Utah State Aggies College Football Pregame Quote, 09/16/2019

On the team’s preparations for the conference opener against San Diego State:

It’s good to be back at it again after a bye week. San Diego State is obviously undefeated and on a roll. They’ve done some great things, I’m sure they’re as excited as we are to jump into conference play here. It’s a good opportunity for a lot of our kids to go home and play at least closer to home in California, so they’re excited about that, I’m sure.

Very good opponent, defensively they’re giving up eight points a game or whatever they’re doing. They’re aggressive, it’s a Rocky Long defense. I have a ton of respect for Rocky, and his staff as a whole do a great job. They’ve got great players, so that will be a challenge against a good offense and against a good defense it looks like. It should be a great event. On offense, they’ve gone a little bit more spread early in the first couple of games, and now they’ve gone back to a little bit more two tight ends, three tight ends, two-back sets, building it with one of the tight ends, so they want to be physical. They want to hit you with the throw game, I think the quarterback does a nice job of making decisions and they have very good running backs, which you would expect nothing less. They have an experienced offensive line which has done a nice job for them, and they seem to have settled into who they want to be. They’ve got really good coaches on that side of the ball, so they’re going to put their coaches in the best position to be able to make plays, and we need to do the same. Special teams should be a really good battle, I think they’ve got a good set of special teams players, and I think we do too. So this will be a huge test for us going on the road, first conference game, I’m sure they’re looking at it as a great opportunity, as are we. It should be a great conference opener for both teams and for the Mountain West, quite frankly.

On how the bye week went for the team:

First of all, we spent some time with the young kids, which was great. You know, you go through camp and everybody gets reps, and the young kids kind of become on the prep teams and they don’t get as much individual time with our coaches, so we took some time doing that, which was great for the young kids and for the coaches. Our priority was San Diego State throughout the bye week, and we gained as much of an advantage as we could using the bye week with the two games that we had on them. We also worked a little bit on some opponents that are down the road a little bit. So it was a mixed bag of all three of those. We worked on individual techniques and fundamentals, that’s always big during the bye week. It comes so early that you don’t lose so much of that this early in the year, but with later byes you tend to focus more on those techniques and fundamentals that you don’t quite have as much time for as you do in camp. So it was a good week, I thought they handled it well. They had Friday and Saturday off, and were back here Sunday night for study hall. So kids should be ready to go this morning, we had an early morning meeting this morning, and we’ll bring them in for practice.

On whether having a bye week helped with the overall health of the defensive secondary:

I don’t think so. At this point I think we’ll have the guys we have. We may get one back, we’ll see how we go through the week of practice, but we’ll go with the guys we’ve got out there and they’re working hard to get themselves back on the field. I would say that we did take advantage and got healthy in a couple spots, some guys who were a little bit dinged up that probably wouldn’t have missed a game, but they should feel better assuming they’ve done their part and taken care of their bodies.

On what he sees from San Diego State’s running game:

Same thing you always see out of San Diego State in the run game. Big, powerful offensive line, a bunch of good tight ends, and a good scheme. That’s the biggest thing, whether they’re in three wides and one back, or they’re in two tight ends, or three tight ends, or two tight ends and one of them is a fullback, they’re good football schemes. They’ve got good players, their backs are exceptionally good side-to-side, tough kids running the ball. That reputation for having good running backs at San Diego State has been there for a long, long time and it’s there again this year. You all know my opinion on that, it’s nice to have two or three backs. It’s hard to have just one guy that you’re going to hand it to all the time. He’s really special if he can handle that, but I think that all three of those guys rolling through there are quality backs, and the key thing is that they’ve got people around them, players and a coaching staff, that gives them the opportunity to make plays.

