I’m really excited game week is here. Obviously, a lot of work goes into getting to this point, but we finally know that this Saturday will be real this time. We have to find out what the reveal party shows. This is exciting and our kids are ready. I think our staff is ready and excited about getting into a normal week and I’m really excited about my first experience running out in Jordan-Hare Stadium. I think that’s going to be phenomenal and exciting. I’ve got more family coming than ever before I think. It’s going to be a magical experience in that stadium, provided that we play well. And that’s the pressure or the anxiousness that you feel sitting in this chair. We’re just waiting to deliver. We have an incredible fan base that has welcomed us so much. They bought season tickets, we’ve expanded the stadium size, and there will be a capacity for Saturday. You hear all those things, and you just so badly want to deliver. And so hopefully we’ll play well, but no question we’re extremely excited to kick off the campaign this Saturday.

That’s something we tried to instill ever since we got here. Our theme since we’ve been here is flip the script. And it’s really about rewiring your mind and how you prepare for these 12 opportunities that we’re given. And it’s something that has been done daily, that whatever is driving your beliefs are going to drive some type of behavior. And that behavior is going to create some habits and those habits will ultimately give us all our destiny. The more of those days that we stack, that we’re doing things the right way, with the right attitude and the right passion, the more prepared we’ll be. And I think we’re still ongoing in that. That’s still a journey, and it will be throughout this season. And to this point, I think, we’ve made progress and made strides in the right direction. And hopefully that shows on Saturday.

We’ll find out more Saturday. Are we effective running the football kind of team against other opponents or has our defense made us look that good? I think when you start getting into a game week and start game planning and you figure out that this is what we’re going to try to do, hopefully we’ll be in the right spots and play well on both sides. That’s the hope.

Right now, I will say J.D. Rhym is questionable, and Nick Mardner, Jalen McLeod. Nehemiah Pritchett, I think will go. Robbie Ashford is dealing with an oblique strain, but I think he’ll go too. It wouldn’t shock me if all of those went, truthfully, but it really would shock me if a few didn’t make it. Our list is pretty short, and hopefully all of them will make progress this week and be able to go.

We’re going play all those pieces that have earned the right to that opportunity, and then what they do with that opportunity will determine how big of a piece of the puzzle they are. It’s pretty simple. If they go out there and they rush for one hundred fifty yards, they’ll probably get some more carries. If you go out there and complete a high percentage of your passes, you’re probably going to get more opportunities. It’s the same thing with every position that we’ll grade out. I’ll get the grades Sunday. The guys that did really well will continue to get those opportunities.

I’m going to be totally candid with you. I don’t even have a depth chart, so I don’t know where that came from. I guess that’s from the SID world. I don’t do depth charts. I just don’t. It’s really nonsense. You’re going to play your four or five outside receivers and your two or three inside receivers in our system, and I don’t care who runs out there with the first group or the second group. They freely rotate, so I don’t make much of those depth charts. I don’t know who you said, but if you’re talking about the outside guys then I would think you’re going to see a rotation of (Jyaire) Shorter, Malcolm (Johnson Jr.), and (Shane) Hooks, “O” (Omari Kelly), and Camden Brown. I think those will be the five guys that are going to get the first rotations at that spot. I, in no way, said that one of those was first team or one was second team. That just don’t fly with me. It doesn’t work.

Well, I played them every year. I saw a drastic improvement last year under Coach (Don) Brown. I have great respect for him. I think he is one of the best defensive play callers in the country. Last year their record was atrocious, and they had a top 10 defense in the country. Now they have added 27 transfers, most from Power 5 schools. I thought they looked quite different. New Mexico State is not an easy place to go play, and they took care of the football and did not turn it over. They got turnovers. They capitalized on turnovers. They threw the ball effectively, which they have not done in four years that I’ve played them. I think defensively they play just as hard as any team in the country, and you combine that with Coach Brown’s systems, which are very chaotic and very hard to identify where your offense is at times. They will create negative plays with that. That was a big challenge for us last year when we played them up at UMass. They created a lot of negative plays against us. We managed to score enough points to win the game, but it was a challenge. They have our full attention.

I really liked his attention to every little thing. He has an advantage that he is in graduate school, and he has a lot of time. It’s important to him, and he is constantly studying, and I sure hope that translates into his decision making come Saturday now that we are not just running stuff against our defense. Now you honestly get the game plan and say, ‘Now Payton, I would expect you see this and get it right.’ He takes great pride in that, so I think that is the most impressive thing. He wants to have the middle part of the game plan totally down.

I would always like to be able to start a few games with some simple completions. This is a little harder to do because of their coverage. You are a little nervous to work too much quick game right off the bat. (UMass) did a beautiful job, and they run it a little different than a lot of people. They had a pick-six the other night, and they got three turnovers that resulted in 21 points. One was a pick-six off of that trap coverage. They really did a nice job with the quarterback. You have to be careful. What I would like to do is throw a quick hitch every now and then, but they do not really give you that opportunity, so Payton is going to have to take what they give and throw the passes and complete the ones that work against this scheme.

Well, the facts are if you are able to run the ball you can shorten the game. I think that may be advantageous for us this year. Are we good enough in the O-line, tight ends and running back room to do that in a league that has tremendous defensive linemen? I don’t know yet, but I do think that our running back group is very solid from top to bottom, and we are going to lean on them heavily.

Well, even though it is game one you would like for it to be clean. That we are not having pre-snap penalties or turning the ball over, any foolish penalties. You would like to see them play with great passion. Those would be the things. Obviously you want to win the game and you want to look good, but that’s always a fear you have of not quite being sure how a new team that we’ve put together ever since we’ve been here, and now they’re about to get out there in front of 88,000 and a loud crowd. How will we handle all our emotions? Will it cause us to have a foolish penalty here or there? Things like that you can’t do and win games. I just hope it’s a clean game for us.

It definitely helps. They are quite different on offense than they’ve been in the past. Defensively they are the same (team) that I have faced, but offensively they are quite different. You kind of wish you had even more of a sample size, but it’s no question that with everything I saw them do with their motions and shifts and their RPOs, you know they have more to do with that than what they showed. They are very similar to us, truthfully. There are a lot of options. Their quarterback, you have to be aware of him both running and passing. It was quite different, so I think it was helpful.

I love his energy, love the way he practices, and love the juice he brings to the field. The biggest struggle with the receivers is getting them to play with the same tempo on every single route and every single play. They don’t know when it’s coming, and we make too many off plays. I think we have gotten better at that, and we need to see continual improvement. I’m really curious to see how we do in the game. Omari (Kelly) has improved each week.

I am never going to change what I believe in, and I believe you have be a threat to run the football. But, I also believe that a throw off of a run is a run. So, I may come in here after a game and you guys say ‘man coach, you only rushed for 90 yards, but you threw for 400.’ To me I want to know what the average per carry was if that makes sense, because you don’t know it but probably 15 of the passes were runs, but the defense had an extra hat. I don’t think that is really smart football to constantly run into an extra guy in the box. So, to me those are rushing yards. You have to be a threat to run the ball. You can’t be one dimensional, so you must stay balanced. Balance doesn’t always show on the stat sheet to me, but it does when I go and look and see that these 10 runs threw for 100 yards on them. I really want to know what that average per carry was when we did hand it off. That usually tells me we are making the right decision, and we are handing it into good boxes, and if we are constantly making the wrong decisions and handing into the bad boxes, and that average is going to go down.