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FAMOUS IDAHO POTATO BOWL: IDAHO VS COLORADO STATEDecember 21, 2016Mike BoboFred ZerblisNolan PeraltaKevin DavisBoise, Idaho THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Colorado State. We'll start with an opening statement from Mike Bobo, then we'll take questions. COACH BOBO: First of all, we're excited that it's close to game day, a little over 24 hours until we play our game tomorrow against Idaho. We've really enjoyed this week. Just talking to these three guys in the locker room a minute ago, had a good time this week. Any time your players win enough games to go to a bowl game, it means you accomplished something that season, and we did. The way we played, the way we fought back this season, we finished strong. It's something that we're proud of. The guys continue to work and believe in each other and believe in their coaches. Really excited about trying to finish off this season the right way. We got one more opportunity to play as a group, to play together, to go out and have fun. We've had enough fun at the bowl, and now it's time to have fun playing football. So we're excited about tomorrow and ready to play an outstanding football team. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. Coach, yesterday we talked and you talked about the team having to lock in. Do you feel your team is now locked in? COACH BOBO: I do. We talked about it after practice yesterday, but then we had to go take a break and go snow-tubing. We were going to be over around 4:00 or 5:00, that's 48 hours before the game. I talked to the guys about what we do normally Thursday before a Saturday game. Don't know what day of the week it is, but it's Friday to me. Talked about locking in. Thought we did that by the way they came out and had a walk-through during practice, had a great practice. Friday is our Fast Friday, we try to fly around, simulate game speed. Probably one of the best practices we had the day before the game. Liked the look in their eyes. Now we just got to go play. Q. You probably talked about Nick Stevens more times than you would have liked to, but he's been instrumental to the way you ended the season. How important is he to the success of this team and how has he changed since he got the job back? COACH BOBO: He deserves to be talked about. He's done an outstanding job for this football team. He started off the year as a starter. We decided to make a change. A lot of times that's not easy to hear that. Nick not only said the right things about how he was going to approach the next day, the next few weeks as a member of the football team, but it was the way he acted and carried himself around his teammates. He was a good teammate to Collin Hill. He was a good teammate to his fellow players. He was very encouraging. He also worked on the improvements that we talked about that he needed to work on. Kind of had a different perspective sitting back. Then when the opportunity came to go into a game, he took advantage of that opportunity. He's playing at a high, high level right now. His teammates around him are playing at a high level. It's really a difference between the way he played the end of last year and the way he's playing now. We're able to be a lot more balanced offensively. There's a threat of a passing game. It's enabled us to be more explosive. He does a great job in our run checks, in our protection. He has the confidence of his teammates. A big part of that is I think he developed more as a leader of this football team in the time that he wasn't the starter, how he handled it, how he approached every day, how he controlled what he could control. Then when he had to come back in, I think the players knew they weren't going to miss a beat because of how he handled every situation. Q. For the players. Offensively, defensively, you have gotten off to quick starts recently, getting stops on defense, scoring touchdowns on offense. Do you have any concerns with keeping that momentum as you head into the bowl game considering the layoff you have had? KEVIN DAVIS: Yeah, I don't think so. This last week, I guess the last couple days, we've kind of done it just how we have the rest of the season. So the practices are the same, the same structure. I think we're pretty used to it. Just ready to go. FRED ZERBLIS: Yeah, I mean, coach and the staff put together a good game plan for us offensively. I think as long as we're locked in and ready to go, we should be good. NOLAN PERALTA: Yeah, I think the way we prepared really prepares us for those first couple series of each game. We come out at practice, especially on Wednesday, we go through the special teams series, one-minute drills right away. It's really knowing that we need to go out and play right now, don't have any time to hold back and game until we get settled in. I feel it's something coaches have stressed this entire year, and I think will continue to do so. Q. For any of the players. There are players now backing out of bowl games because of fear of getting hurt and messing up their pro careers. What do you think about that? You're all seniors. FRED ZERBLIS: We were actually just talking about this before we came in here. I don't know. I don't think that I would ever do anything like that just 'cause it's almost like letting a team down type of thing, focusing on things you can't control. I don't know, just don't really support it. KEVIN DAVIS: I guess, yeah, I think when it comes to college football, it's all about the team. It's a personal decision for them. I mean, it's their life. They got to live with it. NOLAN PERALTA: