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FAMOUS IDAHO POTATO BOWL: AKRON VS UTAH STATEDecember 21, 2015Terry BowdenJatavis BrownCody GriceConor HundleyBoise, Idaho COACH BOWDEN: Well, again I've said several times how thankful and appreciative we are to the folks here at the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl for inviting us to this game. We're just thrilled to be here. It's a credit to these players and, again, the accomplishments they've done. And so much of it is the journey as much as it is the destination when you go to a bowl. And for these guys to come from where they've come from to the first bowl game in 10 years it's very special, very special for these guys who worked so hard. This bowl has just treated us fantastic. They had a great time. In fact, we had people without shirts on tubing in the snow yesterday up on the mountain. We've got snow in Ohio, we just don't have mountains. They were enjoying the festivities. But we've just been treated like royalty. And we appreciate everyone here. Seven or eight years ago my brother brought his Clemson team here, and all they could talk about was how well this bowl is run and how wonderful it is. And my father did the prayer breakfast three years ago here and talked about how good and gracious the people are. So this team, we're proud to be here. We are thrilled to be here. Our young men will tell you we've come here to win a football game. We haven't come here to show. We know we've got an excellent opponent who is much more experienced at this bowl experience. Five straight years they've gone to a bowl. That's where we want to be. I guess we're kind of where they were when they made that move, when Utah State began that drive, and they've won, I think, their three last bowls, they've been here three of those five bowls. They know their way around. They beat us in bowling and beat us in the trivia thing. So we're 0-2 on those things. So hopefully we can get one win before we go. But we look forward to it. We've got fine opponents, an outstanding head coach, and I'll just open it up for questions or however y'all would like to do it. Q. Cody, you've been really good against the run this year and obviously I know you probably have a good part in that. What's enabled you guys to be so good against the run seemingly week in, week out? CODY GRICE: Well, you know, preparation is everything. Our leader, Coach Amato, he stresses that all the time every day. When you've got guys like Jatavis Brown and Dylan Evans who call the rest of the team together to get together and do film studies. So, I mean, preparation -- you know what your opponent is going to do before they come out in the huddle. And, yeah. Q. Jatavis and Cody, I think this is Coach Amato's 35th bowl. Has he told you guys any stories? CODY GRICE: Coach Amato, that's an ancient guy there. (Laughter) So he has a lot of experience in this category. He tells us all about it. And he actually -- we wanted to see his -- I asked him to send me a picture of his rings -- you know, his house is back in Raleigh. And his wife or his daughters, one of them, sent us a picture of all his rings. I just couldn't believe it. He's got enough rings to fill your hands and toes. So, yeah, that's something special. We just want to touch one of them. JATAVIS BROWN: I would agree with Cody. He's been around the game a long time, and he knows how to prepare for bowl games, what it takes to win a bowl game. He's been preaching that to win one you gotta prepare like we've been preparing the whole season, and really focus on what our goal is and that's to win the game. Q. Coach, what's it like to coach a guy like Cody? Every time I've seen him he's had a quip or something like that and obviously you've used him in different situations. Just seems like the kind of guy that would probably be fun to coach? COACH BOWDEN: You know, it's a good question because over the years I've coached some of the guys that were outstanding athletes. They're good because they're good. They're good because they're blessed with talent. I don't know if they even love football, some of them. They're just blessed with talent it's what they're good at. Every day we go to practice Cody has fun. He has fun. He's spirited. It's enjoyable to be around him and coach him. And the other players catch that. Leadership has to be caught by -- somebody has to follow. Somebody has to be a good leader. But it's that contagious, fun personality. And I think he enjoys football, makes it fun, but plays hard. This will be, when he plays tomorrow, the 49th straight starting game for him. Has never been done before at Akron, that's huge for us. And so it's not just play. But we try to -- he tends to make practice a little bit of play for us in that it's fun. So that's the one thing that we'll miss. We'll have leaders step up in the future. We'll have good players step up in the future. But it's hard to find those personalities that just, they just, they kind of are a statement about the team and they kind of become something that you -- I think when these guys are older they come back, they'll think about the fun times, the fun things that Cody has done as much as the good play that he's had. Q. Jatavis and Conor, talk about Utah State defense. What you see about their offense. And then Conor, talk about Utah State's defense and what you see from them. JATAVIS BROWN: Offensively Utah State they're a good offense. They've got the guy, Chuckie Keeton, he's their guy. He's been battling a lot of injuries this year but he's their guy we know. In order for us to win the game we have to keep him under control. As far as the receivers and the running backs, they are good, too. They rely a lot heavily on Chuckie Keeton to keep the going. A big part of our game plan is to hold him under control. CONOR HUNDLEY: As far as their defense goes, their defense is very good, especially up front and their linebackers. They play on every play and they use their hands very well and they're athletic and they swarm to the ball. So look forward to playing against their defense. Q. Could you talk about how they've done? There have been some pretty good moments. What has impressed you the most? COACH BOWDEN: Our defense, we made a decision that we were going to build our season around our defense and try to build an offense that ran the ball, that controlled the clock a little bit more. The Midwest, where we come from, probably like this, about November, where championships are won or bowl games made, it's going to be snowing or raining, very cold and it's going to come sideways. And you'd better be able to run the football and play defense. And I learned that. We threw it almost every down when I first came to create excitement at Akron, but we had to make some changes. Conor Hundley is very critical to that, because we weren't going to be the team we needed to be until we made those changes and ran the ball based on our defense. And so these guys up here our front seven is the strength of our defense, our linebackers and our front four first in the conference in rushing, first in the conference in total