“Yeah, we’re going to do that starting on Sunday. That’ll come out on Sunday.”

“The most important thing I can do with that tradition is acknowledge it. I have to talk to people who have instilled, who have lived, who have done it the right way. I’ve heard many different ways they have done it, from bringing old guys back,  taking it away, waiting a couple of games, do it fall camp. I’ve heard a lot of different things already. I think it’s one of the best traditions in college football.”

“We’re gonna play a lot of receivers. I mean, with Isaiah you saw the explosive nature that he has last year early on in the season when he played. To me Isaiah has always been a starter for us. He had some soft tissue stuff at the end of the spring so they kind of held him back, but he’s had a really good camp with great hands. Smart, tough, fast and I’m so excited about Isaiah and with Alex usually when I have a scholarship it is not my intention to give it to a senior who’s put their time in but you just can’t deny what he’s done. He’s made one hand catches and acrobatic catches. He’s been dynamic all camp and so he’s a starter for us. I think he will play really well. 

“We will not know truly who we are until we play a game and probably a couple games. My challenge to them has been do not get to game four or game five and all of a sudden things slow down and have the light come on. Try to do it now. The ‘All N’ shows and some things have gotten out that I have said and I talk a little bit about getting to that first game and having a messy front end. There is also a messy front end to a new season and a messy front end to a new coach. Next year will be so much easier and the guys will know what to expect. Every day they walk in they are kind of like, ‘Okay what are we doing today Coach?’ They are such good kids. I had some kids at Temple that were like ‘whatever.’ These guys want to do everything right and so I want them to prepare up until the game. What I need to find out is are they going to be the type of team that just goes out and plays and does not worry about what happens. That is only way you can play this game is to not worry about the score and just go play. So we talk about that all the time. I see them do it in practice. Will they do it in the game? That is the challenge for me. That is the challenge for them.”

“I think my time in the NFL really prepared me to do this better. I think if we are playing for our staff or if they are being recruited by our staff, they are probably better prepared for things at the next level than maybe before. I have adopted more walk-throughs and things like that than meetings after my time there because I just see the value of getting out there and feeling it and doing it. The football is so different. At the level you are preparing for outside zone and duo it is like how are we going to handle this RPO, that RPO. The ball is way more complex and different. We are kind of going with the same schedule we used at Baylor. It is a unique practice schedule but it is something we believe in and I am excited to do it with the guys.”

“I am confident that we are going to play hard. I am confident that we are going to be a physical team. I am confident that if things do not go well early that we are not going to panic. I am confident that if things do go well early that we are not going to celebrate. I think that our guys understand that this is a 60 minute game and it is a 12 game season. I am confident we will have fun together. My wife she knows me really well and she said, ‘You are not going to be all stressed out are you? Go have fun.’ This is a type of team that you can go have fun with. You really can. This is a type of team that you can go have fun with. I am going to be loose and I am going to go play. What better way than to play an opponent like this? One that goes to bowl games every year and has success and it will be a great way to test ourselves but going back to Steve’s question about late in the game and all those things. We are going to be a team, I do not know when, but we are going to be a team that plays our best football in the fourth quarter. Coach Osborne came up the other day, what an unbelievable man, just wanted to shake my hand and wish me luck and started asking me about Minnesota and started asking me about some other things and at the end he was like, ‘We always wanted to be a team that won the fourth quarter and was the best team in the fourth quarter.’ That is what we have been preaching since day one. I tell our guys that when the ethos of who we are matches the legacy of what came before us, then we can build a legacy that comes after us. This is a really good team. I do not know if we will be the best team in the fourth quarter but I can tell you that we will be trying to play our best football then. If we do that then we are a team that is well on our way to be a team that can compete for wins and championships and bowl games and all the things that we want to have happen eventually.”

“Well, Joe Rossi is a great coach. I know Joe from way back at Rutgers. He’s a great coach. They have really great players. They know what they’re doing. If you’re just looking at it as an outsider, it’s like ‘oh yeah, they’re playing quarters.’ The teams that do that really well – the Iowas, them – everything has purpose. You put the back here and combination over here. A lot of times you face a team like this and you don’t really understand their defense. They do such a great job. They play team defense. Everything is funneled to certain players. Everything is put together. I’ve never worked with Joe (Rossi), but I’m assuming they probably know the things that beat us and they practice those things. My defensive coordinator for 10 years was Phil Snow, one of the best quarters coaches you’ll ever see. We’d always practice these things because he’d say ‘hey, here’s what’s going to beat us.’ It’s really well put together. They have really good players. They play really, really, really hard and they have guys at every level, you know what I mean? They have an elite linebacker. They have an elite safety. They have, I think, four elite players up front. They’re a big, physical team and to your point everyone talks about how much they run the ball or throw the ball more, who knows. What I’ll say is they’re one of the top teams on third down on offense and they’re one of the top teams on third down on defense. You can say you want to run the ball. You’re going to be in a lot of third-down situations if you run the ball. If you can’t convert third downs, nothing’s going to happen. They’re over 50% on third-down offense. They’re really good on defense on third down. That’s the challenge. If you ask me, ‘hey coach, what’s a game come down to?’, besides the turnovers and the obvious things, can we win some third downs against a team that does it really well?” 

