Jacksonville State Football
Weekly Press Conference
October 18 2024 – Middle Tennessee State Week

Head Coach Rich Rodriguez

On the bye week after playing twice in five days:
The five day window happened so fast that now when you have actually a whole two weeks before you play, it's almost like starting all over again. We were playing better football, so is that better for us to wait, I don't know. We needed it to get a couple guys kind of refreshed. These six games will come up pretty quick, and all conference games.
 
On Middle Tennessee State:
They're an athletic team. We thought they were one of the more most athletic teams we played last year. We were fortunate to win that one. The quarterback threw for four yards on us last year, and he's back. Got a lot of respect for him. They got some really good skill players, one of the best tight ends in the league, one of the best receivers in the league; good on special teams, so it's got our guys attention for sure. We've had pretty good practices. Getting our guys back to normal schedule is not going to happen for a couple weeks; today being a Monday for our guys. That's a day off for our players, but our preparation has been pretty good so far.
 
On the Offensive Line:
Coach (Rick) Trickett, fortunately, he's got a lot of experience. The center's always, that's always the toughest one, because that's the guy that's not just snapping the ball but is making calls and kind of leading the way. We thought Daveion Harley did well in his first start at center for us. We've always felt you couldn't have too many centers. So, we've got guys that that have not played center before, least practice some snaps in the last few days, because you got to have somebody that can not just block and know what he's doing, but also can snap the ball. So, we've, we've been working a lot of guys at that position, just to be sure. We've been rotating more of those young guys. I really like our young offensive line, and some of them are being forced to play now, so it's good to have this week to try to get them ready.
 
On the Defense Getting Takeaways and Stopping the Run:
Going back early we were having problems with the right fits, and then we'd have a mistake, not only the same guy, maybe a different guy was supposed to be in this gap, and he was in that gap. And some of that might have been growing pains, but some was just we needed to be better, play better, and try to coach them into a better situation. I think we've gotten a little simpler to help our guys play a little faster, but I also think we've gotten ahead and gotten some turnovers.
 
On the National Exposure from Weekday CUSA:
When we brought it up as league at Conference USA, everybody wants attention for their conference and attention for their programs, and attention for their institutions, and in my history in the past, particularly at West Virginia, it helped the profile of our program, but it also helped the school become more recognized. And then student enrollment went up. And our enrollment is going up here, I think, for a lot of reasons, but maybe the fact that, people were talking about Jax State, or seeing Jax State on TV, and whether they scan the stadium and the campus, because we got a beautiful campus. I guess we've always been looked at as kind of a regional school, and I'm hoping we can look at as a national school, because there's a lot of people that should know about Jax State. I'm a bit biased, but this is a great place to go school. And it's a great town, so I think the attention that Jax State has gotten in the last couple years because of the midweek I think, has been very beneficial to our enrollment. I'm hoping it'll keep going that way, because we have a lot to offer here as an as an institution.