Jacksonville State Football
Weekly Press Conference
October 7, 2024 – New Mexico State Week
 
Head Coach Rich Rodriguez
 
Opening Comments
"It's a really quick turnaround, seven days seems short for coaches. Players probably like it better, they'd rather just play games than practice. The hardest part is making sure your guys are healthy and fresh, so we're very limited practice wise. We had practice in shorts yesterday for about an hour and 10 minutes. Today, there'll be another one in shorts for about an hour. Some guys are a little banged up from the last game, so, you don't know if they'll be ready to go for this game or not. Everybody in our leagues, I think everybody, or just about everybody, has one or two of these short windows. Last year, I think we had two or three of them, so you kind of plan for it ahead of time."
 
On New Mexico State
" They some tough guys. I mean, they battle. I think some of the earlier games, they were right there with it,  obviously had a chance to beat liberty, who's been one of the best teams in a group of five the last couple years that went down to the wire. They're going to play very hard. We know that we got to keep our poise and be disciplined. They seem like their offense found a groove in their last game with a change in quarterback. I'm mostly concerned that we got to make sure we come out of gates well, and we played in a night game four days ago. We've got to get our focus ready, and it's at home, which is a good thing."
 
On Preparing on a short week
 
"You really cut out your what you hate doing, so you cut out your padded practices. You always like to have one or two of them, but with such short window and being such a physical game, you cut that out a little bit. Last year we didn't see a big difference when we didn't practice in pads. This is a new year, so we'll see how that part of it works.  We try to do a little bit of a game prep during our open date, before the last game, just so we have a little bit of a head start on on this five day window. We won't change our practice schedule. I don't want to take all of our time of our players, because we want them to be students and have a normal life. We'll have some meetings tomorrow and have a couple on Wednesday afternoon as well."
 
On Tyler Huff
"It's his first year, like it's Tre's (Stewart) first year. Those guys are still learning, but I think they are getting more and more comfortable each week with what we do. Probably the biggest, not the biggest difference, but one of the differences in our offense is, our tempo is pretty quick, and so you don't have a lot of time to think once a play is called, we're running it. That's usually harder on a quarterbacks than anybody else. Tyler's a smart guy and he's adapted really well."
 
 
On getting 31 first downs last Friday at Kennesaw State
"We've had a few that was in the mid 30s, But if we get 25 or more, that usually means we have some kind of control on the tempo, and that's the big key for us.  offensively, once we get in the rhythm or get first downs, you've got a chance to control the tempo a little bit and the same thing is true on defense. We get some interceptions or turnovers or three and outs, then the offense is back on the field. Their defense has to come back on the field. If you got a chance to control the tempo more."

Ricky Samuel, R-Sr., DL
 
On the second half at Kennesaw State
"We're naturally a second half team anyway, especially defense. We kind of went in and regrouped  on everything and came back out."
 
On the second half effort at KSU
"Really had to come together and get more comfortable with the defense and get on track with their tempo and how they were coming off the ball and how they were doing some things."
 
On the improvement of the defense
"Tt's all new for for most of us, so we really just had to get comfortable with the scheme. We had to get a couple games down, run the new defense and stuff and after that, everybody pretty much got comfortable with what we are doing and then we just continued to got better."
 
On a short week
"You're just on a schedule for so long, so it's kind of fun to get something new. Tt's kind of exciting that we don't have to do the same thing, we could do something different."
 
 
Tre Stewart, Sr, RB
 
On three TDs at Kennesaw State
" Believing in o-linemen, trusting in them, and then also having Tyler Huff being able to run and get yards too. So it puts the defense in stress."
 
On his last TD run after a long run by Huff
"That was amazing. I called him slow for not scoring. He actually said I should have scored, but it was decided for me, so it was team effort."
 
On the difference from Division II to Division I
"I say the resources, nutrition wise and the strength program. That's all the big difference I see."
 
On a short week
"Sometimes it helps and sometimes it still could be a little shaky because the offensive line still needs to get into schemes and stuff."