Mike Clowney Opening Statement: It's fun, and we're excited about getting into this first football game of the year. These kids have prepared for this for months now, and to have a blackout theme, I think it's something that's fun, not just for a team, but for the entire campus. The guys get a second opportunity to put on the black uniforms. We've kind of been chasing each other around the field for several weeks now, and I think every football team in the country right now that hasn't played already is just looking forward to playing somebody in an opposite-color jersey. We're no different, and our kids are looking forward to playing a football game on Thursday night.
Q1: To Carson-Newman football, obviously homecoming means a lot, but behind that is the start of the season on a Thursday night under the lights. You're not competing with anybody else in the area, and it's a chance to give the students a taste of what Carson-Newman football is about. How special is this specific type of home opener where you're opening under the lights, a color rush type game that's the only show in town?
This this is fun because, you know, again it gives our students outside of football an opportunity to be a part of the football program. I think it starts to set the atmosphere for our entire campus for the entire year. I think one thing that we try to do as a football program is go out and support our other sports. Sometimes on Saturday everybody kind of gets a little bit distracted, but on Thursday night, we're all here and we've got class on Friday, so it's a great opportunity to get everyone out and involved in something here on campus.
Q2: Virginia Lynchburg is the opponent. They are a bit of a mystery wrapped in an enigma. There's no two-deep, and you've got a roster with no height, weight, or year. It's just name, number, and position. What challenges are there in preparing for a team that was on the cusp a few times last year? They didn't win any games but put some pretty serious scares into some FCS opponents.
I talked to Coach Newman yesterday, and I've gotten to know him a little bit over time. We've recruited two of his sons, and I told him that they do a great job with the situation being what it is, not necessarily always knowing what his roster is going to look like. When you watch them on film, they play hard, they're organized, and they've got some really good players. So, that's where you kind of start seeing those games close on a couple FCS schools last year. I mean they'll bring a good talented football team in here. The big thing we've got to do is make sure that we're prepared to do what we do as good as we can do it.
Q3: How much does the theme "Unshakable" play into this situation?
It's crazy because like you come up with a theme, and what God will do is He'll give you an opportunity to test it out. So, we've had numerous of those. This game really won't be any different from anything that we've experienced throughout this entire camp. Things have kind of transitioned and changed. That theme came from Psalms 125, the key to that is just trusting in the Lord. So, that's your big thing for us. We'll trust in the Lord and trust in one another. At the end of the day, that's what football turns into. You have to believe in the guy beside you, and you have to count on him executing. If we surround ourselves with one another and trust one another then regardless of what they do, I think we'll be okay.
Q4: You bring up the verse, and it always makes me think of one of the all-time great camp traditions which is the creek baptisms. We're a few days removed from having several guys make commitments to Christ down on the banks of Mossy Creek. Just how gratifying is it to see the Lord work through your program year-in and year-out?
It's just awesome to see what the Lord does when we kind of open the door and give Him an opportunity. Our big thing in camp is we want to plant the seeds and so that baptism is kind of evidence of the seeds being planted. Now the real work begins, and we've got to water it, and we've got to culture it and continue to help it grow into healthy fruit.
Q5: Who surprised you through fall camp? Who's somebody internally that has made some massive strides?
One of the receivers, Jeron Newson, is a great kid. He's come in, and he's worked really diligently to be able to factor himself into the game plan. He was just a guy coming in a little bit unknown, but day in and day out he was able to come in and kind of stack good days. He'll have an opportunity to play. Jeterryous Jones is a guy that's continued to progress. This is his second year here, but just to watch him continue to progress throughout the season. Christian Hicks, our linebacker that's been here two years and just, not really a surprise, but you still kind of see that continued growth. Jomier Augustine, another linebacker that's kind of in that same boat. He's a new guy, but over camp, he was just really consistent. A couple of freshman offensive linemen, like Xzavier McKinney, have done a good job for us throughout the summer.
Q6: You bring up Jet Jones; I find it fascinating he's the first player in the history of the football program to wear number zero. I don't know that I would have expected him to take up that mantle. How did that process come about where, numerically, he gets that distinction?
To be honest, it wasn't as requested as much as I thought it would have been, so when you go through the numbers, you want to get those numbers on guys that are starting and have requested a number. A lot of our other guys that are in those situations kind of got themselves established in numbers and I think wanted to kind of stick with those, but it'd be interesting to see. We want to make sure Jet wears the zero and doesn't play as a zero, that's my biggest concern. Make sure you put 10 in front of it and give us 100 every week.
Q7: You look at this offense, and you're obviously installing things probably later than you would have preferred. How has that process gone leading up to kickoff?
I sat and met with Kevin last night, and I'd say you want to have high expectations, and I think they've either met or exceeded those with the short time frame that we've had to get things implemented and moving. I think Kevin's done a good job of coming in and getting connected with the coaches. When he got here, we gave our coaches a couple weeks off in the summer, and I didn't really want to drag them back in during their off time. I don't think I'm a good boss if I do that, plus the wives wouldn't appreciate it, so we honored that time for them to have off. Then, when we got back in here, I think coaches did a good job of jumping in and working to really kind of mesh a bunch of different stuff together to make sure that we can get things to where we need to get it and to where we can function. I applaud those guys for their willingness to come in and work to get that done. Our coaches have done a good job, and then the main part of that is the players have to be willing to adapt. You saw a lot of hunger from those guys. They knew it was going to be a challenge, but the thing that they did was they kind of accepted that challenge, and it was good watching them respond. This is not necessarily new, but learning new people is always hard because we all want to be comfortable. This situation is probably good for us in a lot of ways because we would have been kind of going into year three of doing the same thing. So, what it did was force all of us to get out of our comfort zone and go back and be able to put things together. Like I said, our kids took that challenge, and you can hear them talking about it. You can hear them communicating, and you could see them engage and help one another as far as learning. There's still kinks that we'll have to work out, and unfortunately there's probably some of them that we won't know until we play Thursday, but I think as a program we're all committed to making that work.
