On this fall camp in general: 

“I’ve gone through a lot of fall camps so I don’t want to speak about the past but it’s a new start almost. I think there is a really good energy around the team right now and just building that brotherhood right now since January. We’re excited to get going and rolling on the season.”

On the difficulty of this year’s camp and what it means: 

“Every camp is going to be hard. That’s kind of the point of the camp. It was a hard camp but everyone in the country went through a hard camp. But it’s what you do in those small details that matter. How you attack the hard practices and the meetings when you’re tired. It’s how you attack all of those. I thought our team did a really good job of attacking those little details when you’re tired, sore and don’t want to do it anymore. I think we did a good job of pushing through and attacking each rep we did.” 

On how familiar he is with Minnesota after five years: 

“They know what they do. They do it at an extremely high level. It’s gonna be a big challenge for us but we're up for it. We're excited. We're not making excuses. It's August 31. It's not Minnesota. It's just a name and a place and an opponent that we have to prepare for. They have had really good success in the Big 10 in the past five years. They do what they do and they do it at a high level. Just prepare like it's your last game ever.”

On the mentality of starting the season with a conference game: 

“Starting 1-0 is great and that's the goal. You go 1-0 every week. Especially opening with a conference game that's huge for standings at the end of the year. It's super important but there's no difference between Minnesota and Louisiana Tech. It's the same preparation and the same respect for those opponents no matter who we are playing against.”