Montgomery, Players Preview Conference Opener Against SMU

<p>Coach Philip Montgomery, wide receiver Keevan Lucas and defensive tackle Jerry Uwaezuoke addressed the media on Tuesday to discuss Tulsa's bye week and upcoming matchup against SMU.</p>

Tuesday, October 4th 2016, 10:12 pm

By: News On 6


Coach Philip Montgomery, wide receiver Keevan Lucas and defensive tackle Jerry Uwaezuoke addressed the media on Tuesday to discuss Tulsa's bye week and upcoming matchup against SMU.

Montgomery

On having a bye week:

“I thought we had a good, productive bye week. If you will, obviously, we got work to do. Had three good practices on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday of last week. Brought them back in and lifted Friday morning, and then, basically gave them Saturday off and worked out Sunday. Because of the game on Friday, having to kind of bump our schedule around, making sure that we don’t have too many class conflicts as we get into it, so I thought our guys did a nice job. Needed that time, try to get back healthy, try to get back fresh. Obviously, after going as hard as we’ve gone since August. Having a little bit of time for them to kind of bounce back is important, especially with the push that we’re fixin’ to make as we get into conference play.”

On opening conference play against SMU:

“You know opening up conference right here with SMU, much-improved football team. I think Coach Morris, I think Chad’s done a great job there, is continuing to do a great job. You know, defensively, they’re playing really, really well. Obviously, with the loss of Matt at the quarterback position, I think Ben has stepped in and played really well. I’ve known Ben a long time. He’s a great competitive kid. Got a really lively arm, very smart about what he’s doing and you can see he’s getting better and better each week. Always concerned about, you know, Courtland. I mean, he’s a dynamic player on the outside that you’ve gotta be concerned about. They’re doing a good job in being balanced in what they do, running the football and throwing it. But defensively they’ve made big, big strides. I mean, they’re, I think tied for the lead in the nation as far as interceptions; they’ve got 12. Both corners got four apiece. Twenty-nine, he’s got two of his own. They’re doing a great job back there being competitive in the secondary, and they got two of them returned for a touchdown. So, we’ve got our hands full this week.”

Lucas

On having three 100+ yard games early in the season:

“I still have work to do. You know. I’m still working to be the best like I said. That was my goal, to leave Tulsa, leave my name, you know, leave my mark on Tulsa and also leave my mark on this team. We wanna be conference champions, you know. So, can’t be satisfied with just being 3-1. We wanna go ahead and win the whole thing. So, December 3 is what really what we’re playing to do, and so, I try to work as hard as I can to make sure that I’m able to withstand and be able to be strong on December 3 as well.”

On playing a Friday night game:

“Me being from, you know, West Texas area and kinda the Friday nights, that’s what we live for that Friday night lights. You know, so it’ll be good to get back under that and have a game like that at 7 p.m. You know, under the lights again on a Friday. You know, it’s exciting just to be able to play again.”

Uwaezuoke

On playing a Friday night game:

"That's what you lived for back in high school. You prepare all week and once Friday hits you're like ‘Man, it's game day,’ like leading up all day and then the lights hit on at night and it's time to ball out."

On conference play:

“Our conference is full of a bunch of good teams, good players, like we don’t have anybody that you can just take for granted, like, ‘Alright, you know, this is a win,’ or ‘This is one of those games.’ Everybody has a fight, and they’re gonna fight regardless. So, that’s why starting conference, we rethink the mentality is 1-0 in conference every game, every week. So, starting off with SMU, we’re thinking 1-0 and we know that they’re a good team coming in, but we know that we’re more than capable."

View the full interviews above. 

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