September 9, 2025 • 14 mins
Head Football Coach Eric Schmidt recapped the team's victory over Portland State in the Potato Bowl and gave a preview of the upcoming matchup against Montana.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
And we welcome you back here to Hot Talk downtown
Grand Forks. Here from the Bible six Pup, Paul Rolston.
Glad to have you along with us. And we have
managed to track down Eric Smidt. He's getting his meetings
in and that's okay. That's what we want from our
head coach is to have a few meetings with his
guys and getting that stuff. Hey, Hot Talk, I can stretch.
That's what they call it in the business. That's my job.
(00:22):
And Coach Smidt, We're glad to have head coach Eric
Schmidt off a Potato Bowl win. That's awesome. Great to
have you, coach. Good to see you. Oh did I
not Let's see, did I not have the right one there?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I might have that.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I know what I did see, I see that one's
on me. So anyway, we're glad to have him here.
And oh there we go, all right now we got ye.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Okay, good to be here, thanks, Paul.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yeah, I was just gonna say really quick, you know,
the Potato Bowl, with everything that's going on, and there's
so many things you talked about. Hey, we gotta worry
about what we got to do for that day and
for that week. And and I thought your team really
did that by the way they can team out of
the locker room and in those opening minutes of the
first quarter. It doesn't always happen that way, but you know,
(01:07):
that's the way every coaching staff would like it to
happen every time, and it did on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, you're exactly right.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
I think starting fast is something that's important in college
football every Saturday. You know, we talked to our guys
about that, about starting fast, about trying to win the
middle eight, and then obviously finishing strong two as well.
But I thought our guys did a great job. I thought,
you know, obviously offensively to go down the field right
away in a lot of different you know, variety of
plays and things like that, Jerry throwing it, Jerry running
(01:34):
it hand into our running back, some screen stuff, you know,
I mean in there too as well. I thought, you know,
it was really good to be able to execute and
to do it. You know, I think it was an
eight or nine play drive, so be able to sustain
you know, some of those longer drives. And and then
I thought the best player of the night was you know,
Jet Sutton running down on kickoff right after that and
being able to knock the ball out and playing with
some courage and and and you know obviously to be
(01:56):
able to to be able to get the ball right
back and then go down and score. And then we
got a two point conversion. You know, right after that,
I just thought momentum was on our sideline. We were
able to carry that throughout the entire half and really
throughout the entire first quarter three quarters.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Somebody had a question about that two point conversion. Was
that a simple read of how they aligned to things?
Was that a call as you went out going into
the week, because I mean, obviously you have a guy
like Simon who can read things and make a call.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
How did that play out for you? Yeah, I think
it's you know, just using Simon. You know, he's our holder.
Our guys really liked me as a great job of holding,
and and you know, something that's a lot of times
underappreciated is just you know, snaphold kick all the time.
And the biggest thing for holders, you know that Simon
does a great job of is being able to put
the ball in the right spot all the time. You know,
(02:43):
I mean you missed the spot and you know that
by two or three inches and that can be wide left.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Or wide right. And the guys really, you know, they
respect him.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
He spends a lot of time with them outside of
you know, what he's doing as a quarterback too, as
well as a formal special teams guy don't always love
it when it's a quarterback doing it because that's the
third or fourth thing on their plate. A lot of
times when you have another specialist doing it, like your punter,
is usually what I like. Like they're working together all
day long, so they can you know, they can get
one hundred to one hundred and fifty holes in a day,
(03:12):
where Simon's got to you know, put extra time in
because you know, his number one job is is.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
To play quarterback, but just to use his skill set.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
We trust his decision making and yeah, he's he's making
you know, the call there whether or not to bring
it in or order to run the play based off
of numbers to one side of the formation. And we
got the look that we wanted and then you know
we actually had to play there for you know, David
Newburg or a long snapper.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Was the was the guy who we actually saud he.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Was eligible Yeah in that alignment.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Yeah, yeah, he was eligible yeah, and he has an
eligible number on, which is why you put your snappers
in an eligible number to be able to do those things.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
So they had to cover them.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
