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BELL HELICOPTER ARMED FORCES BOWL MEDIA CONFERENCEDecember 8, 2013Chet GladchukChris MassaroKen NiumataloloBrant RinglerRick StockstillTIM SIMMONS: Welcome, everybody, to the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl, featuring the two schools featured in the 11th annual game to be played December 30th with an 11:45 kickoff on the campus of TCU here in Fort Worth. Today we'll lead off the teleconference with Brant Ringler, the executive director of the bowl game. If you could kind of give an idea of how this matchup came about. BRANT RINGLER: Obviously quite aware with the Naval Academy, we had a contract in place with them prior to this season. We're excited to have the midshipmen coming to Fort Worth. On the other side of the ball, Middle Tennessee out of Conference USA will be the opponent. That changed a little bit due to our conference partnerships that our company has with various conferences across the board. We were able to make sure that Middle Tennessee had a place to go this year and we are more than excited to have the Blue Raiders coming to Fort Worth. TIM SIMMONS: Brad, as the only bowl game that really features the armed forces, how excited are you having another service academy? This completes the Trifecta having all three military academies play. BRANT RINGLER: It's our 11th bowl game in Fort Worth, our eighth as Armed Forces, we think it's quite an accomplishment to have all the academies play in our conference. We're the first bowl to ever have all three in one bowl game during their tenure. We can't wait for Navy to get down here and enjoy what we have to offer here in Fort Worth. TIM SIMMONS: When will the teams arrive in town? BRANT RINGLER: The teams will come in on the 26th. We'll have a nice team welcome party for them down in downtown Fort Worth, Sundance Square. We'll have the festivities for bowl week the next several days after that. TIM SIMMONS: Obviously one of the players on Middle Tennessee was nominated for the Armed Forces Merit Award, Steven Rhodes. An honor to have that gentleman who is a military veteran participating in the bowl game. BRANT RINGLER: No doubt about it. Anytime we can add a different military element to our game, it just adds to the festivities that we have around our game. So we're definitely proud to have him onboard, as well. TIM SIMMONS: We'll take questions for Brant. Q. Can you talk about the lure of Middle Tennessee coming down here. They got snubbed last year being 8‑4. BRANT RINGLER: They were 8‑4 in the Sunbelt last year, but this year they're 8‑4 in Conference USA. They've had a great run this last year. They're on a five‑game winning streak. They're leading their conference in rushing. They bring a high‑powered offense. We think it's going to make for a great matchup against Navy. TIM SIMMONS: We welcome athletic director Chet Gladchuk. We look forward to entertaining you in Fort Worth come the end of December. Chet, if you could give us your observations about playing in Fort Worth, completing the Trifecta of the military academies participating in this bowl game. CHET GLADCHUK: We're very, very proud and grateful to be a part of this. Being independent forever, for that matter, we've worked strategically over the years with the different bowls to create opportunities. It's always been a vision of ours to at some point be a part of this prestigious bowl. As you pointed out, we complete the Trifecta. To be able to have the opportunity to be down there and be part of a bowl now for as many years as we have been, it's truly exciting. I appreciate our head coach, our players what they've done, appreciate how difficult it is to achieve that eligibility. Texas has been good to us. Anytime we played in Texas, whether it be in Houston or up in the Dallas area, we've had a wonderful turnout. So we expect that to be the case. Ticket sales have been going well because we've had an opportunity to jump‑start things the last couple weeks, having been eligible a couple weeks ago. We're ready to play and looking forward to being a part of it. I think Ken is as well. We have a little unfinished business this weekend, that being the Army/Navy game in Philadelphia. Soon as that box is checked, all of our attention will be focused on heading south to the great state of Texas. Thanks, Brant, for allowing us the opportunity. TIM SIMMONS: As an athletic director, is it any benefit to have the knowledge when you're ticketed for one game, and when you get bowl‑eligible, is there a sense of relief? CHET GLADCHUK: Absolutely. The advantage we've had is by being independent, we've been able to predetermine our destinations. I've always said this. You know, Navy comes with a guarantee, the pageantry of the service academy, the commitment that our fans make to all the places we could be, in this particular case Texas. We create a bit of an advantage by knowing where we're headed. Of course, with