Coach Charles Kelly

Q: Coming off of a big win over Kennesaw State, prime time on national television. What was the big takeaway from that contest? 
A: It was a great atmosphere for our players to play in. I can't thank the fans and our students and faculty, alumni, the Southerners-- I can't thank them enough, because it was a definite home field advantage. It was a good win for our program. But, you know, this is a long season, so many people talk about this game, and our players understand this. This isn't the end of the season. This is the beginning of the season. And there's a lot more work to do, and it's no different than any other game. We enjoyed it for 24 hours, and then we put it behind us, and then it's time to go to work right now.

Q: Give us a scouting report on FIU
A: First of all, Willie Simmons has done a done a really good job. He is a really good football coach. I've known Coach for a long time. He has put together a really good staff. They do a good job. They're very well coached. They got good players on both sides of the ball on offense. They can run the football, they can throw the football. They've got a 1,000 yard rusher themselves. I think he's a few yards away from being at 2,000 yards for his career. They got two capable quarterbacks that can get the ball to their playmakers in space defensively. I think they're really good on the defensive front. Their linebackers are very active, and you know, their coaches do a great job with their backs in secondary. So, we got our work cut out for us, but  we talk about every week, it's going to be about what we do. It's going to be about execution. It's playing the next play, taking the next shot. It's that. That's what we've got to focus on. And we got a lot of respect for them as a team, but we've got to focus and make sure we get better on what we got to improve on.

Q: How do you avoid in the locker room the mindset of maybe overlooking this game, especially with records and all
A: I love our discussions. I love talking with you, and I love when sometimes you throw those questions up like that. We are not going to let our players eat this rat poison. That's what that is. That's rat poison. That rat poison is good, and it tastes good. It tastes good, but then it gets to our players and us as coaches, this is the biggest game of the year. It's the biggest game of the year. Every game is a championship game. Every game, that's what it is. And you know, as I mentioned Saturday night, and I've shared with the players, this how I learned to win championships. It's like you're in the Masters. You're playing Amen Corner. We're in Amen Corner. We played 11. We're on 12 now. So a lot of times, people that have the lead, what they do is they look at the leaderboard. When they start looking at the leaderboard, they hit the ball in the water, and we can't do that. We're just focused on the next shot. We're focused on the next game. Because I truly believe that, and I believe our players believe that every game is a championship game. And I know this about our conference. I said this, and I'll say it every week, we got really good coaches in our conference. We got really good players in our conference, I would dare say. And I'm not saying we're better than anybody else, but I dare say that our conference is competitive as any in the country. I mean, I have people that have never watched Conference USA play, that watch us play every week, and they think, "Man, y'all got a Heisman Trophy candidate playing for y'all." I mean, that's what I get from people on the outside that have never watched this conference. And then they say, these teams that y'all play, I mean, it is really good. Y'all play physical football all the teams in this conference, and these coaches are good, and you got to be ready to play every. Every week. So I think that part is the way we've got to keep our our mindset. Because, you know, if we don't take care of business, of what we've got to do right now, then the next one's not as big as it was. So that's kind of our mindset on how we look

Q: You guys are the underdog on Saturday, fourth time in Conference USA, your thoughts on Vegas apparently, keeps thinking you're going to lose.
A: I don't think it matters what anybody else thinks it's what they think, that's the most important thing. It's what they think. And listen that that depends on a lot of different things. But, you know, I think it's a good lesson. I think it's a good lesson in life for them. Every single day that you breathe air, you have to go out and earn your respect at whatever craft you do. You have to earn it every day. As a football coach, they judge you on the last quarter, not the last game, the last quarter. And I've been fortunate enough to be around some people that taught me how to work hard, to not think about results, you don't look behind, you don't look way down the road. You just look at right now, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what people think. It matters how you execute, whether you're underdog or not. If you execute, you win the game. If you don't execute, you don't win the game.

Q: Cam has been especially good in the fourth quarter. Why is he so good late in the game?
A: He's like a great boxer. When you step in the ring with a great boxer, there's a lot of guys that can last 13 rounds, or back in my day, it was they last 13, but they couldn't make it to 15, because the guy that was the real dude, won it in the 15th. That's the way he is. He's a champion and he does it, the tougher it gets, the more he wants it. It's like, give it to me, give it to him. And, you know, for a great back to do that. And again, I had the fortune of being around some really good backs, even when I was playing and guys that I've had opportunity to be on the team with, I've not been around one that is any better at that stage of the game. I mean, I looked out there when we were two scores up. I mean, it was a goal line defense. They had nobody in the middle of the field. But, we were in clock management, so we were going to run the ball. And, you know, great backs. Doesn't matter how many people you put in the box, eventually they're going to run over one or make one miss. It's not always about just taking the RPO. If you give it to a dude, you give it to him, he's going to make one miss, and that's what he does. But he's like a boxer, he's  going to stay there, and he's going to figure out, and sooner or later, he's going to be able to throw his punch.

