On getting the first win of the season …
“It’s great to have a winning streak, you know what I mean? (laughs) No it is, I really am happy, certainly for all of us, for our kids and our coaches. We’ve got a great group of coaches and a great group of kids. They work extremely hard. You know when you go on the road, that first period of time we didn’t win a road game, and when you go on the road to El Paso … El Paso is a great place with the stadium and everything. The weather, two lightning rain delays and the guys just came in, dried off a little bit and went back and played. I’m really proud of them. They really showed a mature attitude and that was exciting.”
On foregoing the last 11 seconds before halftime when the second lightning delay began …
“I thought that was smart. You had a lightning delay, go in for 30 minutes, then come out for 11 seconds and go back in for halftime. So that to me is a no brainer. It was easy to forego the last 11 seconds. It was smart to do that.”
On ball handling and bad snaps in the wet weather on Saturday night …
“The snaps. You’ve got to improve that and that’s coaching. That’s my responsibility. You do it in practice. We work extremely hard in practice, but when you get in the game, and maybe that ball’s a little wet, but you've got to block the right people, you've got to pull, go to your right, go to your left, pass, protect and so on. We had some (snaps) that were pretty bad. We can’t have wasted plays like that. Blake handled the ball well. I thought the officials did a good job and our ball boys did a good job, checking the balls to make sure, the best they could, to have dry balls. You can’t really tell on the video, but the rain was coming down pretty good at times and the wind was pretty good at times, so that was certainly a factor. It was almost a Miami Saturday night.”
On the team’s performance against UTEP …
“We played awfully well on defense against UTEP, awfully well on defense. Our guys really stepped up. To me, it was probably one of the most fun games I’ve been around to watch our defense, because they got around, they got excited and they had fun. As a coach, when you’re out there playing and just having fun, it’s college football and I like that. They really did a nice job. Drew Douglas, of course having Drew back was special. Nate Gaines and Michael Egwuagu, they played extremely well. Getting Trevor Baker back was a real plus. His range made a big difference. The size he has, he was huge. C.J. Levine, I talked to C.J. We played a lot of young guys. I should have gotten the number of the guys we actually played, but we had C.J. I asked C.J. ‘how many snaps did you play?’ and he said ’54 snaps.’ He’s a true freshman. Those guys, they’re stepping up. We have talent. I like our talent. We have to get better with our talent, but I like it. I like what we have.”
On Kevin Strong Jr.’s performance …
“He’s a beast. He’s a beast. Kevin Strong, I wish I could have brought three or four plays over to show you about Kevin Strong. He was throwing guys around and making plays. Doubled teamed, double teamed, fighting through the double team. Eric Roark does a heck of a job coaching those guys, but I tell you Kevin, he’s something else. He's from Cleveland, Texas. About his near interception, I said, ‘you've got to pick that ball off.’ John Cooper used to say, my secondary coach from Ohio State, he used to say, ”I don’t want deflections, I want interceptions.’ That would have been the coolest thing of the whole night, if he picked that ball off. He would have scored with it, but he really played well. He’s exciting to watch. It was just a really solid performance from our defense, an exciting performance. We’ll get our oil checked against Louisiana Tech with their quarterback and their running back and receivers they have.”
On the health of Blake Bogenschutz …
“I think Blake’s okay. We took him out, and we wanted to play Dalton at some point all along. We planned on doing that and it was a good time to do that. Blake took too many hits. You can’t keep getting hit like that every week. It’s just too much. We've got to do a better job protecting him and getting rid of the ball, those types of things. I looked at last year’s Louisiana Tech film and I think we can play a lot better than we did last year. Blake should be fine. We’ll let him warm up today. He was fine yesterday at the meetings. So we’ll see.”