it comes some anxiety, wanting to deliver, wanting to become eligible. Of course, Kenny has done a magnificent job on delivering that. Anxiety yes, a little bit of apprehension yes. But a great relief when we know Navy is heading south. TIM SIMMONS: Questions for Chet Gladchuk. Q. Chet, how would your fans' stronghold in Dallas‑Fort Worth compare to some of the other markets y'all go and play in? You have quite a bit of fans all over the country. What is the depth of the ones here? CHET GLADCHUK: I think what is unique about the Naval Academy is that our alumni base are just more so than ones that have graduated from the Naval Academy. SanDiego, Charlotte, we've been all over in terms of our bowl presence. What we have been able to do is not just deal with our alums, but if anyone has served in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines or Coast Guard, they rally around the military flag, so to speak. Proud to say that with the 10 bowl games we've appeared in in the last 11 years, we've never not sold all of our allocation. If you look at the attendance in the bowl games in which we've appeared, you'll see there's a tremendous cross‑section from the military from all walks that will be a part of it. Extremely confident, as when we played SMU, we'll have a strong contingent of fans. Q. What year was that that you played SMU? CHET GLADCHUK: A couple years ago. It was a regular‑season game, not a bowl game. Last time we played in Houston, just down the street, I think we sold 22,000 tickets. Texas has been good for Navy. TIM SIMMONS: Brant Ringler, Navy is scheduled to play 2016? BRANT RINGLER: 2016. TIM SIMMONS: It was a two‑year agreement with the Naval Academy. Chet, thank you very much. We look forward to entertaining you in Fort Worth. Coach Kenny, congratulations on another successful season at the Naval Academy. If you could give us a brief recap of the season to date knowing you got one of your biggest games coming up this weekend, but kind of a comment about your season to date. COACH NIUMATALOLO: Well, first of all, we're very honored and humbled to be involved with this bowl game. We're super excited about coming down to Dallas. I heard a question about our fans and alumni base in the Dallas area. I know that Dallas and the state of Texas has been a huge area for us in recruiting. We're excited about it, our program is excited about coming down there. We're excited about playing a very good Middle Tennessee team. If you're 8‑4, we recognize how hard it is to win. So for them to be 8‑4 shows what kind of season they have. We're excited about our season.  We've had some tough wins and some tough losses. We feel like we were a couple plays away of actually being 9‑2. We also feel like there's some games we could have lost also. We're happy to be 7‑4. One of our main goals was beating Air Force, going into the biggest game of our year this Saturday with a chance to win the Commander in Chief Trophy outright. We're very excited about that. We're, again, grateful to be affiliated with this bowl. We're grateful for the job our athletic director has done getting us affiliated with such a great bowl game. It should be a lot of fun. TIM SIMMONS: Can you single out any players on offense, defense or special teams that have been the mainstays of the Naval Academy this year? COACH NIUMATALOLO: Well, on offense, our team, like most teams, centers around our quarterback. Our sophomore quarterback Keenan Reynolds has had an outstanding year, played some really good ballgames. He's led us through many different things. He's right now at 26 touchdowns. He's on track hopefully to break the all the time NCAA record for rushing touchdowns by a quarterback. But he's instrumental in our entire offense. He's had a great season. He got injured in one of our games, actually a game we lost, but was able to come back and has played really strong. Our leader on defense has been Cody Peterson, our leading tackler, but also our team captain on defense. Those two, along with a number of others, have been guys that have helped us get to this point. Our only chance to compete is to be a selfless team. There's so many guys to mention on both sides of the ball and on special teams that have helped us get to 7‑4. But we're a team that are a bunch of hard workers that are grateful for the opportunity we have to represent our school in a bowl game. Hopefully we'll do well. TIM SIMMONS: Coach, your athletic director and yourself have mentioned Texas. Can you single out any of the top players from Texas that will be competing for you in the bowl game? COACH NIUMATALOLO: One of our best runningbacks is from the Dallas area, Darius Staten. I know he's really excited about coming back and playing. Off the top of my head, one of our D‑linemen, Aaron Davis, is from the Texas area. He's been a very good player for us. He's actually more I think from the Houston area. Quincy Adams, and Noah Copeland, another one