From his press conference Tuesday, Sept. 5:

On Florida Atlantic…

?We?re excited about having a chance to play Florida Atlantic. This is an opportunity for a young coach like myself to be able to be on the same field as a veteran coach, a hall of fame coach who is starting a program there from scratch. It?s really a terrific job that they?ve done to this point. We think that in South Florida and in the state in general there are a lot of fast players and we won?t be surprised at all if this team can match the kind of speed that we can put on the field. It?s obviously going to be our challenge to see how physical of a game either side can make it. This is a young team, there?s some significant talent on the team. I?m really impressed with their left tackle, No. 52 (Nello) Faulk. I think he does a nice job. He?s a player that if he?s watched the tape, as I?m sure his coaches have shown him over and over again the job that Ian Campbell did, I?m sure that they?ll have a good plan for that. At quarterback, Rusty Smith and Sean Clayton have a little bit of a competition going on there. I think that brings out the best in all people so I would anticipate them playing very well at the quarterback position. Then they have a veteran player at fullback, Aaron Sanchez, who they use in a variety of ways and I would anticipate trying to replicate some of the things we saw from No. 5 (Pierre Rembert) last week. Kind of the ?X-factor? in the whole thing is their tight end, Jamari Grant, who plays tight end kind of the way we?re looking for tight ends to be able play ? to be able to really run and be athletic, get down the field. That was apparent in how they tried to play against Clemson, he?s a very athletic player.



?On the defensive side really their linebacker, he?s got a great name (Cergile) Sincere, is all over the place, all over the field making plays. He?s a run and hit player. He?s a very sure tackler and so obviously we?re going to have to have our eyes on him and be aware of him at all times. They?ve really improved on their defensive front. From a year ago they?ve added size, they?ve added numbers, they?ve added more depth, it?s just inexperienced that?s all it is. It?s just a matter of time and grade for their defensive line and we obviously we want to make sure that we don?t allow them to get a jump start this weekend. They have a cornerback named Rickey Bethel who is a senior. This group here has gone and played a lot of games on the road, you can see their schedule. They won?t be awed by this experience. They?ll come in here and attempt to play very, very well and we?ve got to make sure that we don?t do anything to encourage them from our standpoint.?

Nice comments.

K-State's coach hasn't wasted any time getting his homework done. He has picked out the play makers of the Owls. Now they're going to work on a plan to try to shut those guys down.

I hope Nello goes all American and gets into the NFL.

Wow he has done his homework. Hopefully our guys will not be so wound up like in Death Valley and get W.