AMES — With the fourth game on Iowa State’s 2013 schedule being another Thursday night tilt, Sunday was really Tuesday when it came to preparation for the Texas Longhorns. On what was a Sunday evening to everyone else, head coach Paul Rhoads, both of his coordinators and several players met with the media. In quick hit format, here is what they had to say.
Paul Rhoads quotes
On Aaron Wimberly’s game vs. Tulsa…
“He had a lot of three yard runs. He ran hard on those runs, when you keep hitting the hole, keep making the cuts you need to make, the 36 yard runs happen.”
On limiting Tulsa running back Trey Watts…
“It was critically important to the victory, it was a huge focus.”
Rhoads noted that Iowa State allowed 317 rushing yards to Tulsa in the Liberty Bowl last December.
On Texas’ defense…
“You can wash the Ole Miss game from memory. You should look more at Kansas State, the emotion and passion that they played, the production they played with gives a better feel of what that defense is capable of.”
On Sunday’s practice…
“Today was a very business-like Tuesday practice.”
Courtney Messingham quotes
On Texas’ defense…
“They are very athletic, their two defensive tackles are very explosive for 300 plus pound guys, they are obviously a very good football team.”
On Texas’ defensive coordinator swap…
“It seems like they have just started saying ‘Let’s get a game plan in place and be as good as we can at this game plan and stick with it’ that makes it tough for an offense knowing you only have two examples to look at.”
Wally Burnham quotables
On where the defense is at right now…
“We are about where I thought we would be. We can play a lot faster. We don’t do a lot of different things. We are very vanilla right now, we have blitzed a little more than the past but we are doing things that make it easy to lineup.”
On Texas’ offense…
“Texas plays really fast. We have practiced against that but once you get in the game it is a lot faster.”
On Texas playing multiple quarterbacks…
“They still run the same offense, you can’t tell any difference on that part. Whoever they put out there are going to try and stop them.”
On Iowa State’s defensive game plan…
“We plan to have one new thing for Texas. We are working on that right now.”
— Burnham said that the Cyclones only missed six tackles vs. Tulsa.
WR Tad Ecby quotes
On Tulsa’s defense focusing on Quenton Bundrage…
“We all expected it after Quenton’s last big game.”
Hook ‘em…
Ecby said he used to be a Texas Longhorns fan up until ninth grade. He jumped from the Longhorns to Texas A&M for “personal reasons.”
RB Jeff Woody quotes
On his first of three touchdowns vs. Tulsa…
“On the play before, I missed a block and James White got tackled by the guy I was supposed to block. Then I scored on the next play so I apologized to James on the sideline.”
— Woody said he thinks if Sam Richardson had been at full strength Iowa State would’ve had 50 or 60 more rushing yards vs. the Golden Hurricane.
LB Jeremiah George quotes
On the coin toss vs. Tulsa…
“Some not so friendly words were exchanged. It’s the game of football, I talk a lot of trash you can see that on TV. But I feel like at the coin toss nothing needs to be said.”
QB Sam Richardson quotes
On his health…
“I’m continuing to get better. It felt a lot better in practice today.”
RB Aaron Wimberly quotes
On Jeff Woody’s three touchdowns vs. Tulsa…
“Woody is my big brother so that’s not a big problem I’m excited for anybody that gets a touchdown.”
On playing Thursday night…
“It will be very exciting being on live national TV. It was a big stage playing in the national title game last year but this is really big.”
