Eddie George Monday Press Conference Transcript (Lafayette)

Eddie George Press Conference 
Aug. 25, 2025
Bowling Green, Ohio 

Eddie George Opening Statement:
I'm extremely excited to start the season. Kick it off Thursday night against Lafayette.

I think we're at that point in time in camp where I think we're ready to play against somebody other than ourselves. You know, it's a little testy now and guys are seeing a bit more fights, a little bit more agitation. They’re operating off a lack of sleep. They’re tired, you know, but I think we pushed hard, we worked hard to get to this point. Now we're really excited about starting the season. From I guess from an injury perspective, I think this is the healthiest that we've been.

Talking to the strength coach and myself, between us, we feel like this team is where right where it needs to be from a health standpoint. Not a lot of injuries, really addressed some depth, saw some development, saw a lot of growth this summer, and we're excited to see what we're about. So, we're going to find out who we are in terms of our culture once we face adversity against another opponent. So, fire away with questions.

Question: I want to confirm that Drew Pyne will be the starting quarterback, and what have you seen from him in camp that makes you optimistic?
George: Yeah, I think with Drew coming in, we were very excited to bring Drew in from Missouri given his pedigree, his background, what he brings to a team from a leadership standpoint. Certainly, he's played in meaningful football games. You know, look at his record. He’s 9-3 or 9-4 as a starter and has played in some high-intensity ball games against competitive opponents. He gives us some confidence that he can get the job done.

We like to watch him operate the offense and really take command of the team. It was really refreshing. So, we feel like he is the guy moving forward and understands what we're trying to accomplish. If we can keep him surrounded with really good players, playmakers and keep him upright on the pocket, we believe that he can make some decisions that can put us in position to win.

Question: Some transfers are coming in with experience, who have you seen step up out of the running back room?
George: From what I see out of the running back room, there's great depth there. We got some playmakers, I believe, you know, we’re built four or five deep.

All of them will play to some capacity. I would like to see, you know, one guy or two really take the forefront, but each one of them brings something unique and different to the table.

Whether it's Chris McMillian and his ability to have to go in between the tackles. You got Cameron Pettaway, who was a redshirt freshman who has excellent vision, excellent feet and can see the hole really well.

Nakai Amachree is really coming on the last two or three weeks of camp after coming off of a knee injury and we're starting to really see what he's capable of doing.

And of course, Kaderris Roberts is also going to be able to contribute. So, we're expecting all four guys will get some touches, but somebody's going to have to separate from the pack at some point in time of the season and be the guy that we can lean on. So, I feel good about all four of them.

All four can pass block, they can be an asset in the passing game. They understand what we're trying to get out of the position offensively. They do a really good job of their run reads. They understand what the defense is trying to do pre-snap. And that's refreshing. So, I'm curious and excited to see what they're going to do against live competition on Thursday night.

Question: Has your transition, and the whirlwind that goes along with it, gotten in the way of preparation for the first game?
George: The last five months have been going really well. I’m just getting settled in the community and spending a great deal of time here at Bowling Green and really throughout the entire area. Toledo and certainly Detroit, having to travel through Detroit, going back home and this again is feeling really at home. I feel very comfortable. My family feels comfortable. Of course, you have the transition of moving from Nashville to here, which can be awkward and uncomfortable, but knowing that, we made a pretty smooth transition.

As far as getting prepared, that's my number one job. I have to get this team prepared. I have to prepare the staff. Guys that have not been here, you know, for the course of the year. So, we have to go through a lot of firsts. Just understanding the landscape and the layout of how you get to the hotel, from the hotel to the stadium, how do we enter the stadium on the walk, and just all these different elements you got to cover prior to jumping into the first game of the year.

Then there’s getting the team right, making sure first that the product is right, at least we're heading in the right direction. So, we've invested a lot of time in getting our guys prepared on the field by putting together a great schedule and being very intentional about practice. They had to go through some adversity to find out who we are, how we want to respond, how we can coach these kids, and it's been a wonderful process. So, we've dealt with it. I've dealt with, adversity before, in terms of not having everything lined up perfectly in terms of when we got here in the spring and so forth. We're not using that as an excuse at all, you know, just embrace it and roll with it.