On the overall quarterback situation …
“We traveled with Manny Harris last week. I think with Jaylon Henderson, who’s a true freshman, I’d like to redshirt both of them, for sure redshirt one. I don’t want them to have to play either one of them. We’re trying to build this program for the future. My whole career it's always ‘this guy, we needed to redshirt, redshirt to have him back next year.’ We just want to take care of those guys and keep them for as long as we can. It’s also what’s best for them and they know that. Guys come and tell me, ‘coach I wish I redshirted’ and in the middle of their freshman year it’s ‘I want to play, I want to play,’ but at the end it’s ‘If I had another year, I could really do something special.’ Jaylon and Manny, we think they both are good players. He (Sturm) came to me. Seriously, he really did. I’d like to say that I saw him and that I liked what saw, but no, I didn’t. He came as a walk-on and he’s from Goliad, and I don’t think he had any offers to go anywhere that I’m aware of. He’s a really good player. The thing about Dalton is he’s got really good feet, he’s got an extremely quick release, he’s accurate and he can run. He’s going to be a good player. He’s a special find for us. He needs to be in the rotation. Again, we need to keep both of these guys healthy and you can’t let our quarterbacks get hit in the head like they did last week.”
On the offensive line’s play …
“We’re much better on the offensive line. The thing we made some mistakes in was our protection. The thing you see is, this team scared me to death because they’re very complicated in what they do. They would bring a lot of people from a lot of different places in the run game and pass game. It’s hard to simulate that in practices. I know when I was in Miami and we would always play Virginia Tech, and we played for a number of years, and we couldn’t make a first down. I would spend the whole offense (week) working on Virginia Tech stuff. That’s probably what we need to do, some time to get ready with the three days we have.”
On the balance of the number of carries with Jarveon Williams …
“Well they gave it to Barry Sanders 40 times a game. So if it’s over 40, that’s too much. Jarveon, you hear the old coach speak, ‘the more they run the better they become.’ I think Jarveon is one of those guys. He’s 'the more he carries the ball, the better he gets.’ He makes some creases, a lot of the times he didn’t have places to run, he got hammered pretty good, but I think 28 times, that’s enough for Jarveon. We've got to get Jalen Rhodes more in the rotation. He did a nice job when he carried the ball.”
On the secondary’s play …
“They’re impressive aren’t they? Michael Egwuagu and Nate Gaines, they were really, really, impressive and Bennett Okotcha. You've got a cornerback back in there so that’s a key for us, but they’re a solid group. I think it’s going to be a really good secondary and Perry Eliano and Jeff Popocivh have done a really good job coaching them. Perry coaches the safeties and Jeff coaches the corners. They (UTEP) put a lot of stress on our corners — they did — and they caught long balls on us, but they did a nice job and had to be great group. That’s the thing they did against us, too. They forced us to make some great throws and a chance to beat their man coverage. I really liked our secondary and the safeties, I think we’ve been blessed with some great safeties and this is really going to be a special group.”
On the upcoming opponent, Louisiana Tech …
“They’re good. They’re really good. We knew that going in. I picked them to win the league. They probably should be. They’re awfully talented. They got a really good quarterback. They’re running back is terrific. He’s an outstanding player. They have a good receiving core, a good offensive line. Defensively, I think one of their corners is up the Thorpe Award. I don’t know if he’s one of the finalists yet, but he’s a really good player. They’re an awfully good football team and Skip Holtz does a good job with them. Their special teams are solid. I do not know much about them yet, but they’re solid so they’ll be a real challenge. Obviously, we have them at home this year so we’re excited about that. We’ve got to continue to play better for us to beat a team like Louisiana Tech.”
On Louisiana Tech running back Kenneth Dixon …
“I think the thing you see in him is he’s got excellent vision and he’s got good size. Not a huge body, but good size and strength and his running skills are good. They’ve done a good job for him. That’s the thing, their offensive line. When they know that they’ve got a guy like that, they tend to pick their tempo up and they’ve done a nice job as far as blocking for him. I think we have a good defensive football team. We kind of have had one for these past couple of years, and I think we swarm the ball well, we tackle well. Neal Neathery does a great job with those guys and I think that’s a thing you’ll see with a guy like that. When we had (Barry) Sanders, guys had to swarm around him, tackle him and wrap him up. If they didn’t, he would make things happen and Kenneth Dixon is the same way. He’ll make big things happen if we don’t swarm in and don’t tackle well, but we’ve done a pretty good job of that these last couple of years. We really have got to do that this year. It’s really important.”
