Rice University Athletics
Mike Bloomgren Press Conference Quotes
10/11/2022 2:01:00 PM | Football
Opening Statement
"It was great to be back with our team yesterday, getting back into game week mode. I have so much comfort in that. But, I also know that having that bye week is beneficial to our student-athletes. It's beneficial to their bodies (and) to their mental health; being able to get home and get away from the building a little bit for a few days as well, as well as catch up on their academics. It was great for me and the staff to get out and recruit. Put that Rice 'R' in a lot of schools across America and see a bunch of great, future prospects. Most of them in the 2024 class. It's always exciting to be out.
I'm really confident in the way we're preparing right now. I think our teams is excited. I think we're all excited for this trip to Boca Raton. We understand what we're up against. FAU is a very well-coached team, from Coach (Willie) Taggart to all of his coordinators right on down the line. It's just a great staff. They have great athletes. So we understand what a great challenge its going to be for us this weekend. But, at the same time, we're doing what we do. We're worrying about us. That's exactly how we want it to be. The new trick for us that we're trying to get done is to find a way to go on the road and win a game. That's the challenge we presented to our guys. It's the first time we'll play outside the city of Houston in five weeks. It's been nice to be home for a while. But, we'll go, get on a plane and play a game somewhere else, and hopefully have a similar result to what we've been having lately. That is certainly our goal and what we're working really hard for."
What jumps out in Coach Taggart's style of play?
"What I know about Coach Taggert is that he left Stanford a year or two before I got there. I've heard a lot about him through the years. We've met a couple of times but I certainly don't know him well. What I do know is that he's like the third Harbaugh child. So, there's a lot of the toughness that's instilled there. There's a lot of things that Jack and Jim (Harbaugh), Jack especially, instilled in Willie Taggart. I know Willie played for him at Western Kentucky (and) won a national title for him there. You just look at Willie and the success that he's had in coaching, getting the opportunity with Jim Harbaugh at Stanford coaching running backs to being the head coach at Western Kentucky, then being the head coach at South Florida and being at Oregon and Florida State. He's got all of that experience with him now at FAU."
So things about FAU stand out?
"I think you're playing a team from South Florida. You're going to have great speed. You're going to have great length and you see those things. You see some twitchy dudes that make plays. Let's start with quarterback. N'Kosi Perry was a very highly recruited kid. He started his career at (Miami). Now he's been at FAU for two years. He has the ability to affect the game with his legs and he's got a great arm. It starts there. All of their skill (players) run so incredibly well. Their lines have gotten better and better every year. Looking at the jump they made from last year to this year, both their offensive and defensive lines are tremendously improved."
What did you like or didn't like when you looked at the season so far during the bye week?
"There are things that we're addressing. It's not like we only self scout during the bye week. We put more time into it and more focus into it. I don't know about specifics as much as the challenge from me to the staff was to understand that FAU was on their bye also. So, anything that has hurt us this year in any of the three phases, they are going to do. We have to understand that so we better understand how we're going to solve those issues going forward. By the same token, we've been studying their film and looking for things that we can attack. We're going to try to present some of those same problems to them as well."
"It was great to be back with our team yesterday, getting back into game week mode. I have so much comfort in that. But, I also know that having that bye week is beneficial to our student-athletes. It's beneficial to their bodies (and) to their mental health; being able to get home and get away from the building a little bit for a few days as well, as well as catch up on their academics. It was great for me and the staff to get out and recruit. Put that Rice 'R' in a lot of schools across America and see a bunch of great, future prospects. Most of them in the 2024 class. It's always exciting to be out.
I'm really confident in the way we're preparing right now. I think our teams is excited. I think we're all excited for this trip to Boca Raton. We understand what we're up against. FAU is a very well-coached team, from Coach (Willie) Taggart to all of his coordinators right on down the line. It's just a great staff. They have great athletes. So we understand what a great challenge its going to be for us this weekend. But, at the same time, we're doing what we do. We're worrying about us. That's exactly how we want it to be. The new trick for us that we're trying to get done is to find a way to go on the road and win a game. That's the challenge we presented to our guys. It's the first time we'll play outside the city of Houston in five weeks. It's been nice to be home for a while. But, we'll go, get on a plane and play a game somewhere else, and hopefully have a similar result to what we've been having lately. That is certainly our goal and what we're working really hard for."
What jumps out in Coach Taggart's style of play?
"What I know about Coach Taggert is that he left Stanford a year or two before I got there. I've heard a lot about him through the years. We've met a couple of times but I certainly don't know him well. What I do know is that he's like the third Harbaugh child. So, there's a lot of the toughness that's instilled there. There's a lot of things that Jack and Jim (Harbaugh), Jack especially, instilled in Willie Taggart. I know Willie played for him at Western Kentucky (and) won a national title for him there. You just look at Willie and the success that he's had in coaching, getting the opportunity with Jim Harbaugh at Stanford coaching running backs to being the head coach at Western Kentucky, then being the head coach at South Florida and being at Oregon and Florida State. He's got all of that experience with him now at FAU."
So things about FAU stand out?
"I think you're playing a team from South Florida. You're going to have great speed. You're going to have great length and you see those things. You see some twitchy dudes that make plays. Let's start with quarterback. N'Kosi Perry was a very highly recruited kid. He started his career at (Miami). Now he's been at FAU for two years. He has the ability to affect the game with his legs and he's got a great arm. It starts there. All of their skill (players) run so incredibly well. Their lines have gotten better and better every year. Looking at the jump they made from last year to this year, both their offensive and defensive lines are tremendously improved."
What did you like or didn't like when you looked at the season so far during the bye week?
"There are things that we're addressing. It's not like we only self scout during the bye week. We put more time into it and more focus into it. I don't know about specifics as much as the challenge from me to the staff was to understand that FAU was on their bye also. So, anything that has hurt us this year in any of the three phases, they are going to do. We have to understand that so we better understand how we're going to solve those issues going forward. By the same token, we've been studying their film and looking for things that we can attack. We're going to try to present some of those same problems to them as well."
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