UTEP Miners College Football Pregame Quote, 10/25/2021

I was very much pleased with the effort [vs. LA Tech] on both sides of the football. We do need to eliminate the turnovers on offense and do a better job at protecting the football. Those were costly to us in certain situations. Some were caused by real, physical play by LA Tech, and other situationsnot great ball security. It was a good pass rush by LA Tech in one situation and put some duress on Gavin [Hardison], hit him a little bit right when he was getting ready to throw it. We have to clean all that up for sure moving forward.

The defensive effort, we did a lot of really good things. The thing I liked most about the defense was how it responded to the adversity. I thought we responded to the adversity very well and that’s a big step for football teams when they get backed up, or have things go awry and jump back out there defensively and respond the way we did.

On playing at Florida Atlantic:

We’re getting ready for Florida Atlantic. They got to play last Thursday, so they have a little extra time and preparation. They had a really good road-win at Charlotte. I thought they played really well in all three aspects of their football team. I’m impressed with their athleticism. As you know, they’re a very athletic team. They have good speed across the board; they’re a typical Florida school, a lot of speed at their skill positions. They have good size and good strength on both sides of the line of scrimmage. They have good ability at the linebacker position. Same thing with the receiver position, a lot of talent there with a lot of speed. They have good speed at the running back spot, they play a couple guys there. They play different tight ends in their package. They have a transfer quarterback who’s obviously a really good athlete. Again, the biggest thing for us is to try and match their athleticism and their speed they present to our football team, and go on the road and get a road win. That’s the challenge for us right now as we prepare to have our best week that we’ve had all year. The challenge is out there for the guys to do that and really prepare themselves to come out and play well in a difficult road test.