Colorado State football held its weekly press conference Monday. Head coach Jim McElwain, left tackle Ty Sambrailo, and linebacker Aaron Davis talked about getting the win over Utah State, the upcoming Border War with Wyoming and more. These are some of the highlights:
Question: What was the strategy on that last drive against Utah State?
McElwain: Obviously it’s different if you’re behind but in this situation we were trying to say ‘hey, let’s make sure that once we get to this point now, let’s put the accelerator on’.
Sambrailo: We have a Mayday alert so we don’t want to give the ball over and get them in scoring position. We make sure we get to the 30 or 35 before we go into our hurry-up. People tend to play off when they’re worried about the 2-minute offense so I knew we could get a good gash in there. Dee had that nice run and it kind of got us going. Then during the timeout we talked about maybe taking a shot. At that point, might as well try to get the game over with.
Q: Does this team take a more aggressive approach?
McElwain: I think we play the odds. We try to play smart, tactical football on both sides and on special teams. We didn’t do a great job of flipping the field in this last game. I’ve been really fortunate to be around some great coaches that understand what it takes at the end of the day to win the game.
Sambrailo: [Coach McElwain] takes chances. I’d call them calculated risks. It’s never a blind judgment call.
Q: Is there more confidence in this team from the coaches?
McElwain: I’ve got confidence that they know what it takes to be successful. It’s like you’re a parent: you’ve got to trust them sometimes that they’re going to do what is right, and in this case they did what’s right.
Sambrailo: It kind of goes both ways. We feed off of him and he feeds off of us. At no point in time during that game was there ever a doubt that we weren’t going to win that game on the sideline.
Q: How much faith did everyone have in Jared Roberts on that last kick?
McElwain: This team believes in him and you can tell that. The calmness that was on the sideline – there wasn’t anxiety in about anybody there because they trust that Kicker is going to go do his job.
Davis: There was no doubt. Even when they moved it five yards back, I think we had more confidence in him.
Q: What does the rivalry with Wyoming mean?
Sambrailo: Last time we played Wyoming at home was my redshirt freshman year. We let that one slip away and that one’s been bothering me since then. It’ll be nice to battle for that Boot on our home turf.
Q: How important is it to hold up the Bronze Boot in front of a home crowd?
McElwain: This thing goes back. The historical part of that boot and all of the things that go with it … that’s what I just love about college football.
Davis: We have it here. We see it just walking by it every day. It’s a good feeling every time you walk by it and we want to keep that in Fort Collins.
Injury Round-up:
Kevin Pierre-Louis (head): Questionable
Charles Lovett (head): Doubtful
Mason Myers (knee): Doubtful
Treyous Jarrells (undisclosed): Probable
Jake Schlager (hamstring): Probable
Collegian Sports Reporter Emmett McCarthy can be reached at sports@collegian.com and on Twitter at @emccarthy22.