And basically, you know, got a guy in some conflict,
you either had to decide, Hey, I'm gonna go run
at Simon and tackle him, or I'm gonna cover. I'm
gonna cover David. So he chose to cover David, and
then Simon got.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
In the end zone. You know what.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
He brings me back to the nineties and my dad's
head high school football coach, and we had a rubber
tea that you click kicked off of. You know, you
remember those days with the square toed shoe and the
rubber tee. We had a play called I need the tea,
I need the tea, which would send the holder in
motion towards the sideline screaming I need the tea, and
on the second time you said it, then you snap
(04:16):
the ball and off and off you went. We don't
nobody has the rubber tea anymore. Nobody uses that, so
no nobody can really appreciate those things. But that was,
you know, it just brings me back to those types
of alignments and different things and wrinkles. That's the fun
part of special teams, it really is. So you get
a lot of guys in and it's okay if they're
(04:37):
making mistakes at times, as long as they got the
right want to learn and move on and get to
the next play and want to improve on it through
all the different things in the week to come. Uh,
that's what's gonna happen. When you get a few rotations
in there, You're gonna you're gonna have some stuff on
film you can go to work on.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Well, I think, you know, even like we tell the
guys in fall camp, like you know, and even in
the summer and in spring ball, like we we install
a lot of things every single day, probably our first
week and a half to two weeks. And there's a
reason behind that, Like you want the guys to be
able to gain as much knowledge and experience in those
calls as they can. You know, you don't want to
be putting things in, you know, the week of or
(05:13):
right before fall campaigns and then run those things, you
know in the in the first couple of weeks of
the season. So same thing when you get into these games,
it's there's no better teacher than experience. For these guys
so to be able to go out there make some
mistakes and then now we can teach out for those
mistakes and you know, you get some experience and knowledge
in the call. And I thought our guys, you know,
for the most part, dat a decent job. Obviously some
things out there on third down that we felt like,
(05:35):
you know, just knowing situations down in distance and things
like that, to be able to play things top down
in those in those certain formations and situations, I think
we can do a better job. Ultimately, we need to
do a better job if we're going to you know,
play better defense and get off the field and get
the ball back to our offense, and then offensively obviously
taking care of the football late in the game, you know,
not not putting the ball on the ground and letting
(05:56):
the other team score. I think it is something that
we got to continue to work on there or too
as well, just you know, running the right routes, making
sure that we're you know, where we're supposed to be
when we're supposed to be there. And then you know,
just quarterback wise too as well, having an internal clock,
knowing that hey man, sooner or later that the protection's
gonna break down. I got to throw this thing away
and get to the next down and and just move
on from that play.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
H You know a guy that stood out in the
defensive line for one series in fact, but just his
motor was going that entire series. I can't even remember
kind of mid game. But Braden More, you know, we
talked about him coming back from injury, but you can
see why he'd be a guy that you want to
get back because his motor just on that series alone
(06:36):
was just so noticeable. He made like a hurry and
then he made a play defensively where he made a
tackle or a sack or whatever. I mean, the guy
just he can cause if your motor is that good,
you're gonna have a chance to.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Do some things.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
And he's a great story, you know. I think a
year ago there was a lot of excitement surrounding him,
just as far as a young player that had earned
in starting spot. And then within I think the first
quarter of the game at I was really bad injury.
Knee injury. One of those that you don't even watch
it on film because you know it just looks, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Really really bad.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
And when we got here, you know, in January like
he was in the midst of trying to recover from that,
you know, so we never even got to see him.
I mean, he was spending a lot of time you know,
on his own, working you know, with our pts, with
our ats and just trying to really get back to
hopefully where he could start working out and things like that.
We thought in July and maybe August, and then hopefully
(07:27):
we would have him sometime in late this September, maybe
early October. So just a credit to him to every
single day just you know, attacking the rehab and doing
a great job of getting his knee to a spot
now where obviously, you know, he came back and was
able to work out with us all summer long. He
got clear June first and then was able to do
everything there. And then fall camp came around and we
(07:48):
feel we figured, hey, we're gonna have to manage him
a little bit, just his workload and volume, and you know,
his knee was in a great place and he was
able to withstand, you know, the the stress of camp
and going every single day. And now he's in the
rotation and doing a good job and he's really smart.
