Opening statement
"It's an exciting time for us. We've been waiting for year two for a long time. With our excitement, you have to look at what's happening in the world too. As most of you know, of course, I'm from Texas. I have a lot of relatives down there, and we pay close attention to what's going on down there. You have to pray and do what you can to try and help. I have relatives down there and we try to keep communicating with them as much as possible. Whatever you can do. If it's just prayer, fine. If you can donate money, that'd be good too, anything that we can do to help people that need help."
"Where we are right now is an exciting time for us here. Training camp each year seems like it flies by quickly. We've gotten a lot of work done. We knew going into the season, and training camp, that we have a young ball club, lot of young players. Even though they've been working out with us in the summer, to get them out on the football field and teaching them, how we do things, how we're going to win games, letting them know their roles. It's been fun to watch. I've seen improvement from day one all the way up to last Saturday when we had our last mock game, getting ready for the football season."
On the home opener against Ball State
"As you get to the first game of the season, it's more about you because you don't know this year what Ball State will do. We all have a history, but you never know until you play that game. I love opening up the season at home. Last year our students weren't here; they came in after our first game. This year, they are here so there's a lot of excitement on campus. We hope to bring that excitement to the stadium this week."
On the return of Mike Dudek
"It's a long time coming for him. What do we expect from him? We're trying to score touchdowns and be effective on the offensive side of the ball. Mike has had a good camp. We've taken our time with him, slowing working him into it. At the end of training camp, he was doing pretty much what everyone else was. He's healthy and excited to go. Think about having to sit, and watch, for two years. I couldn't be happier for anyone else on the team more so than Mike to have an opportunity to play."
"There's a lot of emotion going into that. His knee is strong and Mike is a good football player. I think when you're a good football player, you can't wait to compete. He's a competitor and we're a better football team with him."
On the cornerbacks
"We had questions coming in. The more reps you can get for the guys that are a question mark the better. We know what Jaylen Dunlap can do; he's our [number] one corner. But, we have gotten a chance to see a lot of the young players. That's what we tell our team as a whole, complain if you aren't getting reps and prove who you are. Our corners have gotten a chance to prove who they are. And, we've gotten a chance to see them in a lot of different situations.
On evaluating starters
"Once you let guys play, they'll tell you who should start and who should get playing time and who you should count on before the first game. When you get to the first game, things will really clear up. Training camp, nowadays aren't built around a lot of hard tackling and scrimmaging. For what we've asked guys to do, yes, we know the starting rotation."
On defending Chayce Crouch
"I think as a general rule, if you're just talking to defensive coaches, they'd rather play a quarterback that's in the pocket most of the time. Once you bring in that extra guy, a quarterback that can run the football, it's a totally different animal. And, we have that with Chayce. We like what he can do throwing the football, but, if that breaks down, we can have production from his legs. As a defensive guy, to have to account for another man, he makes it hard. But, that's college football. Probably at least ten of the teams we're going to play have a mobile quarterback that can throw and beat you running the ball too."
On the edge that Crouch brings to the team
"When he played last year, there was an instant energy. The team had a lot of faith in him when he played last year. We have to go on what he's done right now. From day one Chayce is our guy and really love him being our quarterback, and he's going to have an outstanding year."
On the freshmen class
"We like the class that we signed. And, now we've had a chance to see them. Everybody has to have a starting spot, first game and all of that. We believe we have some guys that are ready to take that step. They stepped in right away with us. Yes, you'd like to have guys that have played an awful lot, but it's the best players [who play]. For us, our best players are a lot of our younger players and we're going to let them to go immediately."
