Jax State Football Press Conference 2026--North Dakota State
8/25/2026 5:26:00 PM | Football
Coach Charles Kelly
Q: National TV, one of the few games that are happening this week. Obviously, a lot of excitement in Fargo with their move up from the FCS to the FBS. Give us an idea on this game and how you go about approaching this first contest.
Charles Kelly: First of all, it's game week, and that's the most exciting thing. A lot of people don't see the work that goes into getting to this point. In some ways, it feels like we just got off the bus after playing the bowl game, but then some days it seems like it's been forever to go through winter workout, to go through spring practice, summer training, conditioning, fall training camp. So, it's an exciting time for everybody. I think we're very excited about this opportunity. I'm excited for our players, our team. I'm excited for our university. I'm excited for our alumni, our fans, all the former letterman, because it's two great institutions that have years and years of winning, and it's a great opportunity for both schools with them making the move up like we did a few years ago. But our players are excited about it, and I have a ton of respect for North Dakota State. I think Coach Polasek has done a fabulous job. I mean, if you look over the years, the last time I was at the Fargodome was in 2005 when Craig Bohl was the head coach, and they've had somebody within that family be the head coach throughout the years, and I dare say that they're probably the only team that's been more consistent than them in college football is maybe Alabama and maybe Georgia here lately. What they've done is very impressive. So it's going to be a big challenge for our players, but that's what we want. We want challenges. We want to find out where we're at. I know our players are excited. I'm excited. Preparation's been good, so we just got to continue that.
Q: How do you prepare for that environment, especially of being the first road game of the season. Just knowing that place is probably going to be rocking and with the move up and all that.
CK: I'll say this: what we will focus on is what we can control. That is what we're going to focus on, and that's what our players are focused on. We're focusing on first of all, we can control our preparation. We can control how we prepare. Now, in that preparation, there's things that we create, crowd noise and things like that. We can control that. We can control our eyes, our eye discipline. That's one of the biggest things in football, especially in early games, putting your eyes where they're supposed to be. We can control our effort, how hard we play, and then we can control how we respond. We can control whether it's adverse situation, how we respond, or if we're up, how we respond because you have to do that. We can control those things. That's what I want our guys and our team and our coaches to focus on are the things that we can control. We can't control how many people they have. We can't control whether we play in the parking lot. Doesn't matter. It's still going to be 100 yards long, 53 yards wide. All right, they're going to have two goalposts, and that's how we're going to play.
Q: You've mentioned in preseason that Caden (Creel) has improved as a passer. Could you expand on that, and also maybe a desire to possibly use a passing game more than a year ago?
CK: Our philosophy here is you got to be able to run the ball to win, and you got to be able to throw the ball to score. Last year, you play what your strengths are. Our strength was our running game, and we want that to be a strength this year too, but I think for us to improve and get to where we want to get to as a team, we have to be able to throw the ball more efficiently. That doesn't mean that we're going to throw it 60 times a game, because I see very few teams that win very many championships when you do that. That's just me, but we've got to be efficient throwing the football, and I think Caden's become more efficient. I think our receivers have improved. I think we have some talented guys there, but we've got to prove it in a game. I like the way they work, and I like the chemistry that you know Caden and our other quarterbacks have with those guys, but it's like anything else. We've got to execute it, and that's one thing I talked about. What we can control is the execution part.
Q: I know you weren't here when the when the program made the transition from FCS to FBS, but you followed the program for a long time. In your eyes, especially now that you've been in it. What has made this transition so successful at Jax State?
A: I've said this before, but this is out of respect for all the coaches and the players that have played here before. Is this place has a tradition of winning. It didn't matter whether you were Division II, whether you were FCS, didn't matter what league you were in. Tradition matters, and tradition doesn't guarantee that you win. In fact, I tell our players all the time: when you get on the bus, tradition gets on with you. When you get off the bus, or excuse me, when you get off the bus, tradition gets off with you. It's up to you whether it gets back on with you on how you play. But I do think when you have tradition, there are expectations. There are high expectations here. The standard here is high, just as it is at North Dakota State. There are differences in us schematically what we do offensively, what we do defensively, as opposed to them. But I would hope when people watch this play, they say, you know what? They play very similar. They play very similar. They're tough. They're disciplined. They're hard nosed.
Q: Entering a new season, you were talking a second ago about expectations. How there's expectations for your team. You're in the conference championship season to go. What are your expectations for this season as a whole? Does it go beyond the conference? Like college football has changed a lot in recent years. Does it go beyond that? What do you tell your guys when it comes to expectations? Well,
CK: What we try to focus on is yes, we we have high expectations of what we want to accomplish, and we have goals. Every time we play a game, our goal is to win the game. That's it. That's the simple goal. But we don't focus on those expectations and goals. We focus on what it takes to get there. Again, I go back to controllable. If you do the things that it takes to be successful, you will get the result that you want to get. I tell the players, they probably get tired of me saying this. But it's like climbing a mountain. Many mountain climbers that look at the top, they slip and they die. You got to take it step by step, and if you can control what you can control, and you're successful at doing that, then you know we let it play out, you know the way it plays out. But make no bones about it that every time we walk on that field, our expectation and our goal is to win the game.
