POCATELLO, Idaho - Idaho State Head Coach
Cody Hawkins spoke to the media prior to the Bengals' upcoming game against Utah Tech on Saturday, Oct. 31 in St. George.
On the trip to St. George and the first flight of the season
"We're going through the stretch of the season where everybody's hurt and sore but ready to play some meaningful football games. We know we don't have a lot of margin for error if we wanna finish the season the way we want to. It's an awesome opportunity for our guys to get on a bird and go play a game. We haven't been on a plane yet this year. Everything has been so dang close, so it'll be a unique travel experience for us."
On the challenge Utah Tech presents
"Nobody on this team has played a Utah Tech team before. One of the things they do that presents a lot of challenges is they are so multiple in every phase, in special teams, offense and defense, that there's a ton to prepare for. Whether it's the travel manifest or the game plan, managing the emotions of coming down the season and managing our own healthy bodies, it'll be a unique challenge for us this week."
On the win that ended a three-game losing streak
"It's good to get the monkey off the back, because everyone knows that we're capable of playing good football. It's like the first day you wake up without a sore throat when you're really sick. You think, 'Okay, now I'm back to normal.' It doesn't mean that we've accomplished anything, but it's kind of like you got your groove back a little bit. There's been a good bounce in the guys' step. Winning cures a lot of ills, but it doesn't erase your problems. The problems that were problems during our losing streak are still gonna continue to be problems."
On preparing for an opponent the program has never played
"I don't think it changes anything from a preparation standpoint, but organizationally there's gonna be natural hiccups. When you go to Bozeman, you know how long the drive takes and what hotels you're gonna stay in. I have no idea if this hotel's gonna be awesome or terrible. And because it's our first time flying, every single person has to be ID'd, so it's gonna be a long, arduous process this time. As a head coach, it helps when I can talk the guys through it beforehand, but this time we're all going through it for the first time together."
On the team's health with four regular-season games left
"We're like everybody else in America. We're not as healthy as we wanna be, but we're healthy enough to go win football games. Everybody in America is young, thin and beat up, and everybody wants to use it for an excuse. You can either use it as a rallying cry or an excuse. It changes your ceiling, it changes your floor, but it doesn't change the way you operate and what your mission is. It doesn't change your program or your goals."
On how Jordan Cooke and Davis Harsin have handled the quarterback situation
"Having a quarterback room that is all in on the mission is unique, and I think that comes from Jordan's maturation since he's been here. Davis wants to win so badly, and he wants to be ready to be his best when he goes in, but he's not competing against Jordan. He's competing against the best version of himself. Jordan's an uber-confident guy who really values being one of the guys. He makes his opinions known, but it doesn't affect how he works or how he prepares. I have a ton of faith in Jordan. We have two capable quarterbacks, which is awesome, but you wanna play the best guy. When JC is operating at the level he can, there are very few guys in the country that can play at that level."
On Utah Tech's turnovers and pressure packages
"Six turnovers, four of which resulted in the ball being in the red zone for Utah Tech. What an unbelievable job that team did to get a win on the road at Cal Poly. That's a tough place to win. It has our team's attention for sure. They've done a great job bringing a variety of different blitzes. Earlier in the year they spent a lot of time playing one-on-ones, and they're not doing that anymore. They're bringing a ton of pressure, but also dropping guys out and getting help underneath. We've spent very little time on base looks against these guys because they won the game off of their exotics last week. If that happens on Saturday, it's 100% my fault, 'cause we're gonna be ready for the variety of pressures."
On what has changed with the Bengal defense
"To me it's the confidence and the preparation. In the past, a lot of guys on defense just wanted to out-athlete people. Coach Duff does such a good job creating an atmosphere where the guys wanna study the game. He's a culture scheme wizard. Bobby J does an unbelievable job breaking down formations and tendencies. Coach Holiday's DBs understand the value of disguises and changing up their leverages, not just showing up to play man coverage. And Ricky gets those guys to understand how they take the field, how they line up in gaps, how they communicate, how they finish blocks. It's really good coaches creating a really good atmosphere for really good players to play even better than normal."
On balancing recruiting with game-week preparation
"Recruiting takes up about 40% of your time all the time. You're trying to get ready on first down, but you're also making calls to coaches and players, organizing visits, and hosting people before games. Every home game, I spend 30 to 40 minutes talking to recruits before we go out and stretch. It's hard to win the Derby on the back of a mule, so you gotta make sure you have as good of players and as good of people as you can in your program. It's such an expedited timeline now that you have to find ways to do those deep dives before the bell tolls midnight and you have to sign these guys."
On getting ahead of roster retention and the offseason
"We have a lot of commitments. Recruiting has changed. I hope everybody on our team decides to stay. I think we lost 20 last year, and that was a very low number. I would imagine it would probably be higher this year, given the amount of really good players that we'll have to figure out how to keep. So we're trying to do as much of that legwork now, so when you get to January, you're not having to recruit the high school kids last minute, because we're gonna be trying to keep our ship together."
