STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 7, 2024

Collin Wright

Postgame Media Conference

Stanford 41, Cal Poly 7

Q. Just walk us through that interception that you had.

COLLIN WRIGHT: Really just a great call from Coach April. Coming into the week last week it was all film study. Coach April knew they would come with that concept, so he put me in a great position. All I had to do is catch the ball.

Something I can be better at is ball security. Don't want give them a chance to get the ball back. Overall, I think it was a great play. Got our defense off the field and gave our offense a chance to score.

Pretty exciting.

Q. Collin, offense commits an early turnover and you get off the field allowing zero points. How big was that momentum early on?

COLLIN WRIGHT: I think it's always big. Something that we came into the week with is being the best defense on every snap, every drive. So I think that's something we embodied this game. I think obviously reflecting on last year and the game we had last week, I think a big part of this game was winning early.

When you win early you have a better chance of winning and being the best defense, you let your offensive coordinator and your offense be more comfortable out there.

So I think that's something we embodied all week, all camp. It goes all the way back.

So doing that early and just giving our offense a chance is something that helped us a lot.

Q. What can a game like this do confidence-wise heading into ACC play?

COLLIN WRIGHT: Good. I mean, obviously everybody knows what happened last year when we played an FCS school, so definitely none of us take any opponent for granted. We game plan the same, do all the daily operations the same.

Obviously we're going to go against some great teams in the next couple weeks and the whole entire season, so we'll just keep preparing, getting better at the little things, and if we do those things we'll have no issues.

Q. I know guys say the past is the past. All we do is focus on what's ahead of us. You guys know you hadn't won here in a long time. How does it feel to get that monkey off your back?

COLLIN WRIGHT: It's awesome. It's good for everybody. It's good for us as players, good for the student body, our coaches, just everybody that's involved in these game day operations just for us to go out there and represent our university and get a win.

And just, yeah, like you said, it's been a minute. Since I was a freshman. I'm a junior now. So it's awesome for the guys that have been here who went through that early just like I did to finally get that turned around and be able to celebrate at home is great.

Q. What's the domino effect on the rest of the team when your special teams are making all the kind of plays they did, not just in one phase, but in almost every phase of their game?

COLLIN WRIGHT: I think it is a momentum changer. That's what our coaches told us all week. Going into this week we knew we had to be great on special teams. They showed some things that we thought as a special teams unit we could attack and we did. We came up with a blocked kick and obviously Tiger's awesome touchdown.

So those things are just momentum changers that change how everybody plays. Get more energy on the sideline, guys start feeling it. Those plays definitely helped us get over the early slump.

Q. Just talk about third quarter. You outscored them 17-0. What do you think was the key to flipping the switch so effectively in the third quarter?

COLLIN WRIGHT: I think just knowing that we're a good team and going out there and playing. I think in the first half in all three phases we were a little hesitant for some reason. Just trying to not let them make the play instead of just going out there and playing fast.

That's something that that switched at halftime, we had great locker room energy coming into halftime, guys telling us to compete, go hard, and I think that good aura that we had in the locker room was just amazing and got the guys to go out there, and like you said, held them scoreless in the third quarter, so it was awesome.

Q. I did want to get some thoughts on the trick play that they scored on you guys. What kind of happened on that play? Just defensively break down. From a defensive perspective, what could you have done differently on that one touchdown they did score?

COLLIN WRIGHT: Just bad communication. We have to be better, I have to be better, just as an entire defense we have to be better. Coach put us in a good position. We just have to stay focused, locked in, and eliminate those plays so it doesn't happen.

Us as players, we'll take the blame for that. We got to be better, communicate better with each other.

Thank you. Go Card.