Today's Football Press Conference Quotes

McCollum on the rest of the season: Before it was all in our control and now it's not anymore. What is in our control is how we play these last four games. North Texas made plays and we didn't. We'll pull back together this week. We have a tough trip to Utah State. They played well at home against Arkansas State and came away with a nice league win. But, we have some tough guys, too. We have seniors with only about 25 days left to play and they want to finish up strong.

McCollum on the North Texas game: They made big plays and we didn't. Maybe the most disappointing thing was the way our special teams played. I thought that we were in position to make some big plays in the game, but we just didn't come up with them.

McCollum on Utah State: They were really good offensively last year and they are one of the top offensive teams in the country year in and year out. They run a lot of different formations against your defense and make it tough. Their defense has really improved. They shut out Arkansas State last week and had six interceptions in the game.

McCollum on USU TE Chris Cooley: He's a great player. He makes big plays, he's big and physical, and he blocks and catches the ball well. They are a balanced offensive football team. I also really like their quarterback. He makes plays and gets the ball into the hands of the right people.

McCollum on Brandon Lynch: Anytime you lose one of your best players, especially a senior who is having a great year, it hurts. That just shows that the number two guy has to be ready to go every week.

McCollum on Don Calloway: We hope to have him back this week. He might have been able to go this week, but Eugene and Kelvin played well, so we didn't want to take a chance. We felt like he could have gotten hurt worse if he had played.

McCollum on Kelvin German: He looked good. The only thing that has held Kelvin back has been taking care of the football. But, he has improved in practice and we had confidence in him going into the game this week.

McCollum on Andrico Hines: He played hard. He has great toughness and character and the overall team is very important to him. He really had only one bad decision, but he was trying to make something happen. He had a couple of overthrows, but I thought the game really showed what he was about because he ran it and threw it effectively.

WR Kerry Wright on refining team goals: We have to refine our goals a little bit. We've got to have pride and try to win these next four games. You have to hope that North Texas loses a game and we get the opportunity to be co-champions. You never want to go out and get embarrassed. You'll see the leaders of this team come out this week.

Wright on Utah State: They play hard and disguise their coverages. Their corners can run. I expect them to come out playing hard and try to get up on us in the first quarter.

DL Demetrios Walker on this week's game: We still have to go out and train like a championship team. We can't look to the past anymore. We have to move on to our next opportunity and that comes up this week.

Walker on the importance of finishing the season strong: It's very important to this program to get to .500 this year. The senior class wants to go out without a losing season.

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