of our runningbacks from the San Antonio area, very good football player. He's been injured, but has been a two‑year starter for us. Hopefully he'll be ready to come back and be ready in this football game. TIM SIMMONS: Coach, talk a little bit about your preparation between now and the bowl game December 30th. What is on tap? You have a game this weekend, but what will you do after that? COACH NIUMATALOLO: All of our focus and preparation is on the Army week. This is a big game for us, the biggest game for us in the season. That's where all of our focus is. Once that is over, we'll start our preparation for Middle Tennessee. It's tough for us, quite frankly. Bowl games are hard for us just from the standpoint that we're in finals. Normally the bowl games we play are in late December. We have to find a way to carve out time to practice. Obviously our school, like most schools, take academics very seriously. We just have to make sure our guys are prepared for their finals, try to make sure we get some practices in here. We'll maybe get four practices in next week after the Army game, practice here, then we'll get a couple practices there once we get to Fort Worth. We've been playing this whole time where most schools have been done. We've been going this whole time and practicing. Hopefully practicing this whole time, getting ready for Army, will make sure we're prepared for Middle Tennessee. TIM SIMMONS: Once you get to Fort Worth, what will you be doing? Do you change your procedure in practices or do you have most of your planning in prior to arriving? COACH NIUMATALOLO: That's actually a great question. Quite honestly, some of it's a little vague right now because we weren't really sure who we were going to play. Some of that stuff, as far as preparing for our opponent, was a little bit vague. What would normally have happened at this time, we would have our graduate assistants break down tape to look at Middle Tennessee so we can start to formulate our game plan. The hard thing about it, we finish the Army game Saturday, then most of our guys will be on the road recruiting. I don't know if there's any team in the country that will have practices where really we might have three guys at practice where everybody else is on the road recruiting. Our coordinators will be here getting ready for the game while most of our coaches will be out on the road recruiting. Really the first time we'll practice together will be in Fort Worth, but it won't be our full squad, it will be our bowl team that will be there along with all the coaches. The first practice we'll have together, our entire staff, those that will be playing in the game, will be in Fort Worth. We'll maybe have three or four practices there. TIM SIMMONS: Questions for coach. Q. Is it difficult to balance the excitement of knowing you're going to a bowl game given this week you're preparing for a serious game against Army? Also, with the players having finals this week, that must add another layer of challenge for you as a coaching staff. COACH NIUMATALOLO: It's hard from the standpoint that all of our focus right now is on Army. As excited as we are about the bowl game, we know that's coming. Now that we know who our opponent is, we already knew where we were going as soon as we became bowl‑eligible. We were very excited. Guys started looking at some preparation as far as being in that area, looking at the stadium, practice facilities. That's stuff we knew about. Now we found out who our opponent is. All of our focus and preparation right now are on the Black Knights. This week is going to be unique preparing for our biggest game, having finals. I don't know, ask me after the game. Hopefully we'll win. But this is hard. We've been planning for a couple weeks now, trying to get in practice time that doesn't conflict with any exams. In all of my 16 years of being here, this is the hardest we're going to have schedule‑wise getting ready for Army. I don't know, we'll see what happens. Q. When you go to bowl games, you're always looking for a different experience. Is this Navy's first bowl game in Texas? COACH NIUMATALOLO: Our other bowl game we played in Houston. Like Chet said, we played SMU, have been in the Dallas area. I've been to the Dallas‑Fort Worth area for recruiting. We're excited just from the standpoint we know football is huge, the number one sport, high school football, in Texas. We're excited about the opportunity to continue our recruiting in Texas. For us as a staff and as a program, we're really, really excited about being able to come to Fort Worth. The Metroplex, that area, is an area that we want to continue to recruit very heavily. TIM SIMMONS: Coach, obviously in Texas, a big name is Roger Staubach. Is he involved with your program in any way? COACH NIUMATALOLO: Well, anybody that's met Roger recognizes what a humble man he is. For all of his accomplishments, everything he's done both on and off the field, he tries