HELENA — Ahead of Carroll College’s home date Saturday afternoon with Frontier Conference foe Montana State University-Northern, MTN Sports' Jonny Walker sat down with Fighting Saints head coach Troy Purcell.
A full transcript from the video interview is available below:
MTN Sports: Obviously, the momentum is rolling right now. You've shut out two straight opponents. What do you need to do to carry that momentum into this game?
Troy Purcell: Yeah, I just concentrate on your job and your assignment there. Triple-option team and, yeah, so put points on the board, keep them off the field, be efficient on third down, develop explosive plays, you know, win the special teams battle and we'll be OK. We start, you know, we lose any of those and, you know, you're in for a fist fight.
MTN Sports: So, last week you have to deal with the wing-T. This week, you talked about the triple option. Like, every team is different, but some teams are more different than others in terms of what they present.
Troy Purcell: Live reps are always hard. You know, you can't really simulate that with the scout team. So sometimes it takes you, you know, a quarter to just get, you know, settled in a little bit and understand it at full speed. So again, we'll be prepared and excited to see that defense roll.
MTN Sports: What have you seen out of this offense over the last two games that has allowed them to be so productive? I remember we talked coming into the season, earlier this season — the offense needs to be more explosive, more big plays, more chunk plays, and really just more productive overall. So, what has allowed the offense to be as good as it has been?
Troy Purcell: So, I think, number one, it's always your quarterback. If he's doing good things and getting us into situations and extending plays and running when he needs to run and breaking out of the pocket when he needs to, you know, you're going to be successful. And so, explosive plays, you know, we have some explosive playmakers that can do some things and get some and make some stuff happen. And then just developing more confidence in the offense, in themselves and with each other.
MTN Sports: And then the question becomes, how can you carry that offensive production as you go on into the season?
Troy Purcell: We just got to prepare ourselves to be the best we can be versus Northern. They're going to be ready to roll, you know what I mean? There’s nothing better than to come into Nelson Stadium and knock off Carroll College, you know what I mean? I think that's the — a lot of the drive for a lot of teams out there. It's kind of, you know, the big-time game, you know, to be able to get a win in Nelson Stadium.
