MONROE, La. -- ULM head coach Todd Berry, quarterback Pete Thomas and linebacker Cody Robinson met with members of the media in advance of Saturday's Sun Belt Conference game against Texas State.
ULM Head Coach Todd Berry:
Opening Statement…
Good afternoon! I hope everyone is doing well. I'm really excited to get back and going, obviously. I think I mentioned after our last ball game that there were some things that I was really excited about. As a coach, you are looking for these moments, these opportunities that these kids have that they can show you different things. During the off week, some of those things are coming to fruition right now so quite honestly I'm really excited about kind of where we are at. As Alex mentioned, obviously we still have some young men that are out for the season, but the rest of that group, basically ten other guys now are back with us and are practicing. That's exciting too, and I think it has brought some energy to our practices, because many of those players are not just guys that were starters, but guys that were seniors and have been around. They bring leadership too. I think it has created a significant amount of energy at practices. We had one of our better practices that I have seen us have since I've been here on Sunday. I think that's going to carry through to today, because I think they are seeing some of the same things that I'm seeing, so quite honestly I'm very excited to watch us play on Saturday. I have tremendous respect for Dennis Franchione. I've known coach Fran for a long, long time. I think Dennis has done a phenomenal job if you look at his career and what he has done every place. He's a program builder and he's doing that there at Texas State. You can see that in this football team. There's no question that they are continuing to improve. They are gaining respect in relation to how they've done this. Coach Fran is going to do it the right way, all the time. I'm talking about the way that he runs the program and how the kids react and how hard they play and so on. Obviously they've got some significant new facilities that they just built. I've seen some video of those and they are just phenomenal. That has helped him in recruiting also. Consequently, we know that we are going to be taking on a very good football team, one that has the same record that we do. I'm anxious to get back to playing.
