MONROE, La. - ULM head football coach Todd Berry, wide receiver Tavarese Maye and linebacker Hunter Kissinger met with the media Tuesday afternoon in advance of Saturday's road contest at Middle Tennessee.
Below are selected quotes from Tuesday's event and the entire press conference can viewed inside Warhawk All-Access.
Head Coach Todd Berry
Opening Statement...
"I'm
obviously excited about what happened in the Superdome against Tulane. I
thought we're continuing to get better as a football team and I'm encouraged by
that. One of the things that I mentioned going into the game that I thought was
going to be important for us and was important for our players and important
for our staff was that ability to be able to look at some of our younger
players that we really hadn't had a chance to see. If you look at the last
couple of years, and certainly many before that, you get in some of those SEC
games when the game gets away from you and you get some younger players in. Or,
you have an FCS game that you play early in the season and you hope that you
can get some of those young players in. For us those first three games were so
tight that it didn't create a lot of opportunities. We felt like we have some
young players that can play and I think that that was demonstrated down in New
Orleans. Not everybody can play yet, but there were some guys that showed up. I
was really excited about that because it was their first opportunity to get
some significant game time."
"I think it's going to be significant going down the road
here. We're looking at 12 straight games and we'll need to be able to play some
of our younger players, otherwise it's going to be a very long season for some
guys that don't ever get a break."
On Middle Tennessee...
"We have a great challenge this week. I think Middle
Tennessee is very similar to us in the sense that last year, they had a lot of
young players out there and had a lot of injuries. I can empathize with some of
the things that (Head Coach) Rick (Stockstill) was going through last year.
They started off the season probably not the way they would've liked, but they
have picked it up every week. They have a new defensive coordinator in Tyrone
Nix, who does a good job on defense. They like running the football. They will
give you some looks and create some problems for you. On offense, they are
running the ball exceptionally well, and then their quarterback has a 70 per
cent completion rate. There's a different style about them this year, and I
think it fits their personnel well. We're going to their place, and I'm sure
they'll be fired up to play in front of friends and family and I think we're
excited to finally get into conference play. There's more on this game then
there was on the past ones."
Tavarese Maye
Lighting in Superdome...
"At the beginning of the game, we caught a lot of balls to
adjust to the lights because the lights were very different. They were over the
top of us instead of outside of us. The coaches had us catching balls before
the game to adjust to it."
Hunter Kissinger
On First Game Experience...
"It was an awesome experience. I wasn't necessarily
expecting to get into the game that early. It was a great experience being in
the Superdome. To go out there and play like I did really helped my confidence.
Letting my teammates know I can go out there and perform was important."
On Middle Tennessee...
"I
feel like the first conference game is important because it sets the tone on
what you're going to do. Nobody wants to start out 0-1 and everyone wants to
start out 1-0. We've shown the nation what we're capable of. Now, we want to
show the conference what we're capable of by going into this first game and
getting a 'W'."
