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STEPHEN F. AUSTIN STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE


August 31, 2019


Colby Carthel


Waco, Texas

Baylor - 56, Stephen F. Austin - 17

COLBY CARTHEL: I thought it was a -- got the first game under our belt. There was times we looked okay and there was times it looked like it was the first game of the year, first game of the program, new era. We didn't do ourselves any favor with the special teams, especially the punt game. We blocked our own punt. That's embarrassing. And really put our defense in some binds. But I thought we played well, first and fourth quarters. And second and third kind of got away from us. But that's a credit to the Baylor Bears, they're very well coached, they got some tremendous players and Coach Rhule his staff do a great job. But really pleased with our guys, just to keep playing and never gave up and had a lot of great effort. And there were some really good plays out there at the beginning and there at the end and we got to clean some of that stuff up there in the middle, put a complete game together. But got out of it fairly healthy and had a few guys go down but playing a big time opponent like that you're going to have a few bumps and bruises. But great environment here at Baylor, beautiful stadium, awesome place to play a college football game, wish we could have made it a little more competitive.

Q. About y'all's sideline, you had all the student section right behind you. Talk about that environment there coming in here and how your guys handled the big environment?
COLBY CARTHEL: I was ticked off, I missed the Baylor line running out. I thought I had three minutes and that's part of the reason I came over here is to see that. And they did great job, their student section, and like I say they do a great job here, McLane Stadium, and the sailgating and everything else. I walked to the top of the stadium just to check that out. And we don't have any -- we got Lanana Creek. I don't know if we can get that thing, any sailboats up there in Nakadoches. But it was a neat environment and awesome for our kids. We had 29 freshmen who the got their first snaps of college football here in this environment, so just a great place to start the season. And a lot of those guys, like I say, 29 freshmen getting the first snaps of their college career, that's pretty special.

Q. It's been 271 days since you were hired at SFA. The excitement's been building for the last eight plus months. How did it feel to finally hit the field and play football?
COLBY CARTHEL: It was good and I think Lumberjacks everywhere are fired up. And we have had a great recruiting class and everything else, but it is, it comes time, you got to, believe in the vision was the hashtag. It's time to raise the ax now and actually play. And you play the game to win. And again, 2019's going to be a great year for us. I don't know how many wins we're going to have. We're dealing with some in-house stuff right now, and we had to leave a bunch of players at home, which was unfortunate, wouldn't have made a difference, I don't think, in the outcome, but sure could have made us more competitive. But we're going to keep putting our best foot forward every day and building a championship program that we can all be proud of.

Q. Knowing you, you were aware coming in that SFA has never had a point scored against Baylor. How big was that touchdown just to get some points on the board for SFA?
COLBY CARTHEL: I was glad we had a drive and scored because I told Coach Rhule all summer, I said if they fumbled on their side of the 40, we're going to go out there and kick a field goal on first down and just dog pile the kicker. But we actually scored a real touchdown, so we held off on the dog pile in the end zone. But that was huge and to score two other times and that one field goal blocked, credit them and their effort. But should have scored four different times and that's something that we can build on, because I think four or five times in school history we played these guys and had a bunch of goose eggs. So that was something that we can really build on, I think one of the positives coming out of the game.

Q. You talked about putting your defense in a bind. In the first half they had eight drives, five of them started in your territory. A lot of it was the punting game. And you've been known as a special teams coach, you know, that's part of the building process, kind of your thoughts on that.
COLBY CARTHEL: I was just hoping Scott Power shows back up to work tomorrow, because I'm in charge of the punt team and I put him in some bad situations. But our best punter is a guy we had to leave behind Thursday when we came over here. So we practiced that double punt and had to throw a guy in there that hadn't done it and he -- we actually blocked our own punt with our second punter, it's one of the more embarrassing plays in my coaching career. And so we scratched that and did some things differently. But we'll get that fixed. But it was unfortunate and we just didn't give ourselves -- I thought that we wanted to play smart, we wanted to play tough and play hard. And I thought we did two of those three. There was several plays that we made miscues like that and offensively left some things out there, dropped a few interceptions and you can't do that and expect to play a competitive game. But the toughness and playing hard, those things are, were really good to see, because that's something you either got that or you don't and I'm really proud to see this team have that.

Q. You got Tarleton next and you know them very well and you know Todd Whitten very well. Your thoughts heading into -- they got a good team, they got a lot of guys --
COLBY CARTHEL: They have got a great team.

Q. They got a lot of guys coming back. Your thoughts on that next week?
COLBY CARTHEL: I told everybody, since they hired me without telling me who we were playing. You know, I thought that was kind of bush league of our athletic director not to tell me who we were playing first. Hey, you got Baylor and you never scored. And then you get to come home and you get to play Tarleton. And I told everyone all year Tarleton will be the second most talented team we play this year. And I think they will have more talent than any team we'll see in the South and they have got some tremendous players, Coach Whitten does a great job. We ran up against him twice last year. And there's very few times over last six years that we showed up and didn't have the best team on the field and twice that happened to us last year. So we know we're going to have to improve a lot between now and next Saturday night just to have a chance to compete, because they are, they're a national title contender at the D-II level for a reason and we're going to have to be on our A game.

Q. What are some of the things you're going to go work on as you hit the practice field this week to get ready for Tarleton?
COLBY CARTHEL: The punt team is where I'll start. And defensively -- we had a few miscues getting on and off the field, a little bit of game management stuff. And we just had some opportunities, got to get off on third down and get home, but we're breaking in some really young guys there up front. Offensively we just got to find a rhythm. There was times we looked really sharp and other times we're just a little bit off here on a throw or a route or what we're supposed to do on a certain play and missing a block here or releasing inside instead of outside. So cleaning up those little details, which I think are all fixable mistakes. And so we'll go to work every day and that's what we have said, we may win seven or eight ball games this year, we may not win one, but it's going to be successful if we get better each and every week. So if we can make some improvements, we'll be pleased and hopefully the outcome on the scoreboard will be in our favor.

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