BOILING SPRINGS, N.C. - Every Tuesday during football season, Gardner-Webb Head Football Coach will hold a weekly press conference over Zoom at 9:30 AM EDT/8:30 AM CDT to discuss the Gardner-Webb football game each week. This week, Coach Lamb met with the media to discuss Gardner-Webb's upcoming road contest at Tennessee Tech on Saturday, Nov. 11 at 2:30 PM.
 
OPENING STATEMENT
 
"Saturday could not have gone any better for us. With our game, and then what happened across the league, with Charleston Southern beating Tennessee State, and Robert Morris beating SEMO. We're controlling our own destiny. We win the last two, we're in. We're blessed and thankful. First of all, this a great comeback victory for us. We took the lead, 24-10 at the half, and came out and gave up, 28 unanswered points. Coach Merritt, is a heck of a football coach, and he's doing a lot with what he has, and I got a lot of respect for him. I think their quarterback, Zevi Eckhaus, is the best quarterback in this conference. I've seen it for two years. He torched us last year, and he torched us again this year. He is a great quarterback. He's unbelievable. He's savvy. He does a great job, and Coach Merritt has a good team. I think they're one of the more underrated teams in the conference and really across the country. They've moved from NEC to the Big South, now the Big South-OVC, and now they're going to CAA, so they've made tremendous strides as an administration in the last five years or so. But a lot of credit to them. They fought, and didn't give up. We had a chance to put the game away, and we didn't. They seized momentum. Jaylen (King) gets knocked out, our freshman quarterback, and we have to go to Gino (English), and he comes in and has two scoring drives to tie the game, and then eventually win it. I'm just incredibly proud of the guts, toughness the will to win of our football team. You can't put that on paper, but we're finding ways to get it done and it makes me proud."
 
"I still don't think we've played our best football. We're still minus nine in the turnover ratio, which is 118th out of 128 teams in college football. We're still making our fair share mistakes. The kicking game was very solid Saturday for the first time really all year. We were really, really good on special teams. That helped us win that football game. It's hard place to play up there. There were 5,000 people there, a great environment. But that was a big one for us. Saturday night we're watching the games on the plane, and paying attention to all the scores and watching it on our phones, and the kids are going nuts in the back of the plane. It's just a really good feeling when we landed that we were in control of what we need to be control of. So hopefully we play our best football down the stretch. We know everybody's going to be trying to knock us off and pulling against us. We have to absolutely control our emotions and go get one here on the road."
 
Q1 – What does your quarterback situation look like?
 
"We're trying to get Matthew Caldwell back. He separated his shoulder in his throwing arm earlier in the year. He probably will dress, but I don't know if he'll try to play. He's going to try to throw today, so we'll see. Jaylen King has a concussion. He entered the protocol on Saturday night when we got home so I'm hoping he will be cleared by Thursday. If all goes well with his injury of course. We're certainly not going to put him back out there if he can't go. Gino English almost won our starting job earlier this season in training camp. So we've got three quarterbacks, one really healthy, with Gino. We've got Matt with a shoulder injury, and then Jaylen with a concussion. All three of them are going to try to play."
"It's a unique situation. I spoke with the team last night in the team meeting, and we have to step up in some other areas and make some plays for whoever is at quarterback. Our point totals are going up on offense, but defensively we cannot have another third quarter like we had last week. We played really good football except for four straight drives. And giving them a short field didn't help. We had two fumbles by our running back, and then a pick sick. That was a recipe for disaster there during that stretch of football. Luckily, we were able to come back and win it."
 
Q2 – How does it feel to go back to Tennessee Tech this week?
 
"That place is special to me, and it always will be. And you can't sit here and deny that. I spent a lot of time there. But I told, our team last night that this ain't about me, I ain't playing any snaps on Saturday. This has nothing to do with me. This is a tea, standing in the way of our goals, and every single goal we talked about preseason is attainable. These last two weeks we've got at Tennessee Tech and Charleston Southern at home. This is a faceless opponent."
 
"I think Coach Dwayne (Alexander) has absolutely rebuilt that roster. Their freshman quarterback (Jordyn Potts), has given them a spark offensively. They're really good on defense. I think they've recruited well, and they have a great scheme. You can tell they know what they're doing with the nuances of what they have with blitzes, and changing coverages in fronts. I think they're a lot better than their record shows."
 
Q3 – What's the key to victory this weekend?
 
"Both teams have turned a ball over too many times. I think we're minus-nine and they're minus-eight in turnover margin. Both defenses are getting their fair share turnovers, but I think with the youth on offense on both teams, turnovers are going to show up in critical moments. Special teams are going to play a huge part again. They have very capable returners, and their kicking game is very strong. It always has been. We have to show up in that capacity, and we need to find way to get yards and get into the redzone. We need have touchdowns and not field goals. We're going to go for it on fourth down. We've done it the last two weeks, and we will continue to do that. We have to convert some critical situations, and we have to stop them from converting. But we potentially have two freshman quarterbacks going at it against good defenses. It's a pretty even match up. I think they have a really good ball club."
 
Q4 – How does it feel to, as you said, control your own destiny in conference play?
 
"We are in control. Our players know that. We knew that when the plane landed Saturday night. That comes with excitement, but also pressure. The pressure is a privilege. There are not many teams in the country that can say that they control their own destiny. Maybe ten in the FBS and 20 in the FCS total. Playing meaningful games in November for these seniors is big. These are the guys that came here in my first recruiting class. It's going to take a big effort these next two weeks to get this done. I think the fact that we're winning close games and finding a way to win is giving our guys confidence now. The other side of that is, we want to be able to put some teams away earlier and not get it to those moments where we have win it late. I think our team is playing with confidence right now. They think they can win. But there's not a lot of teams that can say that nobody else controls their own destiny but us. And that is a privilege that we've earned. And some good things happened Saturday for that to happen, and I understand that. I'm thankful for that. But we're in a good spot. If you told me the beginning of the year that with two games to play you have a shot and if you win the last two, you're in? I would have taken that. One hundred percent."
 
For media interested in joining Tre Lamb's weekly Zoom call, please contact Richard Martin for more information.
 
Gardner-Webb travels to Cookeville, Tenn. for their final road game of the season against Tennessee Tech. Kickoff is set for 2:30 PM eastern/1:30 PM central on Saturday, Nov. 11