You know, I think that's the one thing. He's got
a great feel for for football and and uh and
space and and just he does a really good job.
(08:10):
I mean, he's he's a guy that's probably one of
the uh, you know, the best students of the game
in that edge room right now.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
So those guys are always really really valuable.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, it's just great to see him and the way
he's just playing with the energy and enthusiasm. It was
on display, especially during one particular series, but pretty much
every snap that he got to play I was watching
carefully and whole wow. He he he plays with the
right intensity and the right frame of mind to play
that role. We turn our attention to the Montana grizz
(08:38):
That's the opponent coming up Saturday afternoon. Missoula, Montana. One
of the great FCS venues, maybe the great FCS venue,
I mean, depending on who you ask. I mean, they
and their fans have something to be incredibly proud of
what they do each and every game day out there.
Doing what they've done over their history also helps a
little bit. They've built a tradition of culture out there,
of expectations, and they're off to a good start. They
(09:01):
eli Gilman, they're running back who had just a day
the other day. I think he was just named the
Big Sky Offensive Player of the week, rightfully so. And
that's the thing with Montana. You look at him, mobile quarterback,
great running back, who's patient, and then they add in
a guy from eastern Washington who wants to play there
and and he can kind of he's the jack of
(09:22):
all trades guys, So offensively for your defense, you've got
a lot to really prep for this week when you
talk about the grizz.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, I think any Big Sky team is always going
to have good skilled players, you know, and guys at
athletic quarterbacks, guys that can throw the ball, that can
you know, receivers want to play in that league just
because of you know, just the nature of the scoring
and and and how the offenses are built on the
West Coast.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So you mentioned it.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
I think the one thing that really you know, sets
them apart probably from maybe some of the other teams
out there is the running back. I think, you know,
Ten's a really good player. You mentioned it, really patient.
I think he had right around two hundred yards last week,
and and I think he took the very first play
that he got to the to the end zone and
scored on the very first carry that he had. So
(10:09):
a guy who had over a thousand yards a year ago,
but just a really good patient runner and a guy
once he gets in the open field, you know, nobody's
catching him. So he's definitely a threat. He's somebody that
we got to get a lot of people around and
and has our attention, and somebody that we're going to
have to make sure we do a good job of
if we're going to have, you know, some success on Saturday.
And then once again, you know, the receiver too as well,
(10:30):
transfers in from eastern Washington and they give it to
him a lot of different ways, screen game, throwing him
down the field, you know, setting up different crossing patterns
and stuff like that for him. They'll they'll you know,
bring him in the backfield and hand it off to
him as well. And then when they go wildcat, he's
actually the quarterback and a guy that you know, when
he talked to people around the country is hey, he's
a threat to throw it too as well. So he's
(10:50):
completed some passes in his career too. And then I think,
you know the thing that that probably concerns us the
most is the is the quarterback being able to run
the football. He's super out athletic. He does a really
good job of getting out of getting out of trouble.
And you see him down in the red zone. Man
like his his compete level is is really good. He'll
put his body on the line to be able to
get the ball in the end zone. So that'll be
(11:11):
a huge challenge for us, and we got to do
a great job of making sure that, you know, rush
lanes are really good, that we're doing a good job
of trying to make him throw from a bottom up
from the bottom.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Of a well.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Is what we like to say is hey keep him
in the pocket and rush the passers as a company,
you know, not as an individual. Let's do a good
job of making sure that we're all doing our job there.
And then obviously defensively, you know, tackling the running back
is going to be important, and then making sure that
we keep things in front of us too as well.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Well.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
And then you mentioned a thing that you talked about
their defense as kind of the what makes it tough
to prepare for it because they know what they're doing,
but it's a what you how do you did you
describe it as organized chaos a little bit. You never
know who's coming who, who's doing that, and they do
it and disguise it really well, and it can really
be a tough team to prep for because of that.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Yeah, and I think a lot of people, you know,
you know, at times don't want to play against that.