“It’s great to have a winning streak, you know what I mean? (laughs) No it is, I really am happy, certainly for all of us, for our kids and our coaches. We’ve got a great group of coaches and a great group of kids. They work extremely hard. You know when you go on the road, that first period of time we didn’t win a road game, and when you go on the road to El Paso … El Paso is a great place with the stadium and everything. The weather, two lightning rain delays and the guys just came in, dried off a little bit and went back and played. I’m really proud of them. They really showed a mature attitude and that was exciting.”
On foregoing the last 11 seconds before halftime when the second lightning delay began …
“I thought that was smart. You had a lightning delay, go in for 30 minutes, then come out for 11 seconds and go back in for halftime. So that to me is a no brainer. It was easy to forego the last 11 seconds. It was smart to do that.”
On ball handling and bad snaps in the wet weather on Saturday night …
“The snaps. You’ve got to improve that and that’s coaching. That’s my responsibility. You do it in practice. We work extremely hard in practice, but when you get in the game, and maybe that ball’s a little wet, but you've got to block the right people, you've got to pull, go to your right, go to your left, pass, protect and so on. We had some (snaps) that were pretty bad. We can’t have wasted plays like that. Blake handled the ball well. I thought the officials did a good job and our ball boys did a good job, checking the balls to make sure, the best they could, to have dry balls. You can’t really tell on the video, but the rain was coming down pretty good at times and the wind was pretty good at times, so that was certainly a factor. It was almost a Miami Saturday night.”
On the team’s performance against UTEP …
“We played awfully well on defense against UTEP, awfully well on defense. Our guys really stepped up. To me, it was probably one of the most fun games I’ve been around to watch our defense, because they got around, they got excited and they had fun. As a coach, when you’re out there playing and just having fun, it’s college football and I like that. They really did a nice job. Drew Douglas, of course having Drew back was special. Nate Gaines and Michael Egwuagu, they played extremely well. Getting Trevor Baker back was a real plus. His range made a big difference. The size he has, he was huge. C.J. Levine, I talked to C.J. We played a lot of young guys. I should have gotten the number of the guys we actually played, but we had C.J. I asked C.J. ‘how many snaps did you play?’ and he said ’54 snaps.’ He’s a true freshman. Those guys, they’re stepping up. We have talent. I like our talent. We have to get better with our talent, but I like it. I like what we have.”
On Kevin Strong Jr.’s performance …
“He’s a beast. He’s a beast. Kevin Strong, I wish I could have brought three or four plays over to show you about Kevin Strong. He was throwing guys around and making plays. Doubled teamed, double teamed, fighting through the double team. Eric Roark does a heck of a job coaching those guys, but I tell you Kevin, he’s something else. He's from Cleveland, Texas. About his near interception, I said, ‘you've got to pick that ball off.’ John Cooper used to say, my secondary coach from Ohio State, he used to say, ”I don’t want deflections, I want interceptions.’ That would have been the coolest thing of the whole night, if he picked that ball off. He would have scored with it, but he really played well. He’s exciting to watch. It was just a really solid performance from our defense, an exciting performance. We’ll get our oil checked against Louisiana Tech with their quarterback and their running back and receivers they have.”
On the health of Blake Bogenschutz …
“I think Blake’s okay. We took him out, and we wanted to play Dalton at some point all along. We planned on doing that and it was a good time to do that. Blake took too many hits. You can’t keep getting hit like that every week. It’s just too much. We've got to do a better job protecting him and getting rid of the ball, those types of things. I looked at last year’s Louisiana Tech film and I think we can play a lot better than we did last year. Blake should be fine. We’ll let him warm up today. He was fine yesterday at the meetings. So we’ll see.”
