Tuesday Press Conference Quotes

Colorado Head Coach Mike MacIntyre

Opening Statement
"Our guys are excited about playing USC; they're a heck of a football team. Playing in the Coliseum, it's an unbelievable place in American history. In football, it's a phenomenal place to play; it's a great venue and a special place. They've got a good football team. Since they put Sam Darnold in at quarterback – he's an athlete making plays – they changed their entire offense in the past two weeks. They're moving the ball and getting the ball to their playmakers. Their offensive line is huge and big and athletic. Defensively, they've got athletes on that side of the ball that can make plays. I've been impressed with Adoree' Jackson and impressed with their two inside guys, Stevie [Tu'ikolovatu] No. 96 and Rasheem [Green] No. 94. They've got some good football players. They played really, really well last week against Arizona State."

On Team Being Ranked No. 21
"We talked about it for maybe five seconds, maybe. Basically what I said is they've earned the right to be acknowledged for what they've done, but it means nothing Saturday. We have to keep proving it week after week after week. It's what got us here, our work ethic and believing in Colorado football. They have to keep doing that exact same thing. I think it's nice for those young men for as hard as they worked to be acknowledged for something. It's just a blip right now."

On Players Being Ready To Play In The Coliseum
"A lot of these kids have played there before. We've played in a lot of great venues and a lot of great places. They see themselves as a Pac-12 football team; that's what you do, you go play in places like that. USC wants to beat us and we want to go there and beat them. That's what it's all about."

On The Quarterback Situation
"We're going to play it out through the week, then see how healthy Sefo [Liufau] is. It'll really be a game-time decision again on how we do it all. Sefo's health is the biggest key in it."

On Development Of Ahkello Witherspoon
"He's always had excellent athletic ability and done a lot of excellent things. He's just gotten better at his trade is the best way to explain it. He's more focused. He's matured like our whole football team. His best attribute – of course besides his length – is his great ball skills. He really has great depth perception at judging a football and has phenomenal hands. When he's around the guy, it's a 50-50 ball whether it's going to be ours or theirs. He has such length that he can get it away. He's an excellent cover guy."

On Defending USC's Juju Smith-Schuster
"Juju is a heck of a player. He's big, he's powerful; he had a heck of a game last week. He's going to make some plays, we've just got to make sure he doesn't get too many big plays. We've got to be able to handle that and understand that they're going to make some plays, because they've got some good football players and so do we. We can't let him run wild on us."

On Whether Sefo Liufau Will Start If He's 100 Percent Healthy
"We'll see. It all depends on his health, and if he's ready to go we'll be ready to play him."

On Whether He Agrees With Sefo Liufau That He Is 100 Percent Healthy
"No. He's the toughest sucker in the building. He's going to say that no matter what. He said that two weeks ago. The trainers will evaluate it, we'll evaluate it, he'll evaluate it and we'll make sure. I don't want put him out there if he's not fully ready to go."

On Play Of Steven Montez
"We knew he had the ability, we've seen him do it in the spring and in fall camp. He was able to play a little bit in a few games. The Michigan game, when he got thrown in there in that situation, Sefo had been playing so well. We got behind, then their defense kind of feasted on us a little bit. That was a tough situation to put him in. I knew he would play well against Oregon. Did I know he would do that well? I wouldn't say he would play that well, but I knew our team would rally behind him. Our receivers made some phenomenal plays to help him. I was really pleased with what Steven did. I think Steven is a heck of a quarterback. I feel like we can definitely win with Steven playing for us at quarterback against anybody we play."

On Attacking USC's Defense
"Clancy Pendergast is an excellent defensive coordinator. I know Clancy pretty well. Last week he did a lot of blitzing, a lot of safety blitzes. It kind of reminded me of the days of the Dallas Cowboys and Mike Zimmer, because he worked for Mike Zimmer and so did I. That's how we know each other. He was bringing safety blitzes from the boundary a tremendous amount, which is a Zimmer trademark. That was the first time they've done that that much. I expect us to see some of those types of blitzes in this game. We're going to have a little bit different offense than what Arizona State does, so that dictates what you do with their schemes a little bit. He'll definitely have an arsenal up his sleeve. He's got some really good players to utilize in his defense."