On how San Diego State has used junior quarterback Ryan Agnew in the offense:

A little bit of play-action, some drop back, I think he’s a winner. I think he’s proven that, that he is a kid that puts his team in a position to win. He makes heady plays when he needs to make heady plays, he’s very good in the pocket as far as picking his spots to step up in the pocket and when to run. He’s done a nice job of getting out and breaking down and breaking containment or breaking the middle of the pass rush lanes down and getting out and doing some real positive things for his team. They’ve got boots, they’ve got play actions, they’ll take shots down the field. It’s the structure of the offense to put him in a spot to make a lot of the throws that he makes. They may not try to take the top off of you, but they’ve done that and they’ve got those throws in there, and I guarantee that more of those throws are coming as they evolve this offense that they’re doing.

On what makes San Diego State such a tough team to run the ball against:

Rocky’s (Long) defenses have always been very, very physical, good tacklers, they’ve got good speed and they play well together. Some people sometimes think there’s just a lot of deception and bobbing and weaving in there, and there is, but it’s very well thought out. He’s a tremendous coach and they recruit good players in those positions, so it makes it tough to run the ball. They get so many negative plays. They catch you behind the line of scrimmage, they tip a pass, they pop a gap on you in those situations and those settings, so it’s difficult to prepare for and hopefully our offense can do a nice job of protecting the quarterback and getting something going in the run game. I think that’s a huge part of this game for us.

On what stands out on film from San Diego State senior linebacker Kyahva Tezino:

Like so many kids on that team, he’s just fundamentally sound, loves to play football. That’s obvious when you see what he does and how he goes about it. He’s physical, knows his assignment, plays his role, fits where he needs to be able to fit. He’s a tremendous, gifted athlete who does special things and you better deal with them, you better know what’s happening.

On how the conference schedule aligns this season to match Utah State against San Diego State, Fresno State and Nevada from the West Division:

The schedule is what the schedule is, right? You play the schedule that’s out there in front of you, and this is a very, very competitive league overall. It’s going to be interesting to see how it all filters out as we move through it. A lot of people could knock each other off in this league this year, we’ll see as we continue through. Boise State’s got a big one this week and Air Force has got a big one this week, they play each other Friday night. That’s a huge game right out of the gate, and I think both of those teams, from what I’ve seen, are playing extremely well. It’s a big game for us, a big game for San Diego State, then we’ll just continue on. Next week it’s a big game for Colorado State, it’s a big game for the Aggies. It’s a very difficult schedule, then you pop in the LSU game in three weeks here in the middle of the season, it’s interesting to say the least. You know, you play one game at a time, we’ve got a very good San Diego State team that’s undefeated, and I’m sure they’re sitting there thinking they’re a pretty good team and potentially getting in a position to get ranked. We should all be excited for this one, then move on to the next one after that. But it’s a competitive conference, which is awesome for the fans and for the kids, they get to play good people every week.

On how important winning the turnover battle will be against San Diego State:

I think that and third downs, again, it’s very similar to the last game when we sat back and set areas to improve, and we did improve in those areas. I think that if we can take care of the football, and put ourselves in a position to win third downs on the offensive side and the defensive of the ball, you’ve got a great chance, assuming you have great players, to win a football game. We have good players, and they have good players too, so those momentum swings of third downs, turnovers, big plays are going to play a big part in this, and then I would also throw in there the special teams side. You know, who’s going to punt the ball the best, who’s going to tackle when they’re in those special teams situations and scenarios to make sure that they give their defense the best opportunity to get back on the field or make a big play so the offense has good field position.

On how important it is to have a bye week before entering conference play:

I don’t think it really matters who you’re playing, it’s how you use the bye. What’s the mindset of your team, what do you need to work on, and so we always just look at ourselves and say ‘how can we get ourselves better in these next four or five days.’ You take them where they fall. This happens to be after week two for us, against San Diego State, so I would say it’s a good spot for a bye for us right now. Now we’ll see how we come out and play and what takes place. Then after the LSU game, I would say that’s probably a pretty good place for a bye. Seeing where they are this year, we’re going to take them where they fall and we’re never going to say that they’re in a bad spot, but these seem to be in a pretty good spot. And a lot of people say it’s week three, that we had a bye after two games, but these kids have been at it for a long, long time. You know, their bodies have been banging around for a few months here.”