Opening Statement
“Obviously so happy about the win on Saturday. I thought it showed lots of improvement in a lot of areas. Had a lot of guys get to play. I think one of my main takeaways for the team is that it’s hard to get shutouts because if you’re a decent human as a head coach you want to put the twos and the threes and the fours in and the guys that have worked hard, so sometimes those guys go in there and they’re not as prepared. I was really really pleased with the level of play from our second and third and fourth team players. I thought those guys made plays and they knew what to do. They saved one or two plays and executed at a high level. The standard didn’t drop, which hopefully gives those guys confidence that they continue to play. I thought one thing about Akron was that they didn’t give up, they didn’t take their starters out, they played their guys to get better for their season in the MAC. Our guys had the chance to play starting caliber players. We had the chance to see a lot of our players on offense and defense and especially special teams on tape. I’m happy they were able to maintain the shutout, continue to score on offense and you saw flashes of the players we’ve been talking about. We turn our attention to Houston Christian. One and one, excellent defense, only allowed one third down conversion the entire year. Ranked in the top five in several defensive categories. Obviously it will be a real challenge for us. They ran for 400 yards for the first game, and they just had a couple key fumbles last week. I think they might’ve lost four, otherwise they might’ve come out on top against Eastern Kentucky, which is a perennial FBS power. I look forward to a great week of practices.” 

On Houston Christian
“We have a relationship with the guys at Houston Christian. We went down and ran a camp there. Obviously Coach (Jason) Bachtel came in as the OC and now he is the head coach. The defensive staff all came over from Hardin-Simmons, which if you know Division III football in the state of Texas, no one does it better than those programs. They know how to coach football. They’ve got excellent players. They’ve got some FBS Power Five guys that have transferred back. Really really active on defense. They’re going to challenge you with different looks. They’re not going to come out there and just let you line up; you’re going to have to get in the right play because they show you different pictures. Offensively, I like what they do. They can both run the football and they have athletes on the outside. They have an excellent offensive line. Coach Bachtel was at Argyle when Riley Van Poppel was there, so there are a lot of ties and history here, but I think they’re doing an excellent job. When you’re FCS in the state of Texas there are a lot of high school players and some guys who go off somewhere and want to transfer back. They have good facilities and it’s a great university. They’re doing a nice job there.”

On Turner Corcoran coming in as an extra lineman
“He played at left tackle and we wanted to try to use some jumbo 12, a big tight end in there along with Luke (Lindenmeyer) so we could try to take advantage of the edge. Try to run some of our duo plays and some of the other plays we didn’t get to. That’s one of the benefits of Turner, he’s so smart. He can be ready to play left tackle and tight end and not let it affect him. He’s a prime candidate for that, we have a couple of other guys who I know could do it. As Turner is working back into getting healthy, it just seemed like a perfect fit for him.” 

On punt returns
“The first week, we weren't super happy because we didn’t do a great job stopping Cincinnati’s gunners. Jacory (Barney Jr.) got hurt on the one. I thought Jacory did a nice job of making guys miss. That was one of the missed opportunities. We had one play where we had missed an assignment. We teach the guys if you get beat, then you cut bait and Jacory made the guys miss. We might’ve had an explosive one in the first one, but we didn’t quite execute it. Going back to this game, I instructed the offensive line and the defense when we have a punt return ‘hey, y’all should stand up.’ We had a plan to double the gunners and force big returns. They had three offensive linemen and a punter who wasn’t super able to run. We weren’t really afraid of the fakes, so now you can go to doubling the gunners and the minute you do that, you lighten the box, there’s a chance of someone faking it. We felt like we were going to have some opportunities and we just have a special, special guy back there in Jacory. Has anyone posted the one punt return where they literally take both outside guys and drive them off the field into the south end zone? The guys do such a nice job. Derek Branch, he served as captain last week, he ran a guy at Cincinnati off the field on punt return and continued to do a great job again this week. Kahmir Prescott, Rex Guthrie, we have a lot of guys out there that are really competing and playing hard. Anytime you can neutralize their outside people getting down the field, you have the chance of big returns and it was good to see. With that being said, we’ll have to continue to improve, but it was good to have those yards. Especially when we told them ahead of time, ‘hey you’re going to have chances on this, be ready.’ And the guys were ready. I was really happy with how they executed. 