On What Is Concerning About USC's Punt Return Team
"Yeah, No. 2 Adoree' Jackson. That's who concerns me. He does it. They do a good job blocking, but in one game he let the ball hit a couple times and he baited the team and caught it, made a guy miss, then made three more guys miss and went to the house. He's a phenomenal athlete. He's fearless back there as a punt returner. We've got to cover well and punt it well. We're definitely working on stopping him. He also returns kickoffs. He does a good job with that. We've got to know where No. 2 is and go get him."

On Having A Lot Of Players From California
"We've talked about it already; we talked about it Monday, first thing, in our meeting. A lot of guys are going home, a lot of family. I wanted to get all their tickets and all that stuff out of the way early this week and be honed in for a business trip to go win a football game. That's what our goal is. I said after the game, after we win, we can spend a lot more time with them. It's an early kickoff, thank goodness, so we can hang out a little longer and let them see their families. The whole key is to go down there and win the football game. Just like USC, they're preparing for us to come in there and beat us. It's a business trip. Our guys will be ready for that. We do have a lot of California kids on our team and we always will, especially playing in the Pac-12."

On How Long It Takes To Turn Around A Football Program
"It's a process. Sometimes you walk into a situations where the cupboard's kind of full and the league you're in is down a little bit and you hit it at the right time. To really build a program and build it with integrity and build it with character and develop the type of young men you want to develop and stabilize it for the foundation for years to come, it definitely takes a while. You can't build a house overnight and have a bad foundation, it falls apart. It definitely takes time to do that."

On Coach Darian Hagan
"Darian believes with his heart and soul that Colorado gave him a phenomenal opportunity and he really grew up here. He put blood, sweat and tears on that field; he put in a lot of time here investing into young people. He believes in the University of Colorado; he loves the Boulder area. He has a lot of friends here. He's totally invested in the program, but also in the city. He's intertwined in Colorado football. When you say Darian Hagan, everybody thinks Colorado football. You don't always think that about everybody you see. When people say Mike MacIntyre, they don't automatically think Georgia Tech football; I wasn't the player that Darian Hagan was. That intertwines him, endears him to Colorado and endears him to the people of Colorado. When you hang around Darian, he's always smiling. He's just a happy-go-lucky guy that makes everybody happy and I think that's contagious."

On Importance Of Team Playing Up-Tempo
"We're going to go in there and play Colorado football, fast and tough, that's what we do and that's who we are. If everybody said, 'What is y'alls identity?' Fast and tough, that's what we think, so that's what we're going to do. They're big and physical and athletic. It's going to be a heck of a football game. We're definitely going to need to score points to beat them for sure."

On Play Of Terran Hasselbach
"Terran has made strides all along since Derek McCartney going down, Terran backed him up. That's given him another role. He's stepped up in his role and done well. That's key for any team to be successful. That's something that we talk about all the time. When your number's called, step up, next guy up. So far this season, guy's number's that have been called have stepped up. We're going to have to do that throughout the season. We have seven really tough football games ahead and there's going to be a lot of guys names that you're not saying now that I hope you're saying a lot of when they get their chance to step in, because I think they have experience and are good athletes."

On Team's Depth
"It helps a tremendous amount. The game of football compared to most sports – you always have injuries in every sport, there's no doubt – but you always have a few each game. Every game is its own season within itself, because we have a different team that we're putting on the field, just like USC has a different team than they put on the field last week. It might be a special teams spot, it might be a lineman, it might not be the marquee guy everyone's talking about. It changes week-to-week. The depth at those positions is key to sustain and be successful, especially in the gauntlet of games that we play."

On Team Earning Respect From The Pac-12 And USC
"How many times has Colorado played USC? 10. How many times have they beat them? Zero. So, we have to earn our respect, there's no doubt about it. It's fun to do something that's never been done. Hopefully we can do that. I think you always need a little bit of a chip on your shoulder in whatever you do. I think it gives you an added advantage."