to stay in the background a little bit. He's not one of those guys that's going to be in the front, tooting his horn. He constantly sends me emails. If he's ever in the area, he may send a note or something. He's always very supportive, sending emails and texts to congratulate our program. But he supports us from afar. He's very involved with our program, but he's a guy that, like I said, doesn't want to be the guy in the front tooting his horn or anything. He's just a great supporter by doing it from afar. TIM SIMMONS: Brant, Roger will be speaking at the luncheon on the 27th, am I correct on that? BRANT RINGLER: That is correct. TIM SIMMONS: That will be the morning that we have a press conference with the two competing coaches and the luncheon is 12 noon at the Omni. Q. Ken, with you guys being still in game mode, is there an advantage to that, where you're not off for a couple weeks before you go back to practice? COACH NIUMATALOLO: Well, we've been in game mode practicing. I think the one disadvantage, now Middle Tennessee knows who they're playing, so all of their focus can go on us, where maybe they were off, doing lifting. Not sure what Coach Stockstill has been doing. Our focus has been on Army, staying in game mode. But the hard part is we can't really focus on the Blue Raiders yet. That's tough. We obviously have to get through this game, make a quick turnaround, try to get ready for a good Blue Raiders football team. Q. You're very familiar with this Middle Tennessee area. I think there's seven kids from Tennessee on the squad. Your quarterback is from the Nashville area. Several of the kids know a lot about MT, as well. COACH NIUMATALOLO: It's been a great area for us in recruiting. The guy who started recruiting for us is our assistant coach Ashley Ingram. We felt like everybody was in Atlanta, but there's some good football players in Tennessee. We started with Nashville, but then we got some kids from Memphis, Knoxville. We got some guys from all over the state of Tennessee. We feel it's an area that's been under‑recruited, so to speak. It's a place that has good football, good grades, people are patriotic there. We're excited. We know that guys on our team will be excited to play guys they've played with or played against in high school. We know there's some good football players because there's some guys over the years we've looked at that ended up going to Middle Tennessee that we didn't get. Q. Steven Rhodes is on this team, defensive end from Middle Tennessee State. He's a former Marine. He had to get approval by the NCAA to play. Did you follow that story at all? COACH NIUMATALOLO: I was able to follow it. The NCAA made the right choice. Holy smokes, what are they doing? Sometimes there's so many things and rules. I'm glad that common sense prevailed. TIM SIMMONS: Coach, thank you very much for participating today. We look forward to seeing you in Fort Worth in a couple weeks. COACH NIUMATALOLO: Thank you for having me. TIM SIMMONS: Next up is Chris Massaro, athletic director of Middle Tennessee. Chris, welcome to our teleconference. Thank you for participating. Can you make a comment about your team participating in the 11th annual Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl. CHRIS MASSARO: First, we're absolutely thrilled to be in the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl. To us, to be able to be associated with the United States Naval Academy is terrific for our institution. We couldn't be more thrilled with the location and our opponent. Just the fact that we're playing Navy has everybody energized here on our campus. TIM SIMMONS: Tell us what your thoughts were in bowl planning. Where were you thinking about heading when this game came up? CHRIS MASSARO: I think one of the things you want to do when you look at bowl games is first who's on the other half of that bowl. For us, we've always had the philosophy to try to position ourselves to play the most attractive opponent as possible. We have definitely accomplished that objective this bowl season. We couldn't ask for a better opponent than the Naval Academy. We've watched them play football. I'm 52 years old, and I've watched them play football all my life. They have great history. We couldn't be more proud to go against them. So we're excited about the opponent. We're excited about going to Dallas. We've been there a few times to play North Texas in Denton. Our players are kind of familiar with the Metroplex. So we're ready to go. TIM SIMMONS: Have you got anything special planned when the team plays here in Fort Worth with alumni functions and other things? CHRIS MASSARO: We're just starting to put that together. This really maybe wasn't on our radar screen until the last few days until it kind of evolved. We're putting some of that together. One of our alums runs the Texas Motor Speedway, so we're hoping to be able to do an alumni function out there and get with him. We're looking forward