2021 UTSA Football
Media Roundtable
Aug. 30, 2021
Head Coach Jeff Traylor
On gearing up for Illinois' physicality and game preparations …
"That is who Coach (Bret) Bielema's teams always are. They have 21 super seniors and 41 seniors on the team. They are extremely bought in right now. They had a great crowd, a great atmosphere and played really good football. We have our work cut out for us, but we are excited about the challenge."
On where the program is going into the new season compared to the start of the 2020 season …
"I journal a lot, so I love to reflect and look back at my exact thoughts this time last year. A lot of those questions that I was concerned about last year, I now know the answers. Some of them I like, some of them I don't like. We are much deeper. We know who we are as an offense, a defense and on special teams. Culturally, we know where we are, and we have a deeper roster. My job is where we are weak, I hide that, and where we are strong, I focus on that."
On how to prepare for the atmosphere in Champaign …
"We could hear the crowd through the TV. You could hear the band through the TV. We are happy for those people. That is a lot of fun. We will have the noise cranked up as loud as we possibly can in order to duplicate that. That is why you do this. We practiced on the field on Saturday in preparation of what the fans are going to say to our kids. We made all the Texas jokes we could come up with. That is exciting. We missed that from college football last year, and we are excited to have that back. Even though they won't be cheering for us, it will be great to have the fans up there getting rowdy."
On the team's mentality for the season …
"To compare us to last year has nothing to do with our culture. We should be a lot better. I hope I am a better version of myself than I was a year ago. The analogy we give our kids is that there are a lot of coaches that I have interviewed that are supposed to have 35 years of experience. They have had one year experience, 35 times. They just did the same thing 35 years in a row. That is not 35 years of experience. If all of our players are returning and they did not grow or get better, they are not returning starters. They are the exact same players they were last year. They should be a lot better. We are all back, and we should all be better. If not, we are not living the culture, not winning the day, not continuing to grow and not wanting to get better. We should be better."
On where he has seen the improvements on the team …
"We are just deeper. We have three deep in some spots that we have never had before. We are not perfect. Sometimes injuries hit you in the same spots, and no matter how deep you are, if you get hit in the right spots, you are already hurting again. We have names that have played, and we feel good about that. Our confidence level is higher because we know who we are, what our brand is about and what our identity is about."
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