Q: You touched on it a little bit, but the the tradition of winning on both sides of these programs met in the 2016 title game. Obviously, long history on both sides. Week zero nationally televised game. How do you approach that with a team in terms of a magnitude of a stage like this? Do you downplay it? Do you address it? How do you kind of approach that in the lead?
CK: No, I don't think I have to address that because I think I think these young men know how important and and what a great opportunity it is. Let me say that it's a great opportunity. That's the way we look at it to be able to compete against them. This is why you play to playing games like this. But our focus can't be on that. Our focus has got to be on what we have to do to make ourselves play the best. Again, when you worry about all the outside noise and the outside circumstances, it's hard to do. It's hard to do. There's too much information out there. People hear it all the time. But again, our job is to try to keep our guys as focused as we can on what it takes to execute and gives our give ourselves a chance to reach those goals.
Lucas Mrachkovskiy
OL
Q: The first time you played center was in front of 40,000 people at UCF last year. Walk us through getting through that first game.
LM: I felt prepared for it. I was a little nervous. Never played center before. I really just want to get over the first snap. Like I knew our offensive coordinator told me what the first play is going to be on Wednesday, so I was thinking about that play for three, four days, exactly what I was going to do. And after that, ripping the band-aid off, I was fine. I just wanted to get over with.
Jawaun Campbell
DL
Q: Year three for you now in the program. Do you see yourself as one of the leaders of this group?
JC: Yes, sir, for sure. Me and Lucas are very well good leaders in this group, and we just want to be great leaders for the young guys coming up, so we can show them the way.
Q: Just to have the opportunity to do that Week Zero on a national stage, just how excited are both of you for that opportunity this weekend?
JC: I'm very excited. They have a great program over there. They do. They've been waiting for a long time, and just to be able to go against a program like this and measure up, I'm very excited.
LM: I'm also very excited. I mean, I do want that's a great program in two great conditions. I think it's a really good game.
Q: National TV, one of the few games that are happening this week. Obviously, a lot of excitement in Fargo with their move up from the FCS to the FBS. Give us an idea on this game and how you go about approaching this first contest.
Charles Kelly: First of all, it's game week, and that's the most exciting thing. A lot of people don't see the work that goes into getting to this point. In some ways, it feels like we just got off the bus after playing the bowl game, but then some days it seems like it's been forever to go through winter workout, to go through spring practice, summer training, conditioning, fall training camp. So, it's an exciting time for everybody. I think we're very excited about this opportunity. I'm excited for our players, our team. I'm excited for our university. I'm excited for our alumni, our fans, all the former letterman, because it's two great institutions that have years and years of winning, and it's a great opportunity for both schools with them making the move up like we did a few years ago. But our players are excited about it, and I have a ton of respect for North Dakota State. I think Coach Polasek has done a fabulous job. I mean, if you look over the years, the last time I was at the Fargodome was in 2005 when Craig Bohl was the head coach, and they've had somebody within that family be the head coach throughout the years, and I dare say that they're probably the only team that's been more consistent than them in college football is maybe Alabama and maybe Georgia here lately. What they've done is very impressive. So it's going to be a big challenge for our players, but that's what we want. We want challenges. We want to find out where we're at. I know our players are excited. I'm excited. Preparation's been good, so we just got to continue that.
Q: How do you prepare for that environment, especially of being the first road game of the season. Just knowing that place is probably going to be rocking and with the move up and all that.
CK: I'll say this: what we will focus on is what we can control. That is what we're going to focus on, and that's what our players are focused on. We're focusing on first of all, we can control our preparation. We can control how we prepare. Now, in that preparation, there's things that we create, crowd noise and things like that. We can control that. We can control our eyes, our eye discipline. That's one of the biggest things in football, especially in early games, putting your eyes where they're supposed to be. We can control our effort, how hard we play, and then we can control how we respond. We can control whether it's adverse situation, how we respond, or if we're up, how we respond because you have to do that. We can control those things. That's what I want our guys and our team and our coaches to focus on are the things that we can control. We can't control how many people they have. We can't control whether we play in the parking lot. Doesn't matter. It's still going to be 100 yards long, 53 yards wide. All right, they're going to have two goalposts, and that's how we're going to play.
Q: You've mentioned in preseason that Caden (Creel) has improved as a passer. Could you expand on that, and also maybe a desire to possibly use a passing game more than a year ago?
