i mentioned the uh after the the loss a couple of weeks ago what have you seen in impressed with most with your team with the back-to-back wins after that

I think that the most impressive thing is when you're taking over a program like this and it's new and everything's new with the kids is just like when you get those early wins and then you get a setback, okay, are we really good or did we get lucky earlier on? And, you know, I think our guys are starting to believe in themselves.

We're starting to see energy at practice that's, you know, not been there like – maybe that week three.

And so I think our guys are really growing and feeling that they can be competitive, which is a great place to be.

But then also on our end, we've got to make sure we're not getting arrogant and we're not getting over cocky, but we're hungry to get better every day.

What does practice look like now for the Lakers, for Lancers?

Yeah, so we gave them today off.

We'll probably call in the varsity guys to have them off on Monday and let the JV and freshmen have their own practice to kind of gear up for their games that they have still.

Any individual standouts for you last night?

obviously caden played real well for us last night um especially coming from where we didn't think we might even have him and to executing to four overall touchdowns one throwing and three three on the ground uh but obviously i thought our our h back uh brody zesh and um and evan watts did a great job blocking the edge because when we started running outside that's what we had to get from them also our receivers carter seek and ian winkleman blocked real well too so that That was great.

Defensively, they all just played well.

I mean, we flew around.

Minus those two big plays, we had guys flying around, gang tackling.

Our DBs were in man quite a bit, and they all locked down.

Cruz Kimes having a heck of a season for a sophomore.

Now that you're hitting the midway point of the game season, how's that holding up for you?

Are there a couple things that you knew going in that we need to do this well to win the game that they maybe took away from you?

Oh, I mean, the emotion side of it.

That was our focus this week was just, like, staying calm under the gun there.

And we didn't.

I mean, there were a lot of young guys, especially we gave up explosive plays on defense and then offensively guys that were newer to the program just blocking the wrong guy or reading the wrong guy.

And so, you know, that's on us as a coaching staff to try to keep them emotionally composed and be steady out there.

And, yeah, we just failed to do so.

When is that decision made?

Against Niles, you had some opportunities

but didn't kind of convert them.

Tonight you've got to convert them, right? Oh, for sure.

That's been the emphasis all week about the whole motion piece and then finishing drives.

Last week it's just a lot of silly things like holding or pushing someone after the play or hurtling them.

I didn't know that was illegal.

I knew it was illegal.

number 10, got to stop him,

Did you have on that 80-yard drive many plays that were negative?

There was one, like I said, that set us into that second and 17.

But that was kind of the theme in the second half is we just kind of kept shooting ourselves in the foot and getting long penalties because when we came out in the second half, we had a huge return through a 26-yard pass to put us on the one-yard line and scored right out of the gate.

So at that point, being 21-8, it's like if you can get one more score, maybe they'll give up.

You never know.

And we just could not get our offense to get that going.

I think the first series that time we got a holding.

What about the way your defense responded after that score and held them in check?

But at what point did you kind of think, we've got this?

I would say early in the fourth quarter, we were starting to look at trying to get other juniors and seniors in the game just to make sure they were getting some reps and seeing some live action.

We did turn it over pretty quickly on offense when we did that.

But, you know, those are things that will come with growing and developing our program to a full level that we want it to be.

So, you know, it happens and we'll get it going.

And like I said, we ended up getting the ball back and then we just tried to run out the clock and we ended up accidentally scoring again, but that's okay.

Talk about your guys on the O-line because I know that's been a – I don't want to say it's right, maybe more of an Achilles heel for the last few years?

Yeah, so, you know, when you have four senior linemen in the group that are all back, they play really hard.

Go ahead.

Yeah, 1,000% no.

In fact, what it does is it gains customers.

My experience has been that people, they may try that.

The very first episode that we did was a grocery store bouquet, and I wanted to start with that one really to get at the people who...

I don't want to compete with grocery stores.

That's not my market.

Yeah.