University of Tennessee at Chattanooga coach Russ Huesman spoke about the Mocs’ loss to Elon last week, Saturday’s game at No. 2 Auburn and more during his weekly media luncheon Wednesday.
Also on hand were senior tight end Garrett Hughes and junior safety Jordan Tippit, an Huntsville, Ala., native. Here’s some of what they had to say:
Russ Huesman
On playing games against big-time bowl subdivision programs …
They call them money games and obviously the money is important for our program, but also, we use it to go out and recruit. We tell kids … we’re going to play Auburn, we’re going to play Alabama, we’re going to play so-and-so, we’re going to play an SEC school.
And it’s important that these guys know that in the recruiting process, that we’re going to play one every year.
We’ve hit it tough here at Chattanooga because it just so happens we’re playing three, maybe four years in a row, we’re playing really, really good football teams that are at the top of their game at the time we’re playing them.
On what Auburn has done against teams that run a defensive scheme similar to UTC’s …
They scored 37 on Kentucky, scored 51 on Ole Miss, abused Arkansas – they scored 65 in that one. Not bad. What is that averaging, about 50-something a game?
They’re good, they’re talented and they’re talented on both sides of the ball.
On simulating in practice Auburn’s 6-foot-6, 250-pound quarterback Cam Newton …
Terrell Robinson’s been our quarterback on the scout team all year, so we just use him. If we wanted to get somebody as big we’d have to use [left tackle] Chris Harr to play quarterback.
You guys may not realize this, but [Newton] is bigger than two of our offensive linemen that we’re playing with right now.
Garrett Hughes
On playing in large stadium’s like at Auburn’s Jordan-Hare Stadium …
It’s not as nerve-wracking as it was when we went to Oklahoma. That was my sophomore year, so we went there, we played at Florida State, we played at Alabama and now we’re going to play [Auburn]. It’s another step for us to try to go get better this week.
On the photograph in Sports Illustrated last year from the Alabama game in which he’s getting hit …
I got a lot of comments on that one. I think my chinstrap was up around my nose and my shoulder pad was up around my ear. I saw that and got a lot of comments. It’s part of the game and everybody got a kick out of that one.
Jordan Tippit
On facing a Heisman Trophy candidate for the third year in a row …
We’ve been talking about that for a while, ever since the season started and Cam started to excel in their offense. They do a lot of things. What they do is they come out and confuse you with their formations. They have a lot of the same plays but they run them out of so many more formations than the teams we’ve faced before.
On Cam Newton’s size …
He looks like a forward. He looks like an NBA forward. … He outweighs Kadeem [Wise], our starting cornerback, by 100 pounds, so that’s kind of outrageous.
For more on the Mocs, see tomorrow’s Times Free Press.
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