Southern Miss Head Coach Todd Monken Presser

[Harry]

Opening Statement...

"We've moved on from last week's game against East Carolina and our focus is now on a really good North Texas team. It's Homecoming this week, which will be exciting for our players and alumni. Dan McCarney has done an outstanding job, as he did at Iowa State. His team reflects his personality. They're a tough, physical defense that plays hard, that chases the ball. Their offense is physical. It's going to be a real challenge. You can see what they've been building towards as a program. They've got kids, it appears, that like to play with each other and with energy and enthusiasm. You can see it and you can feel it. That's a sign of a well-coached team. We're excited to get a chance to come home. We've had only two games here and both times we've had an opportunity to win the game. So we're looking forward to getting back here."

On the challenge presented by North Texas defense...

"They're really good. I'm telling you, we've played some really good teams and they're as good as any of them; not in any one particular thing other than their effort. What they do, they do well. They don't do a lot until you get to third down and then they'll get after you a little bit. Other than that, they're a four-down team that wants to play simple coverages. They fit things right and they feed off of each other and they play for each other. That's a sign of a really good football team, something we're trying to build here."

On what true freshman Nick Mullens, who will start vs. North Texas at quarterback in place of redshirt senior Allan Bridgford, has shown in practice and game situations...

"What Nick showed us Saturday was his ability to create when things break down. Whether or not Allan had that ability and then over time got beat up and is not able to do that now, the bottom line is we need a spark. Is it hard to compare? Of course it is. You're talking apples and oranges. What you call, who you are playing and opportunities that each quarterback has been given are different. In this moment, we've got to see what Nick can do. We're obviously struggling offensively. That's part of it. We did assess it a week ago. We looked at every throw of Allan's. We looked at offense in general. We looked at Nick. We had planned on playing him this past week and we did. Like any position, we're constantly trying to assess who gives us the best chance to win."

Mullens additional challenges playing behind an inexperienced offensive line...

"That's part of it. We think Nick's going to be a good football player and you don't want a young man to get thrown in there with other young players and lose his confidence, to where he becomes timid. He showed that that wasn't the case. We've also got to remember that he's 18 years old and he just showed up during the summer and during two-a-days. With both of our quarterbacks, the sample size was pretty small. It wasn't like you had a huge sample size to go on. In this moment, we've decided this is the course we're going to take for this week. It's a week-to-week thing and this week we're going to give Nick an opportunity to move our offense forward."

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