On Heinrich Haarberg’s new role
“Everything for Heinrich is new and he’s working really really hard at it. Even in the pregame I said to him the first time you get that slice block, that’s a hard block, you got to run across the line of scrimmage. A lot of people cut that, but we don’t teach to cut it; we stay high. It’s a hard block to make. You have (Williams) Nwaneri or (Cameron) Lenhardt or someone like that on the other side trying to run through your face. I thought he did an excellent job. He took one more step, same foot, same shoulder, dominant contact, tremendous effort and ran his feet after. I thought Heinrich really made a huge step for himself; not just that play but the whole week. He should really be building confidence in his new role.”

On Luke Lindenmeyer’s development 
“I think the number one thing is that he’s always where he’s supposed to be. A lot of the things we do are not just ‘you run this route,’ but he made the one-handed catch early on in that game. That’s one where you run five yards, you sit it down, you hook in, if you get matched, you run out. You have a quarterback in Dylan (Raiola) who sees the defense, when a lot of people only see the offense, he sees the defense. The minute he sees a guy match, he’s expecting someone to break out. There’s a few times in the first couple years, that’s not a (Dana) Holgorsen play, that’s not a (Marcus) Satterfield play, that’s a day one play. There’s been times he’s expecting guys to break out and he’s not. It’s just difficult to play quarterback that way, when you play with anticipation. Luke is someone who is always going to do those things. He has great body control. He catches the ball. I think the one thing I want to make sure to say, I’m saying this for the players. Sometimes, when there’s Emmett (Johnson) or Luke, we characterize it as ‘once they got their chance.’ But some guys have to get better. Over the course of time, they get better in our program. I made the point to our guys that a lot of the guys in the white, which is like our third team, our practice squad like an NFL team. Where Ashton Murphy gets in there and gets a sack, and he looked really good doing it. A lot of those guys did really good things in the game and I tried telling them it’s because of the way we practiced. You practice against the starters everyday, you’re passing against really good players, so when you get into the game, you should make plays. So Luke is an example of someone who has continued to improve. You are correct, he had to get those opportunities and I think one thing about Dana is that he values routine plays and he values guys who can execute the plays, that guys who do that are really high level. They get the first nod and as they get opportunities they make a ton of plays. I’m really proud of Luke. Luke’s done a great job too of getting out here, he’s had some concussions and ‘is a full back, is he this.’ He’s just such a good job of developing his body, developing his neck strength, cutting down his body fat. I think a lot of it is just personal discipline in his life whether it be his faith or obviously his relationship, translates over into the things that you eat, the things that you drink, the amount you sleep. That leads to your body getting faster. To me, he’s a guy that’s building his speed, he’s just getting better and better and better. I think the same thing about Emmett. I always make sure, when I go back to what did I not see, what did I see, I think I said earlier that he had a tremendous camp. You could see out of Emmett, he really started to become a downhill, one cut runner compared to being a tremendous cut back runner. It works against some people, but some people it doesn’t. I loved his runs because they were inside zones, where he got into the line of scrimmage and he pressed it. He kept the ball frontside, he cut back late and he trusted his speed one time to the left side and one time down the middle of the field. They got him down, but eventually you get more yards compared to jump cutting and getting 10 yards down the field. I love the way Emmett’s developing, I love the way Luke’s developing. I think a big part of that is what they’re doing with their bodies. They have Kristen (Coggin) on them about ‘you’re two pounds under your body weight.’ The proof is in the pudding. It helps you play better as you get older. Really pleased with Luke though. Really pleased.”