to doing some of those kind of things. There's lots of opportunities in the Dallas area. Also one of our runningbacks that played here plays for the Dallas Cowboys, Phillip Tanner. We're excited to be able to have that kind of connection also. TIM SIMMONS: When you talk about the Texas Motor Speedway, what is the gentleman's name? CHRIS MASSARO: Eddie Gossage. TIM SIMMONS: Questions, please. Q. Conference realignment has hit pretty much everybody, including your school. Can you talk about the move to Conference USA and how it's opened up additional bowl opportunities for your team, other schools that have made that jump. CHRIS MASSARO: Thank you for that question. That was one of our overriding principles when we joined Conference USA. We felt like for all of our sports it would enhance our post‑season opportunities, particularly in football. Coming from the Sunbelt Conference where we had two direct tie‑ins to Conference USA with the six, that was very comforting going through this process to know we were guaranteed a bowl slot. That was not the case a year ago. We were 8‑4 last year. This Sunday was one of the most disappointing days we've ever had here on this campus. The conference realignment has been very good for us. We couldn't be more pleased with the Conference USA bowl picture. Q. Chris, can you talk about the players' reaction this year compared to a year ago. What was it like when Coach Stockstill told them the good news of where they were going? CHRIS MASSARO: It really was night and day. We had it where Brant called Coach Stockstill during the middle of a team meeting to welcome and invite our football team. They were absolutely ecstatic. They're thrilled with a bowl. It's a bowl that everyone's familiar with. Also to play the Naval Academy was just more than they could have hoped for. It was night and day from a year ago. Q. Chris, Eddie Gossage doesn't do anything small. What might he have planned for you? CHRIS MASSARO: It's sort of unfair because I haven't talked to Eddie yet. We'll make contact. He's one of our most prominent alums. We are thrilled. He's always been very active for us. Every time we've gone into the North Texas area, Eddie has always extended a helping hand. We're looking forward to putting our heads together to see what we could cook up. Q. Anything in the past you've done with him out there? CHRIS MASSARO: We've done some things with some of our fans and alums where we've toured the speedway. He's given us rides around the track in the racecar. We've had dinners and lunches in the towers and those kinds of things. He's been very, very generous to us. TIM SIMMONS: In 2007 we even had our luncheon out there, didn't we? BRANT RINGLER: Yes, we did. CHRIS MASSARO: One other thing I'd like to point out, too, I think Coach Ken said it best, that Middle Tennessee, Tennessee, there's a lot of patriotic people here. Our campus is filled with it. We're proud of our designation that we're one of the most military‑friendly campuses for the third year. We've been designated that by GI Jobs Magazine. Only 15% of the campuses across the country have that distinction. We've done it three times. That's important to our DNA as a campus. That's why we're real excited to play the Naval Academy as our opponent. TIM SIMMONS: Chris, we thank you for taking time to participate. We look forward to seeing you in the next couple weeks in Fort Worth. Coach Stockstill, welcome. Can you give your opening thoughts about playing the Naval Academy and playing in the Armed Forces Bowl. COACH STOCKSTILL: First of all, I'm very honored and appreciative to be selected to play in this game. It's a game we've always admired and respected from afar. I've never played in it as a coach before, so I'm really excited about it. Then you throw in the opportunity to play such a tradition‑rich program like Navy, it will just add to the experience for our players, our coaches and fans. I'm honored to be able to compete against a really good football team in Navy. TIM SIMMONS: Can you talk about any of your players that have made an impact for you this year on offense, defense, special teams. COACH STOCKSTILL: I think you start with our quarterback. He's a senior. He's had an excellent career. He's the first quarterback in school history to throw for over 2000 yards, three consecutive seasons. He's the all‑time leading touchdown passer here at Middle Tennessee. So he's had a really good career. Josh Walker, a senior, offensive lineman. Logan Kilgore, our quarterback, he's a captain. Josh Walker is a captain. He's a senior, been very solid up front. He's the leader of our offensive line. Those two guys stand out. We've really been banged up at runningback this year. We've played about six different runningbacks because of injuries. We've still been able to run the ball pretty effectively. Then defensively probably Kevin Byard, our safety, is an excellent football player. He's got four interceptions, I