WKU Hilltoppers College Football Pregame Quote, 09/20/2021

Really big game this week. Really excited to have the opportunity to play a really good Indiana team. Should be a great atmosphere; I know the crowd will be there, I know everybody will be excited, our players will be excited. Just a big week overall. Indiana’s a really good football team, you look at them across the board in all three phases they got players everywhere. Coach [Tom] Allen does a fantastic job, they play hard. So, it’s going to take everything we got to try and go win this game, but really excited for that opportunity to play in front of our home crowd in a great atmosphere against a really, really good football team.

On the key areas of focus against Indiana:

I think we’ve got to sustain drives offensively. Like I said, the turnover piece will be huge. We have to make the explosive plays when they’re there. If we get a guy open on a receiver down the field ‚Äì we have to make the throw and make the catch ‚Äìand then we have to score. I think it’s going to come down to that. I think, defensively, it’s almost a bend-don’t-break mentality. They are going to move the football. They are going to make their plays, they’re going to have explosive plays. There’s going to be times that we have a hard time going against them with their offense and how good their offense is. The quarterback is an excellent football player, very talented player. But, if we can keep them from scoring touchdowns that would be huge -and try to get the turnovers ‚Äì that will be huge as well. Then special teams has to be huge for us in this game. We’ve got to play great special teams. Play the field position game, don’t give Indiana half the field to work with, all those kinds of things. If you can check all those boxes then you’ll have a chance in the fourth quarter.