uh just uh appreciate everybody being here just uh recap the weekend I think it's really important I first just really want to thank our fans um what an incredible environment um third largest crowd in canvas history and I thought the atmosphere and the energy of our student section was outstanding and just really want to salute them and just uh let our students and fans know how important that is to our team uh I was really really taken aback by the John Mosley ceremony um very proud to be a part of it that our team could be a part of it um and I thought that it was a tremendous tribute to to John and his family and what an Incredible family um we gave out three game balls for the game uh we gave one to Eric Mosley John's son um and uh an incredible man in his own right uh we gave one to John uh matasa who is probably our greatest living fan here at CSU he's touched so much of our history here um 103 years old been been a season ticket holder for 65 years he was actually a classmate of John Mosley and sat in class with him and uh he actually was involved with f mgra about starting EG day and so really important figure in our history and then the last game ball was for John Weber our our new athletic director and our administrative staff was fantastic uh in getting the game set up you know the atmosphere at the game the different changes on game day I thought were really really brought a lot of energy uh to what we're looking at here and and I thought it showed what we're capable here at CSU you know when When what when I learned about John Mosley you know what he had to do becoming one of the first Tuskegee Herman in a time of segregation um I just really thought he must be proud of where we are here today at CSU and all the different things that we're doing you know last last summer um um our Administration allowed me to start a the Meritt norell minority internship program where we give a young minority coach an opportunity to coach full-time here um you know back in John Mosley's day he couldn't even he couldn't even stay in the same hotel with his team when they traveled and to see where we are today I'm very proud you know we have one of the most diverse rosters in the country you know National reporters have come here to do stories on our roster because we have players from Australia a punter from Australia we got a kicker 32y old kicker from Great Britain we got a uh a a Japanese sumo wrestler we got people from all over the world not just the country on this roster and it makes it a very very unique and special place so very very proud of that um as far as the game is concerned I'm really I'm really happy the Improvement that we made as a team um you know there's a lot of improvement between week one and week two I think the biggest area for us was in mental airs um you know you have some first game jitters guys are a little bit you know not focused on the details of what they need to accomplish we really cut the mental errors down in this second game our tackling was much improved um you know tackling in space is something you don't get to do much in training camp I thought our defense tackled very well um and we broke more tackles offensively uh we had over 200 yards rushing I I think we had over 180 yard s after contact and so that was a huge Improvement for our football team and um you know we gave a a game ball to Kenyan aeres young young defensive end who's really coming into his own and we gave another game ball five of them actually to our our five starting offensive linemen and and Coach best our offensive line coach what a fabulous job our line did and they continue to improve um you know we're really excited to come back back and play at home again this week uh you know one of the things about this season is that we play four teams from the Front Range we just played Northern Colorado um and this is the second one we get to play in Colorado uh the Rocky Mountain Showdown is this week we're playing in canvas Stadium first time on campus since 1996 first time in canvas Stadium which is our Gem of a stadium which we're very proud of here playing for the Centennial cup um and it's always a special thing to play in a rivalry game and and this is certainly one of those and um our kids know how important it is to play in a game like this um you know as far as CU is concerned um very similar to last year in the personality of their team and the strengths of their team um you know everything starts with their offense and their quarterback and um they're very very capable of being very explosive they have a lot of speed at wide receiver with with Hunter and Horn and and Wester um they mostly attack through the air uh and and everything goes through the quarterback through Sanders and so we're going to have to do a good job of containing that they can be explosive and when they make explosive plays they're very hard to slow down and I thought Nebraska did did a nice job against them and you know they have new coordinator Pat Shermer is a very experienced uh coordinator I've known Pat along time and um you know so he he's got a very you know diverse scheme that we have to be prepared for you know defensively they have a new defensive coordinator Robert Livingston very experienced comes from the National Football League you know they really have built this defense to rush the passer and play Man coverage and that's what they do they play a lot of man and um you know they they they try to rush the passer you know obviously I'm very impressed with with Travis Hunter and was impressed with him last year but really Dynamic player um playing at a high level uh and really I'm impressed with number 20 their inside L linebacker Levante uh Bentley I think he's fabulous player uh plays down heill very explosive um you know we have a team that has got to get better every week um we have a lot of young players that are helping some very experienced players but those young players are Key to Our Success you know we build our program on grit fundamentals physicality and effort and and we got to have that every day we go on the field and you know we have a lot of respect for Colorado we have a lot of respect for what they're capable of doing as a team they have a lot of talented players and experienced coaches and um you know the team team that is prepared that plays the best on Saturday me makes the least amount of mistakes will win the game and and that's certainly something that we're working to prepare to do J you've been through a lot