believe. He ran two of them back for touchdowns. T.T. Barber is a sophomore linebacker. He got a couple interceptions, run one back for a touchdown also. I think he's second in the conference in total tackles, in the top 10 in the country for tackles. Those guys are excellent football players. Those would be the four guys that probably stand out the most. TIM SIMMONS: Can you tell me, is there an advantage with Navy playing one more regular‑season game, do you think that's an advantage for you that you'll have extra time for your team to watch them in real game action? COACH STOCKSTILL: I don't think so. I think it's probably overrated a little bit. Obviously we'll watch the game Saturday. But we're in finals week now, so we'll go to class, take finals all this week. Our coaches are on the road recruiting. Most of the game planning and preparation for Navy won't take place for a while. That Army/Navy game is always special. It's always been fun for me to watch. I've always watched it no matter where I've coached. Now that we're playing Navy, I'll have that much more interest in it. TIM SIMMONS: Talk a little bit about the preparation. You said you're in finals week. Will you do the bulk of it before you get to Fort Worth or will you have valuable practice time beforehand? COACH STOCKSTILL: I think it will be both. You try to get most of your work done here so your players can enjoy the reward of the bowl, be able to partake in the activities down there. Our coaches are on the road this week recruiting. Our players are in exams. We'll try to get in four, five, six practices next week after the exams, and then I'll give them several days off to try to go home for Christmas, then they'll come back Christmas night, then the 26th we fly in that morning to Fort Worth. We'll have three or four practices there, looking at the schedule. TIM SIMMONS: Talk a little bit about Steven Rhodes. Obviously we're honored to have one of the individuals nominated for our Armed Forces Merit Award. Talk about this military veteran who is a freshman on your football team this year. COACH STOCKSTILL: Yes, sir. Steven, he's fit in well. He came in here in the summer. Everybody is well‑aware of the ordeal we went through to try to get him eligible to play this year. It worked out where he could. Each game he's worked his way in a little bit more playing time. He started out probably the first half of the year contributing on special teams. Now he's started to get several snaps a game on defense. He's fit in. He's done an excellent job. He's a great teammate. He practices hard. He competes hard. I know he'll be excited to play in this game. This will have a little bit of extra special meaning for him, I'm sure. TIM SIMMONS: With a player like that on your squad, do you try to recruit young men coming out of the military? Conference USA had three players in the conference that were nominated for the award. Do you make any effort to recruit those kids or is it just luck of the draw? COACH STOCKSTILL: A little bit of both. I think at times, especially in Steven's case, he went straight into the military out of high school. Six years later he's married, he's got two kids. You don't find many that are willing to be a full‑time student, be a full‑time football player when they have the obligations and responsibilities that they have of having a family. At times you got to find a special person. I have a great deal of respect for all the men and women that serve our country. Any chance I get to talk to somebody that would be interested in playing on our team, I welcome with open arms. TIM SIMMONS: Questions for Coach Stockstill. Q. Coach, how much more fun is it to tell your team they're going to a bowl game, especially after what happened last year? COACH STOCKSTILL: To be honest with you, I can't justify it in words. I said it last year, I've said it many times, that that was the hardest thing that I've had to do in 30 years of coaching, was to stand in front of that team and tell them that you were 8‑4, played for the conference championship, you were in second place, won four out of your last five games, and you're not going to a bowl game. They're taking somebody else that had a worse record than you, and you beat them on their home field. It was very heartbreaking to me. It was very emotional to me and that team. Then to be able to stand in front of them a year to the day later, we knew we were going to a bowl, but we just didn't know where. So it was a lot better feeling. I told them to think back to their emotions that they had at this time last year, to understand and appreciate how special going to this bowl is going to be. Q. You had a tough game at North Texas, but bounced back well from that loss. What's happened since that time for you guys? COACH STOCKSTILL: At that time we came off of a tough stretch there. We got beat by East Carolina by a touchdown. We got beat by BYU. Two excellent football teams. At that