PAT NARDUZZI: Game week excitement. Obviously we’ve been preparing a long time for this opportunity to come back in 2024 and open up against a Kent State team from the Mid-American Conference. I think our team is excited to hit somebody else. They’ve been hitting each other and competing against each other for a long time, against themselves.
I think these openers, sometimes you can worry about the opponent. I told the guys yesterday, I don’t care if we’re playing Georgia or we’re playing Kent State; the focus has to be on what we do. It doesn’t come down to what they do. I told them yesterday after practice again, it’s what we do as a football player, as a team, as a unit, offensively, defensively and special teams. To me, that’s the critical thing is focus on us. Don’t worry about the opponent. If we go out there and play the game we’re supposed to play, I think we’ll walk off the field happy.
As you guys probably got the first updated depth chart whenever you got it, you see there’s a lot of guys that you would think are starters on that football team. We’ve got a lot of guys that are going to get an opportunity to go out there and either start or be considered a starter, so we feel like we’ve got a lot of guys.
Obviously that quarterback position is one that you guys probably take great interest in, probably more than I do. I don’t know who it is, but we feel like Nate (Yarnell) and Eli (Holstein) both are guys that we consider starters, so those two have competed their tails off all camp, and we’ll go out there and go.
I think the starter will be determined how we practice this week. We got practice in yesterday, so we’ll see how they practice, how they pick up the game plan, but the plan right now is to play both those guys on Saturday and let the competition begin on the field.
It’s one of those [things] that I think is just too close to say, hey, this is what it is, let’s take a chance at it. I think both of them are very capable. I think they both are guys that can win football games for us, and I’m excited to watch both of them play.
If you guys recall, back in 2015 we did it, my first year here, with Chad Voytik and Nathan Peterman. We got into Game 3, I believe, and it was over at that point, and I wish I’d have…
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