So I think they'll talk a little bit about, hey,
it's gimmicky, it's this and that, and we've been in
those systems before and did some things when we were
a three four team. It's it's if that's how you
practice every single day, like that's what you get good at,
you know. I think that's that's obviously where they've done
a great job is really buying into that system.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
I think Rocky Long is probably the guy who who
gets a lot of credit for for devising a lot
of the things that teams like them do. But they're
still really good at stopping the run. They're really good
at getting you off schedule. They do a great job.
I think a lot of the things that they do.
I know, it looks, you know, like they're they're moving
and rapping and it's kind of you know, flavor of
the month. But I think it's very calculated as far
(12:44):
as what they're trying to do and why they're doing
it based off of you know, down and distance and
formations and where your backs are at and all those
types of things. So we just got to do a
good job once again of keeping things simple for our guys,
making sure we get targeted right, you know, all the time,
and then understand and like hey, man, if our target
it moves and goes somewhere, somebody else is going to
show up, so you know, stay on path there and
(13:05):
just do a great job of making sure that, like
I said, our communication is good and we're targeted right
before the snap starts.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Well, it was an exciting home opener, but this schedule
has been unrelenting in the early portion of the season,
and you wouldn't want it any other way. You want
a big FCS type of game to get a measuring
stick in here and see where you're at in a
great venue and atmosphere. Even though they'll be against it,
it'll be one of those things to kind of see
(13:30):
where everything falls. And I'm excited for you guys. Thanks
for swinging in here tonight and appreciate it, and I
we'll see on the plane on Friday. Good luck this week.
Sounds good, Paul, Thank you all right, Head coach Eric Schmid, everybody.
Big one coming up Saturday against the Grizz kicking at
two Central time, all across the Fighting Hawks Radio network.
When we return, we've got another program heading west. It's
(13:51):
U Indie Women's Soccer Henrik Zone. We'll be joining us
next and we'll be talking with the new head coach
of You and Die women's soccer when we return with
more Hawk Talk all across the Fighting Hawks Radio Network
And we welcome you back here to Hot Talk downtown
Grand Forks. Here from the Bible six Pup, Paul Rolston.
Glad to have you along with us. And we have
managed to track down Eric Smidt. He's getting his meetings
in and that's okay. That's what we want from our
head coach is to have a few meetings with his
guys and getting that stuff. Hey, Hot Talk, I can stretch.
That's what they call it in the business. That's my job.
(00:22):
And Coach Smidt, We're glad to have head coach Eric
Schmidt off a Potato Bowl win. That's awesome. Great to
have you, coach. Good to see you. Oh did I
not Let's see, did I not have the right one there?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I might have that.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I know what I did see, I see that one's
on me. So anyway, we're glad to have him here.
And oh there we go, all right now we got ye.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Okay, good to be here, thanks, Paul.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yeah, I was just gonna say really quick, you know,
the Potato Bowl, with everything that's going on, and there's
so many things you talked about. Hey, we gotta worry
about what we got to do for that day and
for that week. And and I thought your team really
did that by the way they can team out of
the locker room and in those opening minutes of the
first quarter. It doesn't always happen that way, but you know,
(01:07):
that's the way every coaching staff would like it to
happen every time, and it did on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, you're exactly right.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
I think starting fast is something that's important in college
football every Saturday. You know, we talked to our guys
about that, about starting fast, about trying to win the
middle eight, and then obviously finishing strong two as well.
But I thought our guys did a great job. I thought,
you know, obviously offensively to go down the field right
away in a lot of different you know, variety of
plays and things like that, Jerry throwing it, Jerry running
(01:34):
it hand into our running back, some screen stuff, you know,
I mean in there too as well. I thought, you know,
it was really good to be able to execute and
to do it. You know, I think it was an
eight or nine play drive, so be able to sustain
you know, some of those longer drives. And and then
I thought the best player of the night was you know,
Jet Sutton running down on kickoff right after that and
being able to knock the ball out and playing with
some courage and and and you know obviously to be
(01:56):
able to to be able to get the ball right
back and then go down and score. And then we
got a two point conversion. You know, right after that,
I just thought momentum was on our sideline. We were
able to carry that throughout the entire half and really
throughout the entire first quarter three quarters.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Somebody had a question about that two point conversion. Was
that a simple read of how they aligned to things?
