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GILDAN NEW MEXICO BOWL: CENTRAL MICHIGAN VS SAN DIEGO STATEDecember 21, 2019Kobe LewisTroy BrownAlbuquerque, New Mexico San Diego State - 48, Central Michigan - 11 Q. Your coach spoke, but what do you attribute your turnaround to? Obviously you've had a great season. If there's a few things you could pinpoint, what would you say they were? TROY BROWN: I would say -- I'll start off by the new introduction to the coaching staff. We brought a lot of guys in who cared. It was more about football to them. You had guys who -- it was about us as human beings, about our personalities, getting to know us, making connections, and we had a lot of guys who bought into that. We really believe in our coaching staff and everything they've done for us. We've been thankful for that. I would say the number one thing was who was brought in and the connections we made personally with our coaches because you play a lot better playing for somebody else rather than playing for yourself. KOBE LEWIS: I'll tie of tie in back on what he said. I can say Coach brought me in, and the staff, it was a great staff. Everybody bought into it, the vision, so that was a good thing. It played a role in how we got here. And players just bonded a lot more than we did last year. We was a 1-11 team, and that's a sick feeling. A lot of players on the team, we kept that feeling and just kept our foot on the gas. That's a lot of what pushed us to get where we're at today. Q. Kobe, can you talk about what it means to you to get to 1,000 yards, and for you and Ward to combine to do something that no backs have ever done in CMU history? That's a pretty good football history here with this program. Can you talk about what that means to you and to him as a pair to do that? KOBE LEWIS: To start off as a pair, that was a goal we set out for each other as the season began. That was something he wanted to see me do, and it's obviously something I wanted to see him do. Me being a young guy, the vision wasn't as clear to me as it was to him because I haven't been in those shoes. But he believed in me, so that was a big thing that I appreciate from him because he looked out for me, he gave me tips, he let me know that I could do it, as he did in his sophomore season. It was a big thing for me, too, because that was a goal that I set for myself. That's something that I just wanted real bad, and I got it done. So that's what comes from it on my end, so I'm very proud of that, too. Q. Were they more of a stout team defensively than you guys anticipated? KOBE LEWIS: They played well on the defensive side of the ball. We went into the game knowing like they was a pretty high defensive team. A lot of their stuff was run around their defense, so we expected them to be a great defensive team. As we went into the game, they pretty much gave us what we asked for and what we were looking forward to. Q. Troy, did they do anything offensively that you guys hadn't prepared for? TROY BROWN: No, they didn't do anything offensively. We just got to be better on the defensive side. No matter what happens on either side of the ball, we're a team. It's all about how we perform and what we do ourselves. Q. I think we kind of addressed this, but for both of you guys looking back at the entire season, I guess how would you rate it as successful? Obviously it was a successful season for you guys, but what were you guys' biggest thoughts, biggest takeaways from the season as a whole? TROY BROWN: Well, obviously everybody knows about our turnaround from last year; that's a success. But other than that, like Coach Mac said, we're going to fail, and it's not about what happens, it's how you respond to it. It's all about getting better. No matter how successful we were this season, it should never be enough. It's not enough. And we're going to keep pushing forward next year. Q. For both of you, Coach said that these are games that you guys want to be playing in, these are the type of opponents that you guys want to be playing against, and with both of you guys still having more time left here, what are you looking forward to next year knowing what you did in year one? What might be able to happen in year two? TROY BROWN: Well, I'm looking to playing football. I don't care who it is, whatever opponent it is. We're going to play football and do what I came here to do. We've been through a lot as a team, and we believe in who's leading us, so whoever wants to step to the plate, we're there for them. We're ready to play. It doesn't matter who it is. KOBE LEWIS: It just goes back to improvement. No matter how successful our season is, there's always room for improvement, there's always room to get better. It's, what, 150 something teams in college football Division I, and it could be a goal for us to get ranked or something, so there's always improvement for anything. That's just what we're looking forward to. We didn't finish the season out like we wanted to, so that's something that we can come back and do to make us look better and have a better season than this year. But as far as last year and this year, we made a whole 360 turnaround, so it's always the rate, to how well this season was, I would give it a 10 because we went from 1-11 to we're playing in the MAC Championship and playing in bowl games and actually being selected by ESPN to play this game, so that's a pretty big accomplishment on our end as a Chippewa. Q. How about the whole experience, the bowl game? Maybe unexpected at the start of the season. Albuquerque, beautiful day, hard-hitting game. How do you describe your week? TROY BROWN: I'm not going to lie, I really enjoyed this week. I've been to other bowls, or another bowl, and this one was for sure by far my favorite one. It was a good experience, seeing the city. It's different. I'm from the north, so it's not what I'm used to seeing. Just the overall food, everything was excellent, so I enjoyed being here. KOBE LEWIS: Yeah, I agree with him. This is my first bowl game, and it's definitely something that I would like to come back to, definitely something I want to experience for the rest of my college years. Since we've been here, we've been treated like family. We've been treated well. A lot of things, it's a good experience to come and get out of something that you ain't ever been, and obviously New Mexico is someplace I've never been, so it was good to get out and see things I had never seen before. Once again, I just want to thank the committee, the New Mexico Bowl committee for allowing us to come here, and I just want to thank them for treating us like family, treating us well and giving us a good time, so I appreciate that from you all, too. Q. Kobe, what was your feeling after that 60-odd-yard run? You felt like the team wasn't giving up, you were hyped. What were you telling folks as you were trying to reenergize the team and say we're still in this? KOBE LEWIS: As the run, I'm always just thinking play football, play through it. I don't care what the score is, I feel like I can come back from anything as long as there's time on the clock. I feel like if you play hard, anything can happen. Honestly, it's a great game, and that was my mentality. It wasn't necessarily about me trying to get to 1,000 yards. I just wanted to play hard, finish hard. I knew it was the last game. I don't care if it was the last play or the last game, I just wanted to play hard and finish hard, and I just got rewarded with a 60-yard run from my O-linemen, so I just thank them for that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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