CK: Our philosophy here is you got to be able to run the ball to win, and you got to be able to throw the ball to score. Last year, you play what your strengths are. Our strength was our running game, and we want that to be a strength this year too, but I think for us to improve and get to where we want to get to as a team, we have to be able to throw the ball more efficiently. That doesn't mean that we're going to throw it 60 times a game, because I see very few teams that win very many championships when you do that. That's just me, but we've got to be efficient throwing the football, and I think Caden's become more efficient. I think our receivers have improved. I think we have some talented guys there, but we've got to prove it in a game. I like the way they work, and I like the chemistry that you know Caden and our other quarterbacks have with those guys, but it's like anything else. We've got to execute it, and that's one thing I talked about. What we can control is the execution part.
Q: I know you weren't here when the when the program made the transition from FCS to FBS, but you followed the program for a long time. In your eyes, especially now that you've been in it. What has made this transition so successful at Jax State?
A: I've said this before, but this is out of respect for all the coaches and the players that have played here before. Is this place has a tradition of winning. It didn't matter whether you were Division II, whether you were FCS, didn't matter what league you were in. Tradition matters, and tradition doesn't guarantee that you win. In fact, I tell our players all the time: when you get on the bus, tradition gets on with you. When you get off the bus, or excuse me, when you get off the bus, tradition gets off with you. It's up to you whether it gets back on with you on how you play. But I do think when you have tradition, there are expectations. There are high expectations here. The standard here is high, just as it is at North Dakota State. There are differences in us schematically what we do offensively, what we do defensively, as opposed to them. But I would hope when people watch this play, they say, you know what? They play very similar. They play very similar. They're tough. They're disciplined. They're hard nosed.
Q: Entering a new season, you were talking a second ago about expectations. How there's expectations for your team. You're in the conference championship season to go. What are your expectations for this season as a whole? Does it go beyond the conference? Like college football has changed a lot in recent years. Does it go beyond that? What do you tell your guys when it comes to expectations? Well,
CK: What we try to focus on is yes, we we have high expectations of what we want to accomplish, and we have goals. Every time we play a game, our goal is to win the game. That's it. That's the simple goal. But we don't focus on those expectations and goals. We focus on what it takes to get there. Again, I go back to controllable. If you do the things that it takes to be successful, you will get the result that you want to get. I tell the players, they probably get tired of me saying this. But it's like climbing a mountain. Many mountain climbers that look at the top, they slip and they die. You got to take it step by step, and if you can control what you can control, and you're successful at doing that, then you know we let it play out, you know the way it plays out. But make no bones about it that every time we walk on that field, our expectation and our goal is to win the game.
Q: You touched on it a little bit, but the the tradition of winning on both sides of these programs met in the 2016 title game. Obviously, long history on both sides. Week zero nationally televised game. How do you approach that with a team in terms of a magnitude of a stage like this? Do you downplay it? Do you address it? How do you kind of approach that in the lead?
CK: No, I don't think I have to address that because I think I think these young men know how important and and what a great opportunity it is. Let me say that it's a great opportunity. That's the way we look at it to be able to compete against them. This is why you play to playing games like this. But our focus can't be on that. Our focus has got to be on what we have to do to make ourselves play the best. Again, when you worry about all the outside noise and the outside circumstances, it's hard to do. It's hard to do. There's too much information out there. People hear it all the time. But again, our job is to try to keep our guys as focused as we can on what it takes to execute and gives our give ourselves a chance to reach those goals.
Lucas MrachkovskiyOL
Q: The first time you played center was in front of 40,000 people at UCF last year. Walk us through getting through that first game.
LM: I felt prepared for it. I was a little nervous. Never played center before. I really just want to get over the first snap. Like I knew our offensive coordinator told me what the first play is going to be on Wednesday, so I was thinking about that play for three, four days, exactly what I was going to do. And after that, ripping the band-aid off, I was fine. I just wanted to get over with.
Jawaun CampbellDL
Q: Year three for you now in the program. Do you see yourself as one of the leaders of this group?
JC: Yes, sir, for sure. Me and Lucas are very well good leaders in this group, and we just want to be great leaders for the young guys coming up, so we can show them the way.
Q: Just to have the opportunity to do that Week Zero on a national stage, just how excited are both of you for that opportunity this weekend?
JC: I'm very excited. They have a great program over there. They do. They've been waiting for a long time, and just to be able to go against a program like this and measure up, I'm very excited.
LM: I'm also very excited. I mean, I do want that's a great program in two great conditions. I think it's a really good game.
Players Mentioned
DL
/ Football
OL
/ FootballTuesday, August 25
Friday, August 14
Friday, August 14
Thursday, August 13
