WKU Hilltoppers College Football Pregame Quote, 11/08/2021

Another big conference game this week, going on the road, playing a tough Rice team. Been very impressed with them. They had a big win over UAB a couple of weeks ago at UAB which is hard to do. And had 2 overtime losses to 2 good conference teams. So, it’s gonna take our best effort this week and you know we just gotta keep the ball rolling and take care and control the things we can control. But definitely need to play our best this week to get this conference win.

On the matchup with Rice:

Good hard-nose football team. They’re gonna big boy you, they do an excellent job in the run game. Getting 22 personnel, 12 personnel, 11 personnel, empty sets, they kind of do it all. I think they’re very physical, they want to control the clock. I’m sure against us, that’s what they’re gonna try to do, limit our possessions, control the clock offensively, try to have long drives. They’ve really done that the past 3 weeks, that’s kinda been their winning formula for them. So defensively we gotta do a great job; get stops, get the ball back. I think it’s important offensively for us to start fast to try to maybe get an early lead where they can’t control the clock. That’s hard to do on the road though, you know. So that’ll be the challenge of our offense. You definitely are gonna face a team that is a hard-nose, hungry football team… I see a team that’s really hungry. I watch them, their sidelines are enthusiastic. They’re battling, fighting, scratching, and clawing I said it last week, they’re a lot like us you know. They go out there and compete every week, I don’t think they’re concerned about records or any of those kinds of things. So, it’s gonna take our best football game for sure.

On traveling for a road game:

I think the biggest thing is it’s hard to win on the road. So, we gotta play our best, we gotta rally around each other, we gotta create our own mojo, our own enthusiasm. You know it’s gonna be a crowd that nobody’s pulling for ya. There’s not probably gonna be many of our fans there just because of the distance piece of it. So, we gotta go there and do everything right and be ready to go, and have our jaw set and treat this like a championship game, have a championship mentality.