On handling success…
“It’s still early in the season, so I don’t think of it as handle success. Handling expectations is harder than handling success and failure … Expectations are what got us a little bit early on.”
“You’re only as good as your last snap — period. You’re only as good as your last snap and what we did yesterday pales in comparison to what we can do today.”
“If we think that we’ve arrived, we are going to go there and get throttled, absolutely throttled. So that’s our job as coaches to make sure that we stay grounded.”
“I think we have a bunch of humble kids. I think we have a bunch of hungry guys … we’ve won three games, which is awesome, but we haven’t done anything yet.”
On tight ends’ success scoring…
“I think they’re doing a great job of selling some run fakes and then getting open. Because we have similar [plays] that we’re running the football out of.”
“They’re doing a really good job of selling run, a really good job of finding windows and being big targets for [quarterback Avery Johnson]. And Avery’s got a lot of confidence in those guys too.”
On preparing for the mountain elevation…
“Two weeks ago, we were talking about humidity and heat, and now we’re talking about being cool and elevated. What a crazy [schedule] we have.”
“I know that [nutritionist] Scott Trausch and [trainer Mindy Hoffman] have talked about some things that we’re going to do with the guys … I think it’ll be an O-lineman’s dream because it’s probably going to be in the 50s by kickoff.”
“But It’s something that we’re aware of. We’re doing some things with our guys but it’ll be another element we have to handle.”
On the Provo environment…
“I was there once, I think in 2008 when I was at [University of Northern Iowa]. I remember how loud it was. I remember how gorgeous the setting was. And I know that football is really important at BYU.”
“They’ve had a great tradition of football, and they’re off to a 3-0 start. I think that as well as the fact it’s a great setting, it’s a night game, it’s on ESPN. It’s going to attract a lot of viewers and a lot of fans. The fact that you’ve got two undefeated teams that are playing pretty well now, I think it’s just going to be a great atmosphere for college football.”
On BYU’s offense…
“I think the quarterback is a really talented guy. It’ll be one of the better dual-threat guys we’ve faced thus far.”
“We’ve had guys like Tulane scrambled to throw [and] Arizona scrambled to throw. This guy’s going to scramble, throw it, scramble and run. Then you’re going to see some design runs for him too.”
“…We get that enough from [our quarterbacks in practice] against our defense. We’ve got to be able to try to slow him down. It’s going to be difficult because he’s a terrific football player. We can’t [let him] beat us with the explosive run or the explosive pass play, and that’s going to be a big challenge.”
On BYU’s defense…
“I think they’re physical and really sound. Defensive coordinator Jay Hill was the head coach at Weber State when I was the head coach at North Dakota State, so I’ve known him for a while. He’s a great defensive mind.”
“They mix it up between man and zone. They’re just so disruptive, physical and they run to the football. It’s what you expect, out of that type of defense with [Hill as well as head coach Kalani Sitake].”
“They’ve really dominated their three opponents on defense. That’s the big thing. They won the line of scrimmage. And that’s going to be the challenge this week: can we neutralize that?”
“We’re going to lose some battles, but can we win more of those one-on-one battles? That’s what it’s going to come down to is the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball and who wins more one-on-one battles.”