Wide Receiver Shay Fields

On If The USC Game Holds Special Significance
"Not really. It's just a normal game. We just have to be ready, be focused. We'll have good days of practice this week and come out ready to play on Saturday."

On Being Ranked In The Top 25
"It feels great to be ranked. As a team we want to be lower but that only comes with winning more games on the road in the Pac-12. So we're satisfied but not too satisfied. We're still hungry. We have respect to earn from everybody, honestly. This is our first time being ranked so we just have to go out and prove that we are a ranked team. Some teams don't respect so we just have to make them believes."

On The Fact That CU Has Never Beaten USC Since Joining The Pac-12
"It plays a little bit. You always want to do something that's never been done in school history. So that aspect adds a little bit of fire for us. But we're still going to take it as a regular game to."

On Steven Montez's Performance
"He's made a lot of jumps. He's worked on his technique and he's more patient. He's a fundamentally sound guy. He's lanky but he's made great strides in the off season. That first day that he was told he was going to play, we saw a fire lit in him. He was more amped up, he was leading the offense, getting the line huddled up and getting the receivers, especially when we'd have practices, getting on us. He's just like Sefo who's our original leader.

On Growing Up In Southern California
"I was [a USC fan]. But, now I'm a Buff fan. I'm sure everybody wanted to be Reggie Bush."

On Team's Performance
"We've seen some great things, things that we can do and also some things that might give us some problems. We'll work on that in practice. We've seen that they've improved over the last two weeks and we just have to be ready. That's what it comes down to."

On The Difference Between Steven Montez And Sefo Liufau
"I'm pretty sure I just have to go out and run my routes as fast as I can just like I do with Sefo. It's pretty much the same timing for me, just a different name. Different guy, different name. When Montez is down we pick him up a little bit more than we do Sefo because he's a little bit ore experienced guy. We still pretty much handle it like he's our leader on the field when Sefo isn't there."

On Competing Against USC's Adoree' Jackson
"He's a great player. Just like we played against Michigan's Jabrill Peppers who's a great player also. We just have to go out and try to out work him, do what we can against him."

Inside Linebacker Rick Gamboa

On USC's Improved Offense
"I haven't seen too much difference through the season for them except for the quarterback change that they had. The new quarterback they put in is different and more mobile and they use him in the run game more. Offensively, they've been getting the ball out to their playmakers in space and they've been running the ball with a lot of success and that's a big part of that we see."

On Growing Up A Fan Of USC
"I grew up a fan of USC since I grew up in L.A."

On Wanting To Be Reggie Bush
"When Shay (Fields) said that he wanted to be Reggie Bush growing up I laughed, because I had a Reggie Bush jersey growing up."

On Playing With USC Players In High School
"I played a few of them in high school, so I know a few of the guys on the team."

On Motivation Going Into The USC Game
"Maybe during my freshman year I was more motivated to play against USC just because I was from there. At this point it's not really about that, it's about going out there and no matter who we play just wanting to get a win and playing great defense."

On Play Of Steven Montez
"I definitely see a lot more confidence with him. When he got thrown into the Michigan game he was a little nervous. In the past two games – when he knew that he was going to be the starter – he's definitely been more confident and he's been leading the offense. As a defensive player, we're just trying to get the offense the ball back. We're trying get them the ball back as many times as we can. He's been doing a great job of leading the offense down the field."

On Confidence Level As Compared To This Point Last Season
"About a year ago I was a little nervous to get in there, because of the role I was playing and the amount of reps that I was getting during the game. At this point I'm basically used to it and there isn't anything new that's coming up to me. I'm not really nervous anymore and I'm more excited to be out there."

On Pride The Defense Takes On Generating Turnovers
"We definitely take a lot of pride in it. That's a big emphasis that we have as a team, we want to at least get three turnovers a game. Just knowing we've kept that streak alive means that we're working to get those turnovers. It doesn't matter if it's an interception or fumbles, we want to do anything we can to get the offense the ball back."