Question: Big gameday obviously with a lot going on off the field, plus it’s a weekday game, how does that affect preparation?
George: Well, first thing’s first. Again, my number one job is to get this team ready. The other stuff, that comes and goes and I'm going to be excited for Urban and excited that the coaches are here.

I’ll be going to go to an event earlier in that day, I'll spend some time meeting people, but the number one thing is that I have to coach a game. You know, I've done a lot in terms of getting out in the community and getting in front of key constituents. Alumni, people that have donated in the past, that's important.
However, I still have to get this team prepared, inside and out and really establish the culture on a daily basis in terms of what this really is going to be about, how we're going to accomplish, what we need to accomplish on a daily basis and not get distracted by anything else outside of that.

Question: How do you describe your coaching style? Some say you’re very focused, very intentional, very determined and active and engaged. Some folks say you're more like a CEO and delegate.
George: Yeah, it's all of that. I don't try to emulate a certain person. I take the job as it comes, and I believe in delegation. I have a vision for what I want the program to look like. It's very important for me to do things in terms of the university, to promote the university, to promote our team to get out in front of it. I think that's very important. You have to do that. Then there's the balance of OK, this is what it's going to be about. This is what I expect. I have people on the staff that I've worked with before that understand what I'm looking for, what we're looking for in a day-to-day basis in terms of the staff and culture, and it's only a distraction if you allow it to be.

Listen, it's not my first rodeo. It’s just a different stage, a different place and you just have to embrace it as it comes. Again, you've got to keep the main thing, the main thing. That’s number one again: our preparation and how we prepare. Our mindset. How we approach the day. So, I'm present. If I'm in a press conference, I'm present. If I'm downstairs in the meeting, I'm there. If I have to deal with the player one-on-one, I'm there in that moment. It's the calling, I just deal with it as it comes.

Question: How does being an NFL rookie and a rookie FBS coach compare? Which is harder?
George: Well, again, I embrace what's new and within the new situation you have to expect it’s not going to be smooth. There's going to be hiccups. You have to embrace that. That's the opportunity to figure out how you learn and how you grow from this, whatever that may be in terms of what comes up.

And it is what it is. You have to go through it. I don't, I don't have a high expectation in terms of it has to go perfectly. I'm here to understand first and then be understood.

So, for the most part, it's been great, if that makes sense. It's it's been fun. There hasn't been any surprises. I knew what I signed up for when I took the opportunity to be the head coach here and it's been great. Yeah, there's some obligations I have to fulfill away from the football field, but let's be clear, I'm thoroughly involved detail by detail in everything that we do. That's very important. You know, it's important for us to have a world-class program. That's from the time that we walk in the door, how we greet people, to how we approach our day, to what we wear, to our approach, to our attitude, our intentions, our focus, the process of doing things, how we're helping, how we're coaching our kids, all that stuff matters. And again, to some degree I will delegate certain aspects over to the different coaches because they know the standard, they know what I'm looking for and they know what we're trying to accomplish. That's important. If that person is not the right person for the job, then I’ll make the necessary changes.

So, for the most part, again, I'm pleased with our staff, I'm pleased with how, given how things shipped out for this program, we took over. And, after taking on the former staff, how they've truly embraced, what I'm bringing to the table and where we're trying to go. We're all speaking the same language and we're all in harmony.

We're seeking harmony within that. We’re not changing things that have worked but changing things that could be better. I think we all agree with that, and we just move forward.

Question: What parts of the transition have gone smoother than you anticipated?
George: Oh man, I think just the timing, because it was in the spring. I didn't have a real good sense of who this team was. I didn't know anybody, you know, I was still trying to learn names. So, it was important for me to know who these kids are. I didn't have a chance to recruit them and I'm not saying that they're not my kids. I'll never say that because once I become the head coach, they are my kids. That's how you look at it. So, I have to find out what their strengths are. First of all, find out who they are, where they're from, what they're passionate about, find out what's important to them, what is their ultimate vision.

Then based off of that, coach their heart. I invested a lot of time in doing that this past summer. So, if the other stuff outside of it, like finding a house and getting settled, getting my arms wrapped around the business totality from equipment to the academics to compliance to NIL to the athletic training department to our strength conditioning, that took some time to figure out where the bodies and bones are buried. So that was some time, that was a transition point. But again, this is a place that's well established. It has resources. For the most part, they're very transparent. What's made it easy and seamless has been the help I've gotten from our athletic director, Derek Van der Merwe, people that are that are very helpful in compliance to help the program, you know, just move it forward.