Was that a call as you went out going into
the week, because I mean, obviously you have a guy
like Simon who can read things and make a call.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
How did that play out for you? Yeah, I think
it's you know, just using Simon. You know, he's our holder.
Our guys really liked me as a great job of holding,
and and you know, something that's a lot of times
underappreciated is just you know, snaphold kick all the time.
And the biggest thing for holders, you know that Simon
does a great job of is being able to put
the ball in the right spot all the time. You know,
(02:43):
I mean you missed the spot and you know that
by two or three inches and that can be wide left.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Or wide right. And the guys really, you know, they
respect him.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
He spends a lot of time with them outside of
you know, what he's doing as a quarterback too, as
well as a formal special teams guy don't always love
it when it's a quarterback doing it because that's the
third or fourth thing on their plate. A lot of
times when you have another specialist doing it, like your punter,
is usually what I like. Like they're working together all
day long, so they can you know, they can get
one hundred to one hundred and fifty holes in a day,
(03:12):
where Simon's got to you know, put extra time in
because you know, his number one job is is.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
To play quarterback, but just to use his skill set.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
We trust his decision making and yeah, he's he's making
you know, the call there whether or not to bring
it in or order to run the play based off
of numbers to one side of the formation. And we
got the look that we wanted and then you know
we actually had to play there for you know, David
Newburg or a long snapper.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Was the was the guy who we actually saud he.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Was eligible Yeah in that alignment.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Yeah, yeah, he was eligible yeah, and he has an
eligible number on, which is why you put your snappers
in an eligible number to be able to do those things.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
So they had to cover them.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
And basically, you know, got a guy in some conflict,
you either had to decide, Hey, I'm gonna go run
at Simon and tackle him, or I'm gonna cover. I'm
gonna cover David. So he chose to cover David, and
then Simon got.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
In the end zone. You know what.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
He brings me back to the nineties and my dad's
head high school football coach, and we had a rubber
tea that you click kicked off of. You know, you
remember those days with the square toed shoe and the
rubber tee. We had a play called I need the tea,
I need the tea, which would send the holder in
motion towards the sideline screaming I need the tea, and
on the second time you said it, then you snap
(04:16):
the ball and off and off you went. We don't
nobody has the rubber tea anymore. Nobody uses that, so
no nobody can really appreciate those things. But that was,
you know, it just brings me back to those types
of alignments and different things and wrinkles. That's the fun
part of special teams, it really is. So you get
a lot of guys in and it's okay if they're
(04:37):
making mistakes at times, as long as they got the
right want to learn and move on and get to
the next play and want to improve on it through
all the different things in the week to come. Uh,
that's what's gonna happen. When you get a few rotations
in there, You're gonna you're gonna have some stuff on
film you can go to work on.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Well, I think, you know, even like we tell the
guys in fall camp, like you know, and even in
the summer and in spring ball, like we we install
a lot of things every single day, probably our first
week and a half to two weeks. And there's a
reason behind that, Like you want the guys to be
able to gain as much knowledge and experience in those
calls as they can. You know, you don't want to
be putting things in, you know, the week of or
(05:13):
right before fall campaigns and then run those things, you
know in the in the first couple of weeks of
the season. So same thing when you get into these games,
it's there's no better teacher than experience. For these guys
so to be able to go out there make some
mistakes and then now we can teach out for those
mistakes and you know, you get some experience and knowledge
in the call. And I thought our guys, you know,
for the most part, dat a decent job. Obviously some
things out there on third down that we felt like,
(05:35):
you know, just knowing situations down in distance and things
like that, to be able to play things top down
in those in those certain formations and situations, I think
we can do a better job. Ultimately, we need to
do a better job if we're going to you know,
play better defense and get off the field and get
the ball back to our offense, and then offensively obviously
taking care of the football late in the game, you know,
not not putting the ball on the ground and letting
(05:56):
the other team score. I think it is something that
we got to continue to work on there or too
as well, just you know, running the right routes, making
sure that we're you know, where we're supposed to be
when we're supposed to be there. And then you know,
just quarterback wise too as well, having an internal clock,
knowing that hey man, sooner or later that the protection's
gonna break down. I got to throw this thing away
and get to the next down and and just move
on from that play.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
H You know a guy that stood out in the
defensive line for one series in fact, but just his
motor was going that entire series. I can't even remember
kind of mid game. But Braden More, you know, we
talked about him coming back from injury, but you can
see why he'd be a guy that you want to
get back because his motor just on that series alone
(06:36):
was just so noticeable. He made like a hurry and
then he made a play defensively where he made a
tackle or a sack or whatever. I mean, the guy
just he can cause if your motor is that good,
you're gonna have a chance to.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Do some things.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
And he's a great story, you know. I think a
year ago there was a lot of excitement surrounding him,
just as far as a young player that had earned
in starting spot. And then within I think the first
quarter of the game at I was really bad injury.