defense, third in the nation in rush defense. Coach Chuck Amato, I turned my defense over to Chuck Amato. He was my dad's associate head coach for 18 years, head coach at NC State for six. One or two of those years he had the number one defense in the nation. Always understands, I think, defense starts with stopping the run. Even in today's game of passing the football, you still want people to pass in situations that they don't want to pass in -- second and long or third and long, those situations. So our front four -- front seven -- have been the key. We had a very young secondary but they came through and they've been a very big part of our defense, what they've been able to accomplish and how they've played. But we knew the strength would be linebackers, front four, front three, linebackers, and they've come through for us completely. They played so well. Just as an example, our last ballgame we were up 14-0 at halftime. Thanks to our defense holding the other team to a shutout. Then our running game came back, we had the ball for 12 and a half minutes in the third quarter on a drive, ended up with a field goal. They fumbled the kickoff, we had it all the way until 12 and a half minutes in the game before their offense saw the ball. So to add the running game that Conor -- I think we rushed for over 200 yards. Every game -- we won all the last four games and our defense would get us in the position where they would keep the other team down low. That's just been an important part of what we are now, starting with our defense. Q. Jatavis and Cody, could you talk about kind of the dark days at the beginning and what this has done to, now you're enjoying a bowl experience and just how special has it been just when you think about how far? JATAVIS BROWN: It's unbelievable right now the experience we've been going through the past couple of days. At the beginning of my college career, things weren't so good. We went 1-11 the first year, 5-7, 5-7 again. It was tough on us. We always believed in each other. We had commitment and belief, and we should answer the bell. And we finally answered the bell and we believed in each other. We kept fighting. Finally we're at a bowl game looking forward to win. CODY GRICE: To pick off what Jatavis just said, it was dark days at the beginning but we continued to push forward and believe in one another. The offense believed in the defense and defense believed in the offense and we came together. Now we're here. This is a special thing for us. Q. Conor, could you answer this, too. And Cody. Do you get a sense on campus of just -- I mean, I know before you left just how much this means to the university just the success of you guys and the soccer team how it's lifted up what was a tough summer? CONOR HUNDLEY: I think it's big for the university. I know last night we were talking about how big football can be to a university and how a university can rally around a football team. We talked about it at the beginning of this year with some issues with our budget of our university. And we said at the beginning of the year if we do something special our university can sort of rally around us. And I think we did a good job in the offseason working hard towards this goal and as a team we came together and I think we've done it. CODY GRICE: For sure, definitely. You feel the love and support from the staff and your other teams on campus. And also around the city. Like yesterday, I'm a local guy so I get to hear a lot more than what our guys here would hear. We get a lot more respect. We just want to continue that on and just create this program to be a top program. Q. Cody, as a guy who is from Akron, when you decided to go to school at your hometown school, do you remember some of the things people said to you, because it was 1 and 11 the year before you started playing there? Do you remember some of the things you heard at the time? CODY GRICE: Well, you know I got a lot of scrutiny from -- I had other schools that were looking at me. And I told myself I wasn't going big time. I was going to go nowhere but Akron, especially if I was going to the MAC, because that is my city. I love my city. And you know things, guys would stay stuff like Akron is going nowhere, nowhere fast. Akron doesn't recruit. That was the biggest thing, Akron doesn't recruit the Akron area, which now we've got Coach Bowden, I don't know how many guys we've got on the team that's from Akron, but there's plenty now. There's multiple starters, backups, walk-ons, so that's the biggest thing. Q. Who is the star of the teasing thing, anyone have an answer for that? CODY GRICE: Kyle Ritz. Kyle Ritz. He's crazy. COACH BOWDEN: Yes, Kyle Ritz is a redshirt freshman lineman. He's an engineering major. One of the brightest guys on our team. But knucklehead, look like a knucklehead, which I love it because you like to see those guys that are excellent student-athletes like he is who -- when you say let his hair down, his hair is long and he lets his hair down. That is great. I didn't know Kyle was the one; I was hiding in the ski lodge at the time. Q. Conor, you mentioned that Utah State defense a little bit. I know when they've been able to create turnovers they've done very well, but you also have an offense that tries to limit those. What's a key for you guys against that defense tomorrow? CONOR HUNDLEY: I think a lot has to do with what we've been doing all year. We had a commitment to running the football all year which has helped reduce our turnovers, and we've also made a commitment to reduce our turnovers all year. At the beginning of the year we had to do some kind of punishment if we had a turnover in practice, whether it was up/downs or actually run-in, and it showed throughout the season. Q. When you got the bowl berth, you made a crack about growing up in Akron and palm trees would be nice this time of year, but have you still enjoyed this? CODY GRICE: Oh, my gosh, how could you not be grateful, for the years we've been through? I mean, to go sledding. For us, that's one of the funniest things to see guys like Jaja from Florida who has never even seen snow or sledding and they go down that hill and it's just -- and then to see them freezing out there because they come out there in sneakers and a windbreaker and think they're going to be okay. So I had so much fun doing this and being with my teammates and just -- and the city of Idaho, not the city of Idaho but the city of Boise is actually pretty nice. Pretty nice. Q. Conor, do you notice a difference in the offensive huddle when Cody comes in on offense? CONOR HUNDLEY: Yeah, I mean, it definitely might get a little bigger with Cody in there. But, yeah, in practice when he comes in he's always smiling or dancing or something getting us excited about playing football. When he comes in the huddle, we're very confident in him that he's going to get the job done, that we're either going to get that short yard to play that first yard or touchdown or very definitely confident with him in the huddle. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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