New Mexico Head Coach Rocky Long
(on facing Air Force without the benefit of a bye week) “I think obviously it’s easier if you have two or three weeks to get ready to play someone. I think that was evident last week. We had three days to get ready for Weber State and they had all of training camp to get ready for us. And I think it’s much more difficult to get ready for a wishbone team than a team that is similar to the other teams you play. You don’t see (the wishbone) the rest of the year and you don’t see it before them either. I’ve said this every year, but I think they’re the best triple option team that there’s ever been. Now obviously they don’t have the speed that Oklahoma or Texas had when they ran it in their heyday, but they execute so much better than anybody that’s ever run that offense. That’s why they’ve had great success over the years.”
(on Air Force’s defensive similarities): “They line up the same way we do, but they’re philosophy is different. They don’t blitz a lot and they play zone coverage and we blitz a lot and play man coverage, but they line up exactly the same way with three down linemen, three linebackers and five DB’s. More and more people are using (that defense) and I even see the pro’s using it now.”
(on the confidence of UNM’s defensive coaching staff): “Maybe our initial thought was that maybe the scheme is wrong, but when we watch the tape and look back at things, we see we’re just not executing. You have to coach to your personality and our personality is to get after people and play man coverage. So we’re not changing, we’ll just get better at it.”
(on the Weber State game): “I think we concentrated better, we had fewer assignment errors and we were on top of all those receivers. What we didn’t do was knock balls away or we didn’t make plays in coverage, but the coverage was fairly tight most of the time and there was only two assignment errors in the whole game. We hit the quarterback and had four or five sacks, so that’s pretty good pressure. Now if he throws before we get to him, then you have to make some plays in coverage. It’s as simple as that.”
(on the effort of the defense vs. Weber State): “I don’t think there was any letdown. I think Weber State did a great job of attacking our defense and they have improved dramatically on their defense. We’ll see how they do the rest of the year. I think they’re a much better football team than they were last year.”
(on the possibility of UNM making changes vs. Air Force): “There might be some new things but there won’t be dramatic changes. In my mind, when you have a team that’s still trying to find their personality, still trying to find their momentum or stride like our team is, you better get better at what you do before you start changing a whole bunch of things. You better get better and covering, get better at tackling, get better at throwing and catching the ball. Before you worry about changing schemes you better execute better. I think we’re a team that’s still struggling to find their stride. When you eventually find your stride and things are working pretty well, then you can start expanding what you do and throw some trick plays in there. There’s a common misconception by people that all you have to do is run a different play or formation and everything will be wonderful. They better get better at what they’ve practiced since they got here.”
Junior Defensive End D.J. Renteria
(on the defense’s slow start): “There are a lot of little things right now that we need to work on. As players we need to try and get the defense back to where it has been. I take personal responsibility for our defense. I know there are a lot of things that I can do better.”
(on Air Force’s attitude): “They have a huge amount of confidence in themselves and the people they have around them. You can just tell on the field they way they act, that they think they’re above us. We’re going to have to go out and prove ourselves.”
(on being Air Force’s homecoming opponent): “It’s a bit of a slap in the face. Usually teams will schedule homecoming games against opposition that they know they can beat. We need to go in and beat Air Force to prove them wrong.”
Senior Running Back Quincy Wright
(on being his sudden notoriety): “I’m just thankful for getting the opportunity to play and show what I can do. I also have to thank the other guys on the team for helping me play well right now. The offensive line and receivers have been doing a great job. I have to give them a lot of credit.
(on his running style): “I believe I have pretty good vision and that I can find holes and get through them. I also think I have decent acceleration where I can stop and then pick up my feet pretty fast to start again.”
(on his local coverage back home Los Angeles): “My family is definitely excited about what I’ve been doing. They were telling me that there was an article in the L.A. Times about me. They always told me they knew I could do it.”!