Knee injury. One of those that you don't even watch
it on film because you know it just looks, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Really really bad.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
And when we got here, you know, in January like
he was in the midst of trying to recover from that,
you know, so we never even got to see him.
I mean, he was spending a lot of time you know,
on his own, working you know, with our pts, with
our ats and just trying to really get back to
hopefully where he could start working out and things like that.
We thought in July and maybe August, and then hopefully
(07:27):
we would have him sometime in late this September, maybe
early October. So just a credit to him to every
single day just you know, attacking the rehab and doing
a great job of getting his knee to a spot
now where obviously, you know, he came back and was
able to work out with us all summer long. He
got clear June first and then was able to do
everything there. And then fall camp came around and we
(07:48):
feel we figured, hey, we're gonna have to manage him
a little bit, just his workload and volume, and you know,
his knee was in a great place and he was
able to withstand, you know, the the stress of camp
and going every single day. And now he's in the
rotation and doing a good job and he's really smart.
You know, I think that's the one thing. He's got
a great feel for for football and and uh and
space and and just he does a really good job.
(08:10):
I mean, he's he's a guy that's probably one of
the uh, you know, the best students of the game
in that edge room right now.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
So those guys are always really really valuable.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, it's just great to see him and the way
he's just playing with the energy and enthusiasm. It was
on display, especially during one particular series, but pretty much
every snap that he got to play I was watching
carefully and whole wow. He he he plays with the
right intensity and the right frame of mind to play
that role. We turn our attention to the Montana grizz
(08:38):
That's the opponent coming up Saturday afternoon. Missoula, Montana. One
of the great FCS venues, maybe the great FCS venue,
I mean, depending on who you ask. I mean, they
and their fans have something to be incredibly proud of
what they do each and every game day out there.
Doing what they've done over their history also helps a
little bit. They've built a tradition of culture out there,
of expectations, and they're off to a good start. They
(09:01):
eli Gilman, they're running back who had just a day
the other day. I think he was just named the
Big Sky Offensive Player of the week, rightfully so. And
that's the thing with Montana. You look at him, mobile quarterback,
great running back, who's patient, and then they add in
a guy from eastern Washington who wants to play there
and and he can kind of he's the jack of
(09:22):
all trades guys, So offensively for your defense, you've got
a lot to really prep for this week when you
talk about the grizz.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, I think any Big Sky team is always going
to have good skilled players, you know, and guys at
athletic quarterbacks, guys that can throw the ball, that can
you know, receivers want to play in that league just
because of you know, just the nature of the scoring
and and and how the offenses are built on the
West Coast.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So you mentioned it.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
I think the one thing that really you know, sets
them apart probably from maybe some of the other teams
out there is the running back. I think, you know,
Ten's a really good player. You mentioned it, really patient.
