Opening statement:
“I was really proud of my team today. Really was proud of my defensive staff – Nick and Kelly and Shane and Vic – all former graduate assistants for me. We’ve been together for a long time. I was as happy for them as anyone. I still kind of view them as players, and my role is more oversight now in all phases of our program: defense, offense and special teams. I didn’t call a defensive play today. Nick Howell did an amazing job. Just happy for them and really happy for our players. They performed really well. Defense carried the beginning of the game, creating scoring opportunities, which then eventually we leveraged into touchdowns, not in the first half, but eventually we started to kind of handle sudden change a little better offensively. Touchdowns started to manifest and then we played all the way through the end. It was a strong performance by the team to be able to finish a game like that without some of the miscues that sometimes emerge or giving up points at the end or different things that happen. It was a clean finish, and that’s not easy to do. And so, really happy for our team, really happy for our program, our fans. And yeah, we have some momentum going.”
On second year linebacker Charles Snowden’s performance:
“It’s very impressive. Someone asked one of our players, I was doing a radio interview, and player most likely to be the President of the United States, and it was Charles Snowden. He’s Bryce Hall-like in terms of his preparation and his conscientiousness and his diligence and his intelligence and his unselfishness. Who he is, is allowing the accelerated version of his game. He certainly has the tools, and he’s learning what it feels like to play tired with all those snaps. He has a great mentor in that room with Chris Peace. An NFL player personnel person came in this week, and I shared this with my team, that said he had never seen in his entire career someone that practiced as hard as Chris Peace. That’s a powerful statement, knowing that this was his fourth day out just in one week of seeing multiple schools, and yet if you put that together over time that he’s never seen anyone practice as hard in his career. So, my point is Charles is under the influence of Chris, which I love that succession.”
On first years Jordan Redmond and Aaron Famui and defensive line:
“They’re learning on the job, and man, I’m glad they’re here because we would not be able to function as a team without them, and they’re holding their own. Yeah, there’s things they can do better, but they’re allowing us to play and highlight what we need to do defensively versus different personnel groups. And they’re just barely beginning their career and understanding of even what it looks like to play the position, so I’m encouraged by their starting point, and that’s where they are.”
On third year quarterback Bryce Perkins:
“I think ‘unbogging’ is a really good definition because there was penalties and there was things that just did not seem like the collective execution was going to be strong enough. One of the bright spots of having a quarterback that we targeted, after the last two years, and you saw similar things from Brennan Armstrong in his own way, those type of players are who we want at that position because it unbogs you, as you saw today.”
On Louisville playing two quarterbacks:
“We talked about it at halftime, where that certainly could happen with no points and really not threatening, with the offensive résumé that Louisville has and their coach has. It also followed suit of the last two games, where both were going to play. So, we expected both to play, and there were slight modifications in the plan.”
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Chris Graham