Nina, who's our new DFO, has really been tremendous. Based off her experience at Power 5 programs like Indiana and Notre Dame has been tremendous. So, it's really helped with that learning curve. It’s really shortened that learning curve in that regard. So that hasn't been too daunting.

It wasn't a daunting task at all, despite familiarity with coming from the FCS program and having to do a lot of the stuff yourself. Realizing, oh man, I don't have to worry about getting the grass cutting, you know, getting lines in the grass. It's going to be done. Those things are done. So, it's not much that I necessarily need or want that would be problematic.

So, it's been, it's been relatively smooth in that regard.

Question: Looking at Michael Vick and Desean Jackson getting into coaching, do you think your success at the FCS level has paved the way for former players? Specifically, for those who didn’t start out coaching and had been away for a couple years?
George: I think it has. You look at myself, you look at certainly what Deion has been able to do at Jackson State. I've coached against him and reached out to Dion prior to taking the job at TSU. Seeing that we've had success, in helping turn programs into winning programs and moving on. I think it's really inspired these young men to jump into coaching. I know I've talked to Mike a couple of times and the sense that I've gotten, you know, is that he's in it for the right reasons. He's in it to build men, to really coach the character of these men. They're going to become champions because of it, because Mike has a very strong testimony of his life. He was the face of the NFL at one point in time and. commercials and all of that, to having the setbacks and bouncing back from that. I mean that goes a very long way and can reach a lot of different kids that want to listen to somebody differently. I think it'll open up a lot of doors for former athletes that have thought about getting into coaching. They’ll say, man, I can get into it this way because for so long you see the roadblocks to get into coaching. Man, you don't want to waste your time doing it, because it's a lot of politics involved in it. You'd rather do something different. You come from that world, you see it in the building, you see other coaches go through it and you don't want to deal with the headache.

But again coaching, in my opinion, is a calling. It's something that calls you, and it's bigger than just the grinding 24 hours of work you have to put in on the x’s and o’s. It is truly the serving other men and other athletes to be their best selves. That’s how I choose to look at it.

Question: What players or position groups have stood out the most to you?
George: Yeah, I'll start with our experienced offensive line. I think they have what? They've played over 3000 offensive snaps together, 762 on average last season. So, they're an experienced group, with almost 100 career starts. Just watching them throughout the summer mature, not just training camp, but the summer conditioning. They got in excellent shape. You can sense a toughness about this group. They run the show, so they really stood out.

The quarterback room has really impressed me. Drew Pyne, certainly talked about Drew and what he brings the table, but guys like Lucien and Baron May. Lucien coming in, God bless him. You know, he's dealing with a whole new offense and trying to figure things out. So, the spring didn't necessarily go as well as he thought it would, but he's really matured and is really gaining ground in terms of the offense and understanding what it means to be a professional. He has grown through his mistakes and having a bad day and responding with having two great days. So that quarterback room has really matured.

Really like what I see out of the wide receiver room, a selfless group understanding that you have to block first and block well. The amount of effort, energy, focus and pride that goes into that blocking is really awesome to see, and that's going to pay off.

Our tight ends, I believe can have a chance to be really special. From Jyrin Johnson to Arlis Boardingham, to Blaine Cleaver who is having great camp, to Jacob Harris also. There are four or five guys in that room who we feel very comfortable putting them out there in certain situations. In some capacity you can see a lot of them play.

Our linebackers we feel really good about, you know, the growth of Dorian Pringle, who's our Mike Linebacker. He's grown up a tremendous amount. Our back end is strong defensively. Our defensive line is where I see the most growth. I think for what we want to do up front defensively there needs to be more consistency there. Dierre Kelly had a good camp. Eriq certainly has had a good camp. David Afogho could be a really good player for us.

So, overall, I feel good about every group and unit. I've seen growth out of each unit. Now, are we where we need to be? No, not at all. But I felt like since the spring, the kids have grown in our system. They've grown in terms of culture, they're speaking the language and there's very few busts I've seen. Few mental errors I'm seeing out of the field. That's encouraging.