I know for me and all the guys as far as seniors, we love playing football. We know that every opportunity we have to go out and play the game, we want to play to the best of our ability for ourselves and for our teammates. It's up to them. We're not going to slight them for making that decision. But in my case, every opportunity I get to go out and play, I'm loving it. Playing scared or worrying about possible injury, I feel like that's when you do get hurt. If you're going into the game worried about that, it might be better for them not to go out and play. For us, we love playing and we're excited for another opportunity to go out and play. Q. Mike, the way you finished the season, there's a good feeling around this program. Would it diminish it at all if you don't finish this season right in this game? COACH BOBO: Well, whether you win or lose, you go back to work and build on the things that you did well and try to correct the things that you feel like you need to improve to take the next step as a program. Basically the question you just asked is something I've been talking about since the end of the year with these guys. I'm extremely proud of this football team and how they responded, coaches and players. That's not an easy thing to do when things aren't going well, to still believe in each other like these guys believe in each other when they're on the field, or to believe in their coaches, trust what their coaches are saying, try to get better every week win or lose. We finished the season on a very, very high note. We got one more opportunity as a football team. Don't let that opportunity slide by by not preparing and working like you've done all year. If we do, we come ready to play, hopefully this season can end the way we want it to, with a victory. But we got to go play the game. We're playing a team that's a very good football team, won six out of the last seven. Driving a lot of momentum, too, and confidence. They're going to be ready to play. They want to finish off their season on a special note. It's going to be an exciting ballgame and I'm looking forward to seeing our guys go compete. Q. Last time you played here was a crazy one with on-side kicks... Was that maybe a turning point in your season? COACH BOBO: We walk into any football game with the expectation that you should expect to win because of the way you've prepared, the way you've worked throughout the off-season, how you've worked that season. For whatever reason - this is just my feeling, not necessarily the players' - I don't know if we believed that yet when we walked on a field. I don't care who the opponent is, we have to have the expectation that we're going to play well enough to win if we can do our jobs individually and collectively as a football team. We didn't win that football game. There was a little bit of a momentum or turning point in that game where it was like, Okay, we can score some points. We get an on-side kick, two of them in a row. There's some confidence that we're moving the football offensively, defensively getting the ball back there at the end. But we didn't win the ballgame. That was my message after the ballgame. I believe, we believe that if we do what we're supposed to do - work, buy in, believe in each other - then we'll have a chance to win on any given Saturday against any opponent. We made a statement in that locker room, or I did, We're not losing again. Obviously we lost a game to Air Force. But I think from that moment on, we played with and prepared with the expectation that we were going to go out and expect to win every Saturday. Q. For any of the players. Obviously this game is finishing this season that you're in. How much can this game and what you do in this game influence the future of Colorado State's program? You are all seniors. Is this a chance to leave sort of a legacy with what you do in the last game? NOLAN PERALTA: Absolutely. I know when we came in as freshmen, we all came in when the program had been 3-9 three years in a row. Our redshirt freshman year we went 4-8. We all made the decision we wanted to put this program in the right direction. We all came from winning programs in high school, we expected to win as players. So to finish this year off, really try to get this program going again in the right direction, is going to be huge for us. As seniors, we want to leave that legacy that will leave a platform for the next team to stand on as they go into the next year. With a new stadium and everything that's going on with our program, it's very exciting. We're sad we're not going to be a part of it moving forward, but we felt we left a legacy as far as how to prepare and what it takes for a team to be successful. We want to finish this year off well for us to be able to look back on it and say we did something to get this program going in the right direction. FRED ZERBLIS: Yeah, I mean, like Nolan said, the fun's in the winning. We came in, the program wasn't doing good. We turned it around a little bit. I think it's going to be huge whatever goes on. But setting a statement for next year, I know coach has been talking about it a lot, just carrying that momentum into the off-season for the team and things like that. It will just be a lot easier to get going, I feel like, having a standard of, you know, playing to win, trying to get to the status of being champion in the conference. Q. Fred and Nolan, the same question about Nick Stevens. Talk about how he's handled the season, came out on the right side of it. FRED ZERBLIS: Yeah, Nick started out rough against Colorado, then Collin came in. But he handled