On the overall quarterback situation …
“We traveled with Manny Harris last week. I think with Jaylon Henderson, who’s a true freshman, I’d like to redshirt both of them, for sure redshirt one. I don’t want them to have to play either one of them. We’re trying to build this program for the future. My whole career it's always ‘this guy, we needed to redshirt, redshirt to have him back next year.’ We just want to take care of those guys and keep them for as long as we can. It’s also what’s best for them and they know that. Guys come and tell me, ‘coach I wish I redshirted’ and in the middle of their freshman year it’s ‘I want to play, I want to play,’ but at the end it’s ‘If I had another year, I could really do something special.’ Jaylon and Manny, we think they both are good players. He (Sturm) came to me. Seriously, he really did. I’d like to say that I saw him and that I liked what saw, but no, I didn’t. He came as a walk-on and he’s from Goliad, and I don’t think he had any offers to go anywhere that I’m aware of. He’s a really good player. The thing about Dalton is he’s got really good feet, he’s got an extremely quick release, he’s accurate and he can run. He’s going to be a good player. He’s a special find for us. He needs to be in the rotation. Again, we need to keep both of these guys healthy and you can’t let our quarterbacks get hit in the head like they did last week.”
On the offensive line’s play …
“We’re much better on the offensive line. The thing we made some mistakes in was our protection. The thing you see is, this team scared me to death because they’re very complicated in what they do. They would bring a lot of people from a lot of different places in the run game and pass game. It’s hard to simulate that in practices. I know when I was in Miami and we would always play Virginia Tech, and we played for a number of years, and we couldn’t make a first down. I would spend the whole offense (week) working on Virginia Tech stuff. That’s probably what we need to do, some time to get ready with the three days we have.”
On the balance of the number of carries with Jarveon Williams …
“Well they gave it to Barry Sanders 40 times a game. So if it’s over 40, that’s too much. Jarveon, you hear the old coach speak, ‘the more they run the better they become.’ I think Jarveon is one of those guys. He’s 'the more he carries the ball, the better he gets.’ He makes some creases, a lot of the times he didn’t have places to run, he got hammered pretty good, but I think 28 times, that’s enough for Jarveon. We've got to get Jalen Rhodes more in the rotation. He did a nice job when he carried the ball.”
On the secondary’s play …
“They’re impressive aren’t they? Michael Egwuagu and Nate Gaines, they were really, really, impressive and Bennett Okotcha. You've got a cornerback back in there so that’s a key for us, but they’re a solid group. I think it’s going to be a really good secondary and Perry Eliano and Jeff Popocivh have done a really good job coaching them. Perry coaches the safeties and Jeff coaches the corners. They (UTEP) put a lot of stress on our corners — they did — and they caught long balls on us, but they did a nice job and had to be great group. That’s the thing they did against us, too. They forced us to make some great throws and a chance to beat their man coverage. I really liked our secondary and the safeties, I think we’ve been blessed with some great safeties and this is really going to be a special group.”
On the upcoming opponent, Louisiana Tech …
“They’re good. They’re really good. We knew that going in. I picked them to win the league. They probably should be. They’re awfully talented. They got a really good quarterback. They’re running back is terrific. He’s an outstanding player. They have a good receiving core, a good offensive line. Defensively, I think one of their corners is up the Thorpe Award. I don’t know if he’s one of the finalists yet, but he’s a really good player. They’re an awfully good football team and Skip Holtz does a good job with them. Their special teams are solid. I do not know much about them yet, but they’re solid so they’ll be a real challenge. Obviously, we have them at home this year so we’re excited about that. We’ve got to continue to play better for us to beat a team like Louisiana Tech.”
On Louisiana Tech running back Kenneth Dixon …
“I think the thing you see in him is he’s got excellent vision and he’s got good size. Not a huge body, but good size and strength and his running skills are good. They’ve done a good job for him. That’s the thing, their offensive line. When they know that they’ve got a guy like that, they tend to pick their tempo up and they’ve done a nice job as far as blocking for him. I think we have a good defensive football team. We kind of have had one for these past couple of years, and I think we swarm the ball well, we tackle well. Neal Neathery does a great job with those guys and I think that’s a thing you’ll see with a guy like that. When we had (Barry) Sanders, guys had to swarm around him, tackle him and wrap him up. If they didn’t, he would make things happen and Kenneth Dixon is the same way. He’ll make big things happen if we don’t swarm in and don’t tackle well, but we’ve done a pretty good job of that these last couple of years. We really have got to do that this year. It’s really important.”