time that's kind of when our injuries started happening. I'm not making excuses, but we had a true freshman right guard, we had a redshirt freshman center, we had a redshirt freshman right tackle. Our runningbacks, two of them were hurt. Our quarterback had a separated shoulder. We weren't as healthy as we were these last four or five games. Plus North Texas is an excellent team. I don't want to take anything away from them. They're a good football team, evident by their 8‑4 record, them going to a bowl game. We stayed the course. We didn't panic. We didn't panic as coaches, as players. We continued to work and compete, followed the plan. That's what we did the last five games of the year. That was the seventh game at North Texas, that was the seventh game without a break, without an open date. We needed a little break. We got a week off there. We had a great upset win over Marshall. We got it rolling there. Really proud of our team. Q. Coach, can you talk about how you told them? Maybe you had a phone conference type thing. How did you tell them today? COACH STOCKSTILL: I sent them a text, a mass text, at about 12:00, I guess, 11:45. I gave them the weekend off. I said, If you're in town, we're going to meet at 1:00 and I'll update you on the bowl situation.  At 1:00, we had about three‑quarters of the team there. I told them that we were going to the Armed Forces Bowl, told them who we were playing. Then I got the call from the bowl officially offering it to us. I accepted. Had them on speaker phone. Our players got excited, yelled and screamed a little bit. Q. Coach, you were talking about this day last year, telling your team they were not playing in a bowl game. Does the move to Conference USA sort of justify what you thought? What does it mean for your program going forward knowing if you do win seven or eight games, your season will continue? COACH STOCKSTILL: It absolutely justified it. Going 8‑4 is hard to do. It's hard to win eight games, especially with the schedule we play. We beat Georgia Tech last year. They're the division champs of their side in the ACC. They go 6‑7 and go to a bowl game. We're sitting there, we beat them, we're 8‑4, we can't go. That's the beauty of being in Conference USA over the Sunbelt. I guarantee you, Rutgers is jazzed out of their mind. They won their sixth game last night to go to a bowl game. If you don't think that locker room was excited, happy after that game... We're sitting here with eight wins. To be able to go to a bowl... You can sell this in recruiting. You come here, we've got six bowl tie‑ins with Conference USA. They're all great bowls. It's a great opportunity to experience the bowl. That's one of your goals as a football player. You want to play. You want to be on TV. You want to win championships. You want to go to bowl games. It's something you dream about all the time. Now you've got in Conference USA six opportunities every year. Q. What kind of role model is Steven for the rest of your team? Is he somebody they look up to not just on the football field but what he's done with his life? COACH STOCKSTILL: I think so. I think it will probably be more next year and a couple years down the road than right now. He didn't get here till August. Now it's only been three months, four months here, that they've been around him. They really only see him from 3:00 to 6:00. When practice is over, he's going home to a wife and two kids. He's not hanging out on the weekends with them. He's not over at the dorms playing PlayStation, all that. But our players do respect him. They understand his story. They understand his sacrifices. He's a great teammate, like I said. I think you'll see it build, the camaraderie, the respect level go up more and more as they get to know him better. TIM SIMMONS: Coach, by playing a bowl game in Texas, is Texas a place where you emphasize recruiting? Looks like Navy recruits Tennessee quite well. Is this game going to help you recruit the state? COACH STOCKSTILL: We don't recruit it a whole bunch. We had a couple players, Phillip Tanner, our runningback, he was the first player I signed. He went to Kimball High School. He's now with the Dallas Cowboys. He's a great ambassador for us. We have two players from Texas right now on our team, but they don't play. They're both redshirted. But I just think being in Texas because of the magnitude and the respect that Texas high school football, Texas high school football coaches have, us just being there practicing at that high school, being on TV, being in the paper, we might be able to attract somebody to Middle Tennessee because of our exposure there in the Dallas‑Fort Worth area. TIM SIMMONS: Thank you, coach. We'll see you in a couple weeks. Thank you, everyone. We appreciate you participating in the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl teleconference. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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