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CACTUS BOWL: KANSAS STATE VS UCLA

December 23, 2017

Jedd Fisch

Phoenix, Arizona

COACH FISCH: This championship week, championship game we're celebrating our season. Feel like we have a great opportunity to play a great football team. We're excited about it. We're four days away and we are continuing to prepare for what we believe will be an outstanding football game.

And we're very thankful to the Cactus Bowl, the committee for hosting us. We believe that this is going to be a tremendous opportunity for our players.

Q. Can you discuss this situation between head coaches and (inaudible) how coaches are (inaudible)?
COACH FISCH: Five weeks, I guess, at this point in time, I became the interim head coach the day after the USC game. And we had a short week to be able to play Cal. So we played on Friday night against Cal. We had about -- after the Cal game, which we won with three seconds left, we kick a field goal, they determine that or they made the final arrangements to hire Coach Kelly.

Met with Coach Kelly on that Sunday morning and he was -- I've known Chip for a while, and he just said you take this team until the bowl game is over. And then at that point in time I'll resume or I'll assume the duties of being the head coach. So that's kind of how we've made this thing work.

We've had -- all the interaction that we've had has just been more informative in regards to where we're going, what we're doing, how we're doing it. And he spent a lot of his time with the early signing period dealing with recruiting.

He's put together a staff, and there's some guys that will be remaining on the staff. There will be some coaches that we've already announced that have joined the staff. And then we've kind of taken this approach as the 2017 staff is leading this team, the 2017 Bruins to a championship, if we play the way we hope to play on Tuesday evening.

And then at that point in time, after the game, Coach Kelly will then take on the team and will start meeting with the team and meet after that.

Q. (Inaudible)?
COACH FISCH: I looked it up last night and he has been a head coach for 320 games, and this is my second. But I have a better win percentage. (Laughter) I noticed that. But he's an icon. He's an icon in this industry. He's an icon in football. I mean, anybody -- anybody that knows college football respects everything Coach Snyder has done.

I mentioned before that we've had the opportunity to play against him twice when I was at University of Miami. Both times we were on the losing end. One with a goal line stand down 28-24, they stopped us four times in a row from the 1 with less than a minute left. And one time when we were at Manhattan, Kansas where we got crushed.

So looking forward to this third game, this third opportunity. It's one of those moments in football where you want to make sure you get a picture with him before the game, because when you're coaching against the guys that are on the Mount Rushmore of college coaches you want to make sure you can celebrate all their successes.

Q. (Inaudible)?
COACH FISCH: If you look at our offense, we're more a passing offense to begin with -- we've probably thrown the ball 60 percent of the time this season. So I think we are a throwing football team. So we recognize that they've given up some yards against the pass, but I think all Big 12 teams give up yards against the pas because so many teams throw it so often.

I think they're a really good team. I think they have an outstanding corner. I think they've got an outstanding linebacking corps. I worry about the front, about the pressure they can put on you. They're extremely well coached. We'll have to throw the ball to be able to move it like we always have. And then we're going to have to find ways to mix the run in.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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