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Courtesy UM:
Washington State Head Coach Mike Leach
On his team being selected to play at the 82nd Hyundai Sun Bowl…
“We’re really excited to go to El Paso and play in the Sun Bowl. It’s one of the oldest bowls and I’ve heard about it for decades but this will be the first time that me or my team will have to opportunity to go there.”
On coming back to the state of Texas to coach in a bowl game…
“There’s really a lot of great people in Texas. The Texas Tech faithful were fantastic just like the ‘coug’ fans are. The opportunity to connect with the state of Texas and bring the exciting team we’ve got at Washington State is exciting. It’ll be exciting to bring the two worlds together.”
On Miami…
“I don’t know a ton about Miami just yet. The biggest thing in all games is to just worry about yourself and executing to the best of our abilities.
On playing in El Paso against UTEP in 2006…
“I do remember that we played a good UTEP team coached by Mike Price and it was a hack of a loud stadium. At the time we definitely wanted to focus on the game and the task at hand.”
Miami Interim Head Coach Larry Scott
On his team being selected to play at the 82nd Hyundai Sun Bowl…
“The whole Hurricane family is excited about the opportunity to back to El Paso and represent our brand and university to the best of our abilities. We know that it’s going to be a really good game with that wide-open offense that Washington State brings to the table. Our kids are happy and fired up to go and play Hurricane football on a big stage.”
On his future with Miami after the Sun Bowl…
“Right now we’re at the point where we’re just trying to get the team ready for this experience. When the announcement came out about who and where we are playing, our mindset quickly changed to what we have to do to get our kids ready to go. Those other things will work themselves out.”
On Washington State…
“We don’t know a whole lot yet, we haven’t had the opportunity to start studying them. I do know of coach Leach’s reputation and what he does with his quarterbacks and with his team offensively. We know that he has a reputation of throwing the ball a lot and spreading the field and getting the ball to his play makers.”
On Miami’s bowl victory drought…
“It has been a long time (since Miami won a bowl game). I think that’s one of the things that our kids are aware of, and if not, they will be made aware of. It should be very important to them to win a bowl. Everything that we’ve done has been to move the program forward and winning a bowl would also do that for us.”