Q: How do you balance the finding maybe time to sneak in a rest day or just a lighter day to keep these guys healthy, with the need to prepare for these final games?
A: I think our guys are in extremely good shape. We took a little bit of it off the when we had the short week against Delaware and kind of the way the schedule set up this year, we had more time, I know, like Tre'Quon and I talked about it. We actually felt like we had more time off than some of the other places that we had been at. So we tried to take advantage of that. We gave them a few days off then, but one thing about staying in playing shape is you, and it's tough on them. It was tough on anybody that played the game. But you can't go more than a few days without banging a little bit, or your body gets to where it's back to square one. So it's a fine line of that manage and how we practice, the number of reps and and things like that. So I told them after Sunday night's practice, I was like, we were out on the field less than 24 hours after we won the game. And, I was like, okay, tomorrow's your off day. You got to make sure you take care of your body and do those things. But, I think your body kind of gets used to it this time of the year.

Q: Have you ever been involved in a game where gave up as many yards as you did and the opposing team didn't punt and you still won the game?
A:  I think I was on the other end of that at Middle Tennessee one year, my first year here, they, I think we had over 600 yards offense, and they won the game. You know, our whole object is to win the game. I thought our coaches didn't let their ego or their pride get in the way. I said it to begin with, I told the secondary, if we don't give up a touchdown over the top, they had scored on 1% of their plays. So their objective was to run as many plays as they could. Well, they ran a lot of plays, but we were going to make them drive the ball. They have one drive 14 plays score. They had another drive 13 plays. Well, you're going to give up some yards. You know when you do that. Now, we had some third downs. We had penalties that extended their drives. But you know, when you play good, you can play the game and not necessarily play great from an overall statistic, but if you play situations good, if you play third down, if you play red zone, if you play two minute, the beginning of the half, the end of the half, and then you play those situations good, then you got a chance to win. I mean, one time, I think I had one safety. One time we played 99 plays against Syracuse on defense. He played all 99 plays. And he played all the special teams. I think he played 121 snaps in the game. That was my last last year at FSU. He never came out of the game. I saw Travis Hunter played 120 snaps one time when I was at Colorado, playing on both sides of the ball, I mean, so, yeah, I've been in those games where you're on the field a good bit and again, at the end of the game, like I said about the Southern Miss game on Saturday night, when we played Southern Miss, if you look at the yardage, we would have won the statistic. Nobody remembers those statistics. They just remember that Southern Miss won the game and we turned the ball over four times. Well, tonight we got four turnovers.


CB Tre'Quon Fegans

Q: You guys are out there for a lot of plays, little bit of bend, but don't break. The mentality of being able to just keep going and just defend the end zone, walk us through playing in a game like that.
A:  Coach (Brian Williams) had great preparation throughout the week, so we prepared good. So that led up to us playing well, and our motive was to beat them back to the ball, because we know they're very fast paced offense, and we did that. We lined up. Everybody communicated well on the same page. We knew it would be good.

Q: Talk about the relationship with Coach Kelly. He mentioned how long you guys have known each other through the recruiting process at other places. Obviously he had to play a big role into getting you here. But what's it been like playing for him again?
A: He gave me an opportunity that many didn't give me. So you know, I appreciate him for that. And like our relationship, he's been knowing me ever since Alabama, he recruited me so, you know, we built that area, like over there, and we just kept connected ever since then. And got a he got a great connection with my family too.


RB Cam Cook  

Q: You were named a semifinalist for the Doak Walker Award. Pretty high praise to be named one of the 10 Best running backs in college football. What went through your mind when you found out that you were one of the top 10?
A: Just like the amount of work that me and the guys have put in. So, credit to the O-line, credit to Coach (Rick) Trickett, credit to the offensive staff trying to give me the ball, like, that's just like a little step for us, like showing everybody what we're doing. 

Q: What do you feel about the Heisman campaign that they have started for you?
A: I love it. I love like the energy of the fans, I love everybody that's like trying to be there for me and really put me out there. But that whole vibe I really messed with.