“Yeah you know I just think the play-callers have to be comfortable. I would never want to call the game from the field. I’d always want to be up top where it’s a little more sterile and less emotional, but Sat (Coach Satterfield) likes to call it from the field. Tony (Coach White) likes to call it from the field. Sometimes the coordinators like to go up to the box just to get away from me after a couple games. I don’t spend too much time worrying about it. We’ve done so much preparation. There’s not a thing that’ll be called that we haven’t prepared for and talked about. We literally will talk like, ‘it’s third and seven on the 32 yard line I say ‘you got two downs. We’re going for a fourth and two. What are you calling?’ And they better be able to say it to me like that. Sat’s (Coach Satterfield) elite at that. He’s worked for me before. Tony (White) is really smart in that way and so is Ed (Coach Scott). I would think all three coordinators will be down on the field and probably Garret (McGuire) will go up top because he really sees the passing game well. Aaron Coeling who is one of the finest young coaches I’ve ever been around is a graduate assistant for us and that allows him to be on the headset. He works hand in hand with Donny (Coach Raiola) so he’ll be up as well seeing the run game and one other coach. On defense I would anticipate Rob (Coach Dvoracek) going up and I’m not sure what they’re going to do with Coop (Coach Cooper), but I see the coordinators being down on the field.”

“I’m having the time of my life. I really am. this is as happy as I’ve been in a really really long time. My family is here. Now my girls are happy at school and my family’s happy, my wife’s happy, my son’s doing well. I really enjoy this team. I told the team the other day ‘I bring Leona. She’s eight. I bring her around. She’s around all day. Saturday she’ll be here all day. Sunday she’s at the practice.’ She thinks Chief (Borders) is her older brother. She plays catch with Chief. She sits in the team meeting. She gets on me about my language but I told the team, ‘it’s one thing to bring your son, but when I bring my daughter that’s a statement of what I think about the men on the team. I would not bring my daughters around men I would not want her to look up to.’ Because of the collective group of people that are here, because of Trev (Alberts), because of Dennis Leblanc and Jamie Vaughn, Marquita Armstead and Doug Ewald and all the people at that level. Because of Sean (Padden) and Susan (Elza) and Keith (Mann) and all the people. There’s just an elite group of people here so I really am having the time of my life. I haven’t been this happy in a long time. You can probably tell by the look on my face.”

“Football IQ and intelligence. Situational football. When I first got here it was kind of like, ‘Coach just let me ball, let me play, let me do my thing.’ There’s really no ‘doing your thing’ when you play against good teams, executing in the moments and in the situations, and matching each moment with excellence. Now I feel like we’re at a moment where I feel like I can put the ball down. I don’t know if you noticed in the one tv show that we did, I’ll give a situation to two players and they run off and tell everybody, and I couldn’t have done that in spring as well as right now. I say it to the guys, they are locked into the situation, so situational awareness. Now, will that carry into the game? I don’t know. I’ve shown them 2018 Colorado, I’ve shown them – what’s the game where Eric Crouch hits the guy down the sideline. They kick a field goal, Colorado scores with like – 2000, thank you. I’ve shown them the A&M game. I’ve shown them all these old games. Both with us. Today we watched Syracuse and Purdue, so all these end of games situations, and I’d say when I first started I’d say ‘what did you guys hear and I’d have like three guys (raise their hand) and now there’s a chorus of guys that understand whats happening, understand the situation and what should happen. I’d say our situational awareness has really jumped up and in a day of age where a lot of guys don’t really watch football – like I watched the ESPN game and was like ‘did anybody watch it?’ and they all kind of look at me like. I mean they’re watching the highlights on YouTube or they’re watching it on Tik Tok, which hey, it is what it is man, but watching that together I think is really good because we have a common language situationally.”

“I think really two things. Just making sure we were under the lights again, making sure that our substitutions and all those things that can show up on the first game were as clean as possible. Get some really good work. The guys were really physical. We worked on our football as well. I think the biggest thing I told the team is Coach (Joe) Paterno, always tells us you make your biggest jump from game one to game two. I think a lot of old coaches say that. We don’t want to try to do that after next week. We treated last night like a game so we can see, ‘hey,  where are we deficient?’ What do we need to improve upon? You can sometimes get to this last week and want to hurry up and get to the game, but we have to maximize every minute to improve.”