“Looking back, I’m still proud of how our team attracted bye week and how they prepared for that game at Tulsa. It’s a well-deserved team win, as complete of a win as we’ve had against an FBS opponent. [There were] a lot of things to be proud of in that game.”– Mike Bloomgren on the Tulsa win

“This is not the kind of football team we played in our conference last year. This is a team that looks a lot more like Texas or Houston. This is a talented team from top to bottom. And in some ways, I guess that’s what the American [Conference] is. The American’s, a great conference week in and week out, but these guys won that conference last year. And you see why. You see how well coached they are. You see unbelievable effort across the ball. You see a team that does a great job taking care of the football and taking it away. So there’s a lot of things they’re going to be a good challenge for us.” – Mike Bloomgren on Tulane

“Michael Pratt, I just felt like he was the heart of soul of that team in so many games last year. You go back to the last time they were in Houston playing the team across the street, what he did to lead them back to that overtime win and the way they fought, there’s a lot of good stuff in there. I think it’s a guy that’s very comfortable in their system that they all seem to believe in and he certainly believes he has the answers.” – Mike Bloomgren on Tulane quarterback Michael Pratt

“After all those injuries, I had a glimpse of who I was, but like I say all the time to my teammates, I’m almost a fifth year, but that’s just by my classification, playing-wise, I’m stil a sophomore. My body is still kind of young in terms of how I look at it… My main focus was just, can I get better every day?” – Corner Tre’shon Devones on his mindset returning from injury this season

“If I’m being honest, I owe all success that I have to him. He’s been an older brother to me, helped me with all the struggles that I’ve had… I wouldn’t be here without him… He’s just got so much experience. Over the last four years he’s done everything for this team so he knows how to run every route and block every play, and he’s also just so emotionally inteligent too.” – Tight end Boden Groen teammate Jack Bradley

“We know that we’re going into Tulsa to play a very good team, a well-coached football team led by coach Kevin Wilson. A team that’s in a very similar spot to where we are. They’re 3-3. They probably came out of their last game feeling like they could have and should have won that game, so very similar spots.”– Mike Bloomgren on the Tulsa game

“I think you see a lot of coach Wilson’s fingerprint on what they do. I think they play very physical and very tough, so that’s what they do best, is there style of play, if you will.” – Mike Bloomgren on Tulsa’s strengths

“We had really good practices where we got some good technique work with our coaches in some individual periods. Came out and got a couple periods of early Tulsa practice and then we turned it into a young guys scrimmage.” – Mike Bloomgren on how the Owls utilized the bye week

“I feel like definitely with the bye week we had a lot more time to refind our identity, really find that tough, aggresive, fly-around-team that we know that we are. To be able to come back and regroup and play for eachother, finding that again was a great opportunity to do over the by week.” – Defensive end Joshua Pearcy om defensive improvements during the bye week

“There team is a run team. So what do they get all summer? They get runs. So they’re probably going to be a good run-stopping team. That’s one thing that we’re trying to improve as an offensive line, our consistency in run-blocking. So that’s one thing we’ve been honing in on and trying to improve.” – Offensive lineman Brant Banks on what the offensive line hopes to improve this week

“Looking back at the film from all three phases of ECU, it’s exactly how we felt after the game. It was certainly not to our standard. We can play a lot better. But that’s really cool as [The Roost] pointed out the other night at the presser, when you can not play your best and we have a big enough margin for error to still find a way to win those games. It’s really nice. It speaks to what we’ve brought in this building. It speaks to how hard these players have worked. But it’s not how we want to live.” – Mike Bloomgren on learnings from the ECU game

“We’re aware that there record does not reflect the team that they are. They are a talented football team. They are a well coached football team. They have many players on both sides of the ball that would be very good players in the American Conference, there’s no doubt in my mind as I watch them play, how hard they play.”– Mike Bloomgren on UConn

“It was better. It was nowhere near the standard. It is not good enough in terms of what I’ve talked about. I don’t need to be balanced in terms of percent of run to pass, but I do want to be able to run the ball whenever we need to run the ball, and that includes 4-minute situations. We were not able to gain enough confidence in what we were doing to call runs like I would have wanted to in 4-minute.” – Mike Bloomgren on the running game

“As you see on a week to week basis, pretty much every pass is a catchable ball. He makes our job a lot easier and it’s up to us to kind of make his job as easy as we can too.” – Wide receiver Rawson MacNeill

“They’re a group of dogs. You can tell when you watch film that they really want it. They’re hungry… definitely a team that we cannot take lightly and we got to take our same preparation as we do every week.” – Safety Marcus Williams

“JT’s health is better today than yesterday, and certainly better and Sunday… I certainly don’t expect him to go full speed today, but he’s preparing to start this weekend… [Number] 18 is playing pretty good football and we’re not going to take him off the field on purpose.” – Mike Bloomgren on the status of quarterback JT Daniels

“You look at their defense, a lot of similarities to what they did last year. Offensively with the new quarterbacks that they’re rolling through, it’s a little bit different, but we can’t forget that this is a balances offense in a lot of ways, right? They’re going to have the ability to take shots. It’s going to look more pro-style, than maybe a collegiate offense.” – Mike Bloomgren on ECU

“My relationship with [ECU head coach Mike Houston] goes back to 2002 when he was the head coach of TC Roberson High School and Asheville, North Carolina and I was coaching Catawba College and I was recruiting his school and going in there talking ball and just hanging out. And now the fact that we’re playing each other on a Saturday in major college football, it’s pretty cool.” – Mike Bloomgren on ECU head coach Mike Houston

“I feel like they’re pretty balanced. They want to run the ball. I feel like the’re a pretty good group, well well coached. Definitely a lot of strain on their offensive line. It’s always good going against competitors so we can’t wait to get in there. But for the most part, they’re pretty balanced.” – Defensive linamen De’Braylon Carroll on ECU

“It was the first time I’ve ever looked up at the jumbotron driver to see if there’s anything behind me. I’ve always watched athletes do that and I was like, ‘How do they do that?’ I don’t understand how they look up while they run, but I just kind of saw it in my peripheral [vision] and used it as a tool.”– Running back Dean Connors on his long TD against USF 

“It makes our job as coaches, easy. When you can see the quality of the opponent on the film you watch all week, you know we got to be locked into the details if we want this dub… They played like a very confident group against Alabama on Saturday. I thought their defense did exceptional and their offense had many opportunities. They were not ever struggling to move the ball.” – Mike Bloomgren on what Rice learned from watching USF play Alabama

“I just think like that tempo is going to be a deciding factor in how successful we are. If we’re ready for the fight, I’ll bet on our defense. If we’re ready for the fight every play I just believe so strongly in the way these guys are performing the effort and they’re playing with.” – Mike Bloomgren on preparing for USF’s tempo on offense

“I think they do a lot of movement, a lot of good things for them that fit their scheme, but I believe it’s on us up front. If we handle our business and give JT [Daniels] the time he needs, there’s nothing that can stop our offense, to be honest.” – Offensive lineman Lavel Dumont on preparing for USF’s defense

“The last time I was at the Buccaneers Stadium was 2006 with Sean… Being behind the bench, him scoring and handing me the ball, it’s probably going to bring back a lot of memories but our main focus is to win, go 1-0 with the team and head back to Houston.” – Safety Gabe Taylor on returning to Raymond James Stadium and remembering his brother, Sean Taylor