the situation like he was a starter the whole time. Didn't get down or anything like that. Just kept preparing, like coach was saying earlier. We knew he could play last year. He started for us all year. This year, it ended up coming back to him. It was his spot. I don't think we skipped a beat as an offense at all. We have all the confidence in him. Just try to give him enough time back there to do his thing. NOLAN PERALTA: Yeah, I feel he handled the situation in the best way possible. In that situation, it would be tough for anybody to lose a job, especially a high-profile job, to be benched and be asked to come back again. Like Fred said, he continued to prepare like he was a starter the entire time. He played that way when he returned. Like he said, when Collin went down, he ended up coming in and leading us back in order to win the game. It's just a testament to who he is as a man and what he's able to do, given his circumstances, not to get too down on himself, to continue to prepare like it's his team the way he has. The success is all deserved for him because of the way he's been able to prepare and work. Q. (Question about how difficult the season been for Faton and Vaden.) COACH BOBO: You'd have to ask them what their feeling is on the season. But to me I think both of them were integral parts to our success. Faton did not have the stats or maybe the career he envisioned when he came here. Like I tell all those guys, we've got this picture, this storybook that we've written out for ourselves. It doesn't always happen that way. Sometimes you have adversity or you fail. That's okay. That's how you grow. Faton came out here. I thought he brought a work ethic to the quarterback room. I thought he brought competition to the room. I thought he was able to help Collin Hill learn how to prepare and study. That's only going to pay big dividends down the road. Nick Stevens is a better player this year, in my opinion, because of having to compete and having to go through adversity, knowing what he wanted to fight for. I think it turned him into a better quarterback. He's playing at an extremely high level, like I've told you guys before, a higher level than a lot of quarterbacks that I've coached. Jordon Vaden, we made a decision to move him to defense. We needed depth there. We created depth. I told Coach English the other day, I thought Jordon Vaden and Kevin Nutt were competing as hard as anybody we've had the last three, four practices. That's told me he's in. Things don't always go the way we want. Whether we throw eight interceptions, 20 touchdowns, there's going to be adversity. But I'm glad those two guys are on this football team and part of this program. Q. Kevin, you faced some run-oriented offenses. How big of a change-up is this? KEVIN DAVIS: I don't think it's too much of a difference. We've somewhat faced that offense this year, the formations. They're very common in what we've played against this year. I don't think there's much of a change. Maybe a little bit more pass than unusual, but we're ready to go. Q. Mike, talk about how much you've encountered Coach Petrino in the past, and are familiar with his system? COACH BOBO: First time I got to meet coach was last night. We had a dinner. But definitely knew of coach when he was at Arkansas as an assistant. Arkansas was a team that was always very innovative to me in their offense because they use tight ends. Whether it was two back or one back, they had a tight end attached most of the time. That's something I like to do offensively, to have the tight inside run game, some play-action. Like everybody, they get into some spread stuff. He's probably a little more spread than he was back in the days at Arkansas. Always found ways to move the ball not just through the air. When you watch teams to me, you watch them play offensive football in the run game, they're actually able to scheme you up and know that a blitz is coming here. Those style offenses did. They always did not have a lot of wasted plays offensively. They knew how to get the run to the right look. That was always pretty impressive to me. Their team offensively is a little bit different, as Kevin just talked about, as far as what we've seen the last three or four weeks, but it's pretty similar to what we do out of our 11 personnel, some of the formations. Our defense has gone against that personnel, some of those schemes all year, spring practice, fall camp. We always do a lot of good-on-good. There would be a lot of carryover there. Their quarterback is a heady player that gets them in the right place, gets the ball to the play-makers. They pose a threat. Defensively they've been opportunistic. Four down, three down front. In their eight victories, I believe they're plus 12 in turnover ratio. That's been the key to their victories. They do that because they create confusion. They jump from a four down front to a three down front. Sometimes there's some miscommunication up front, with the quarterback, which causes lost-yardage plays or the ball to be thrown into coverage. We're going to have to do a good job. Any bowl game, you have to expect the unexpected when somebody has time to work on and prepare for you. It's going to be a rules game. Defensively we have rules for formation, coverage rules. We got to know our rules, do our job, play hard. Offensively it's going to be the same thing, identifying who the guys are that we're going to block, what routes we're going to run versus certain coverages, and go play. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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