I think he had right around two hundred yards last week,
and and I think he took the very first play
that he got to the to the end zone and
scored on the very first carry that he had. So
(10:09):
a guy who had over a thousand yards a year ago,
but just a really good patient runner and a guy
once he gets in the open field, you know, nobody's
catching him. So he's definitely a threat. He's somebody that
we got to get a lot of people around and
and has our attention, and somebody that we're going to
have to make sure we do a good job of
if we're going to have, you know, some success on Saturday.
And then once again, you know, the receiver too as well,
(10:30):
transfers in from eastern Washington and they give it to
him a lot of different ways, screen game, throwing him
down the field, you know, setting up different crossing patterns
and stuff like that for him. They'll they'll you know,
bring him in the backfield and hand it off to
him as well. And then when they go wildcat, he's
actually the quarterback and a guy that you know, when
he talked to people around the country is hey, he's
a threat to throw it too as well. So he's
(10:50):
completed some passes in his career too. And then I think,
you know the thing that that probably concerns us the
most is the is the quarterback being able to run
the football. He's super out athletic. He does a really
good job of getting out of getting out of trouble.
And you see him down in the red zone. Man
like his his compete level is is really good. He'll
put his body on the line to be able to
get the ball in the end zone. So that'll be
(11:11):
a huge challenge for us, and we got to do
a great job of making sure that, you know, rush
lanes are really good, that we're doing a good job
of trying to make him throw from a bottom up
from the bottom.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Of a well.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Is what we like to say is hey keep him
in the pocket and rush the passers as a company,
you know, not as an individual. Let's do a good
job of making sure that we're all doing our job there.
And then obviously defensively, you know, tackling the running back
is going to be important, and then making sure that
we keep things in front of us too as well.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Well.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
And then you mentioned a thing that you talked about
their defense as kind of the what makes it tough
to prepare for it because they know what they're doing,
but it's a what you how do you did you
describe it as organized chaos a little bit. You never
know who's coming who, who's doing that, and they do
it and disguise it really well, and it can really
be a tough team to prep for because of that.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Yeah, and I think a lot of people, you know,
you know, at times don't want to play against that.
So I think they'll talk a little bit about, hey,
it's gimmicky, it's this and that, and we've been in
those systems before and did some things when we were
a three four team. It's it's if that's how you
practice every single day, like that's what you get good at,
you know. I think that's that's obviously where they've done
a great job is really buying into that system.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
I think Rocky Long is probably the guy who who
gets a lot of credit for for devising a lot
of the things that teams like them do. But they're
still really good at stopping the run. They're really good
at getting you off schedule. They do a great job.
I think a lot of the things that they do.
I know, it looks, you know, like they're they're moving
and rapping and it's kind of you know, flavor of
the month. But I think it's very calculated as far
(12:44):
as what they're trying to do and why they're doing
it based off of you know, down and distance and
formations and where your backs are at and all those
types of things. So we just got to do a
good job once again of keeping things simple for our guys,
making sure we get targeted right, you know, all the time,
and then understand and like hey, man, if our target
it moves and goes somewhere, somebody else is going to
show up, so you know, stay on path there and
(13:05):
just do a great job of making sure that, like
I said, our communication is good and we're targeted right
before the snap starts.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Well, it was an exciting home opener, but this schedule
has been unrelenting in the early portion of the season,
and you wouldn't want it any other way. You want
a big FCS type of game to get a measuring
stick in here and see where you're at in a
great venue and atmosphere. Even though they'll be against it,
it'll be one of those things to kind of see
(13:30):
where everything falls. And I'm excited for you guys. Thanks
for swinging in here tonight and appreciate it, and I
we'll see on the plane on Friday. Good luck this week.
Sounds good, Paul, Thank you all right, Head coach Eric Schmid, everybody.
Big one coming up Saturday against the Grizz kicking at
two Central time, all across the Fighting Hawks Radio network.
When we return, we've got another program heading west. It's
(13:51):
U Indie Women's Soccer Henrik Zone. We'll be joining us
next and we'll be talking with the new head coach
of You and Die women's soccer when we return with
more Hawk Talk all across the Fighting Hawks Radio Network
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