I like our punter, John Henderson. I call him the cyborg. You know, he's a machine, man. He's not human. He’s very consistent and he booms the ball. Hopefully we won't have to use him a lot this year, but in case we do, he is definitely a weapon.

Question: Is there an ease or a comfort to opening against an FCS school?
George: Listen, any given Sunday you can lose or any given Saturday. It's never been about, hey, this is an easy opponent, you know, we respect all but fear not. That's any opponent. You have to respect them. It's always been about our preparation anyway. So how do we prepare, are we preparing like champions? Are we exhibiting the habits of the champion? That extends beyond the playing field. So, we've really harped on our preparation. It’s what matters the most here and we have got to go out here and play our best game because we just don't know.

There's a lot of unknowns about this football team. So, two years ago they were in the FCS playoffs, and I've played against some FCS teams that are really, really good. North Dakota State, Montana, SEMO, UT Martin, Tennessee Tech, those teams that have players that are similar to our players. Maybe not in terms of depth, but on any given Saturday, if you are not buttoned up, you can get embarrassed. Lafayette comes from a very good program and a very good conference. They play sound football. The coaching staff has been together for four years.
They're replenishing the group of guys they built up through their culture and through their system. They kind of understand it. They're not going out in the transfer portal and recruiting anybody. So that tells me that they feel good about their depth in terms of they who they've replenished. They understand their system inside and out.

So, it wasn't a hard sell. I think we've got our hands full, and we understand the challenge at hand. Technically we're a brand-new football team. We have 49 new players. You can't just expect for us to go out here and throw the hat on the football field and somebody's going to bow down to Eddie George, their head coach. No, it doesn't work that way. They're well aware of the challenge at hand for our opening day.

Question: What does it mean to have your former head coach, John Cooper, and a few of your mentors, Urban Meyer and Jim Trust, coming here to watch your first football game at BG?
George: I think it's awesome. I really do. I'm honored they chose to come. I’m honored certainly Urban Meyer and John Cooper will be here, and Jim Tressel. I just want to put a product in the field that I can be proud of. We'll go out and win the shortest way, as John Cooper would say. It'll be great to see them for the first part of the game. Then after that, I got to be locked in, you know? Hey, coach, nice to see you, congratulations. You understand. So I got to go do this and hopefully we can come away with a victory.

Question: It's going to be a packed house on Thursday. How excited are you and the team?
George: We're just excited about football overall. This is our Christmas, right? I mean, it's here. Christmas is here in terms of football, that is. I think everybody's waited a long time to get back on the field, to get to be competitive and just have the stadium full and excited. Our kids are excited about the opportunity to play in front of our fans, and you can sense it. You can sense it in practice and there's some really good lively practice today, full of energy, guys bouncing around. They feel they're ready to go. I think the coaching staff is ready to go and we're pumped and hopefully our fans are going to be nice and loud and give us a home field advantage. We’re excited about it.

Question: Pudge the cat has gone viral, what can you say about the importance of having a locker room cat?
George: Well, initially, I'm allergic to cats. So, I was like, what the hell's a cat doing in the locker room? But Pudge is cute. Yeah, my wife loves Pudge. I believe it was George who brought Pudge in, and he's become a part of the family.

I don't mind. I think it's cool. In fact, I think they have a couple of his T-shirts to sell. So, I'm gonna get a couple of them so I can wear them around campus. But I think it's cool. Pudge stays out of my way, I stay out of Pudge's way, and we are fine.

Question: Do we have an update on who the captains will be this year?
George: Yes, I do. Our captains this year was voted on by our staff as well as the team, and we picked four. I think they’re really good captains for us who all served on our leadership council as well.
That's our quarterback, Drew Pine, Nate Pabst, our starting right tackle. Jalen McClendon, who was with us at Tennessee State last year, who was also a captain at cornerback. And Gideon Lampron, is our linebacker as well. So, throughout the entire summer, I made sure that whoever was going to be in front of this team with the C on is the real deal.
I believe all four guys have different leadership styles. Not all of them are vocal. They show leadership by example, but they believe, they have taken ownership of the culture. They believe in it. They bought in and they preach it day in and day out, not just in how they talk, but their actions. They're an extension of myself and the coaching staff in terms of the expectations of what leadership should look like. So, I'm really excited about these four leaders as our captains.

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