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CACTUS BOWL: KANSAS STATE VS UCLADecember 23, 2017Byron PringlePhoenix, Arizona BYRON PRINGLE: ...when I got in trouble when I was a teenager, I was hanging out with the wrong people. I changed that. If I wasn't ready to make that change, I would have never went back to school. I never would have got a college degree. Q. You seem more excited about getting the college degree than winning some football games this year. Was it that big a deal for you? BYRON PRINGLE: That was like a milestone to me. Nobody in my family never went to college. They went to college but they never finished. Or, like, in my neighborhood, I'm probably like the first one out of my neighborhood to have a college degree. Even to step on the college campus. My friends never make it to no college. I'm motivating them. Some of them changed, like, the lifestyle they was living, they see me back at school and having a great accomplishment I was doing, and like they changed their life. Like they went back to school and some of them started working jobs and they change their life. I have people, like older people that I used to look up to, they're like they say I motivate them and they stop doing what they're doing and find them a job like. So I motivated a lot of people, younger kids now in my neighborhood, they did look up to me. When I go back home they think I'm a superstar or something. So I try to keep them like on a positive note and it's just like the whole vibe changed that way, when I went back to school and started achieving goals and stuff, like everybody, like even young kids, they're not out there in the streets doing the wrong thing, they go to school. They go to the recreation center. They play sports. They use sports like they go -- like they use sports like an avenue to get them to college, which as well as like we didn't have no guidance, like nobody to tell us what to do. Like now I'm like a positive figure to my community, like where I'm from. Q. Football-wise, seemed like the second half of the season was a lot better for you than the first half, what changed, what allowed you to play so much better? BYRON PRINGLE: I was just lack of focus the first season. I was just trying to grab the ball and run. I was just doing too much. I was trying to get the ball and go and not watching the ball all the way in. That was just a mental thing. It wasn't like really like no problem. Q. What's it like to be back in the valley, coming into the valley, playing in the Cactus Bowl, how are you feeling about all this? BYRON PRINGLE: I'm feeling great. I've never been to the valley. I like the scenery. I like the cactus and stuff like that. And I like y'all don't have no grass. I'm happy to play in the Cactus Bowl. Q. Where are you from? BYRON PRINGLE: I'm from Tampa, Florida. Q. The weather is kind of the same, a little more muggy down there. Is your son going to be able to be here, see you play, or watch on TV? BYRON PRINGLE: He'll be able to see me play here. They will come in on Christmas Day, like evening. Q. What's that feeling to have your son here for the Cactus Bowl? BYRON PRINGLE: It's a great feeling. It's both our first times in the valley. And I love when he is like at my games, like, supporting me. He may not remember it, like, right now, but he'll go back and look at pictures, my dad played in that game. Q. You guys were 3-4 going into Kansas, what was the mindset of this team. You guys had such high hopes for this season. And it went bad on you early. How did you guys regroup and get this done? BYRON PRINGLE: We knew we had to come together and face adversity even when things get rough. But we always came together like player reps and the captains call meetings and see what's the right thing for us to do. And we knew we weren't going to give up and we were going to fight through it. Everybody was going to come together as a team, as a family, and everybody going to dominate their position, not worry about other positions and focus on the things they need to do, that contribute and make the team much better. Q. I know 7-5 wasn't what you guys thought you would have at the start of the year, but the way it happened, the way you went 4-1 down the stretch, was there some satisfaction in that? BYRON PRINGLE: We're not satisfied with that. We want to be better. We want to be better than that. But we can't live in the past. We've just got to focus on the future and next season, get prepared for next season. Q. Getting Dalton back on this offense, if he's able to play? BYRON PRINGLE: It's a great feeling to have Dalton back. Dalton is a special player. And he contributes a lot to our offense. And we know that like some teams underestimated his ability to make plays. So he is like a coach on the field. He knows everything, the ins and outs. And he's a great player, great receiver. He catches everything that you throw at him and it's great to have him back on the field. He's a hard worker. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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