UNIVERSITY OF TULSA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 20, 2021

Jaxon Player

Press Conference

Temple 10, Tulsa 44 line

Q. What does it mean to win on Senior Day? What does that mean to you?

JAXON PLAYER: It means a lot, especially for us who this is our last time playing in this stadium. To go out with a bang like that, it feels great.

Q. It kind of hard in this conference to have dominant victories. Why do you think this was so dominant?

JAXON PLAYER: We came out at practice, we practiced like we were going to beat them, so we came out here and executed and did everything we did at practice and worked out fine.

Q. Coach Montgomery said that you celebrated the win in a way, but still you're looking forward to that SMU game. How big is that game going to be?

JAXON PLAYER: Oh, it's just as big as this one. We treat SMU like they're the No. 1 team in the country, because we need to win this one. It'll be a big game, especially for me. Quarterback's a high school friend.

Q. Going off that, I guess how big is this -- describe what you're feeling heading into this game since the quarterback is a high school friend.

JAXON PLAYER: I been waiting to play him since I was in seventh grade. We've always been on the same team, so finally got a chance to play him.

I believe in our defense and our offense, and I think we're going to go out there and put on a show.

Q. Have you sacked him back in high school?

JAXON PLAYER: Oh, at practice all the time. All the time.

Q. And obviously going back to your home state, that obviously I guess has some meaning for you.

JAXON PLAYER: Oh, most definitely. SMU is about an hour away from my house, so it feels good. Have a lot of family there. A lot of us guys are from Texas, so it will be a great game.

Q. Did SMU recruit you?

JAXON PLAYER: They did at the ending of my recruiting, but they couldn't get me. I was Tulsa.

Q. With that, is there a little bit of you really want this win because of the fact they didn't take tabs on you early?

JAXON PLAYER: Oh, most definitely. Every year we play them they're marked on my calendar personally.

Q. Let's go back to this game. You guys third down conversions, hold them to 14 fourth down. That was huge. Just talk about that a little bit. How important was that in the game?

JAXON PLAYER: That was one of our biggest things about this game, because last week I think we -- they only converted 1 of 14 last week and two -- they went 0 for 2 in fourth down conversions, so this week we said we're going to come out and do the same thing.

They got one more than what we wanted, but I think holding them to two third down and two fourth down conversions out of 19 total tries is pretty great.

Q. I mean, how much momentum does that give your defense?

JAXON PLAYER: It makes our defense come out there with fire under us. We feel like we're the best out there when we do what we just did.