OPENING STATEMENT:

“I was really proud of our guys. I thought they came out and really competed this week. We played well in all three phases and our defense really played well all sixty minutes, which really kept us in the ballgame in the first half. We finally got some things going there offensively in the second half and just played with a lot of spirit and emotion. I’m extremely proud of the way they came out and competed. Major [Applewhite] is doing a great job at Houston and they have an unbelievable football team and we felt very fortunate to come out on the right side of this one. As we head up to UConn, they are a really, really tough opponent. They are playing a lot of young guys like we are and those guys are learning and growing, just like ours are. We expect obviously an extremely tough test and we know we have our hands full traveling up there to get it done.”

ON THE CHALLENGES UCONN PRESENTS OFFENSIVELY:

“I’ve known Rhett [Lashlee] for a little while now and he does a great job schematically. You know he’s going to put his guys in the right spot. They present challenges from the standpoint that they want to be balanced in what they do and giving you some different looks. From our side of it, we need to do a good job of just keeping our eyes in the right spot, keying things correctly and making sure we are coming to leverage on things.”

ON THE CHANGE IN QUARTERBACK:

“We actually made the change in the first quarter of the Tulane game and just thought we needed to make a move there and went ahead and carried that into this game. We played both guys and thought they both did a good job when they were in. I thought our offensive line played extremely well and I thought Luke [Skipper] came in and gave us a spark and we’ll kind of continue in the same mode that we did last week.”

TULSA HAS NOT PLAYED UCONN BEFORE, BUT YOU DID WHEN YOU WERE OC AT BAYLOR:

“Yes, that’s right and Randy [Edsall] was actually there for those. We played them once up there and once at our place. He’s an outstanding coach, always does a great job and you need to earn everything you get when you’re playing his teams. They aren’t going to give you any cheap yardage or cheap points, so you need to be really locked in and focused on what you’re doing schematically and try to dig our yardage when you can.”

ON THE STRENGTH OF THE CONFERENCE WITH THREE TEAMS IN THE TOP 25, HOW MUCH DEPTH IS IN THE LEAGUE?:

“I’ve always thought this league has had a ton of depth. I’ve been in it now for three years and the quality of players and coaches that we have in our league, we are really continuing to rise each and every year. This is no different and it’s no surprise that we have three in the top 25. When you look at who we play in the preseason and you look as we get into conference play, they are all tough games and you need to be really prepared and ready each week. It’s not surprising to me at all.”

MATT SCHONVISKY / SITE CREATOR