Valladay:

The scheme puts them in a spot to be downhill and physical, depending on the personnel groups that they’re in, but do I see the ability to be able to get to the edges of the defense? Yes. They incorporate the fly sweep, and obviously we had a hard time with the fly sweep last week. Fresno State has executed that very well all year long, so we’ll have to be heads up for that against Wyoming this week. They have runners that can get to the edges as needed. Again, it’s that mindset of, ‘Hey, we are a power football team, and we’re going to smash you in between the tackles and hopefully keep the chains where we want them to be.’ They do some play-action passes, but they can still drop back and hit the throws when they need to hit the throws. I don’t want to give the impression that this is just some ball control team, but that’s their identity. They want to be that team. I’ve been around teams that have that identity, also, and when you have that identity and you can be powerful and run, you can do that and fit with your personality.

On Wyoming only having five turnovers so far this season:

They’re very good in the turnover margin, and I would say it looks back to the emphasis on ball control and all the other things that they do. Obviously, they do a nice job in those areas of making sure they protect the football as much as they can. That’s of high importance to them. Hopefully, we get one or two out. We didn’t get any last week, so you’d think there would be one sitting out there for us somewhere, right? It’s got to be there somewhere.