Jan. 22, 2007

Below are quotes from Brad Wright from the Jan. 22nd press conference announcing him as Texas State's head football coach.

"The most unbelievable thing about this is that I am a Bobcat. I played here, I walked on here. I was fortunate enough to get a little time on the field. This is one of those deals that I never even dreamed of to be head coach. I thought at different points in my career this would be a great place to come back to and be an assistant. It was more than a dream because my dream was just to come back.

"We are very involved with our faculty and staff. We are going to graduate student-athletes here. When we bring recruits in here we have them meet with professors, with deans and advisors. It is unbelievable when you go to breakfast with the recruits and there is the University's provost, a Piper Award winning faculty member and our faculty representative are there. It is so impressive to young people and their parents. We appreciate their work.

"I want to thank David Bailiff. Three years ago when we just got through the quarterfinals of the playoffs at Canyon, David calls with a dream of maybe a few years from now he moves on to better and bigger things and I go with him. Or maybe he goes on to bigger and better things and I'm the next head coach at Texas State. The son of a gun must have a crystal ball. We have been friends since 1977. I would be here without him. He's a good man. He's done an incredible thing, leaving members of his staff here for us to be successful. He didn't set this program up for failure, he set us up for success.

"When we got here three years ago, this was kind of a strange place. I had never been at a place, and I hate to use the word disarray, but I will use the word disarray. Academics was a mess. Our character was a mess. Our team was a mess. These guys bought in to what we are doing. They bought in to you have to be a good person first. They bought in to you have to be a good student second. They bought in to you have to be a good football player third. That's what I believe. Our student-athletes bought into that. As mentioned earlier, we had the highest graduate ration of all schools (public and private) in the state of Texas.

"I couldn't imagine coaching any place else. It is the greatest university that I know of and I am proud to be a graduate.

"The direction of our football program ... I have a simple philosophy. We are going to make them act right and we are going to make them work hard. We are going to make them do those two things and everything else will take care of itself. It is very simple.

"We are going to have good men here. I am very fortunate that Travis Bush has decided to stay on as our associate head coach and co-offensive coordinator. We have very similar philosophies about what we need to do on offense. We are going to become better at running the football. You watch the playoffs at the I-AA level, you watch the national championship games and everybody can run the football. We have got to get better at it. When we get close to the end zone, we have to be able to push the ball through and get into the end zone. I didn't say we were going to run the football more, we need to run the ball better. We are still looking at that 50/50. We are still going to throw the ball half the time but we have got build that mentality and we will build that mentality. One other way we are going to build that mentality is I am bringing in another guy, his name is Ben Norton (former assistant coach at McNeese State and a native of Vidor). He is going to be the assistant head coach, co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach. He is a fine human being and is going to head up our FCA chapter. It said a lot me when he took the liberty to ask if that is possible. Kind of shows you the kind of guy he is. That is what we are going to do - surround ourselves with great people.

"Defensively, ware are going to change a little philosophically. We are going to be a little more conservative in the secondary. We're going to try to at least have one guy in the middle who can haul someone down. Coach D.J. Elliot is coming back from Tulsa and will be our defensive coordinator. He is in agreement with me about our defensive philosophy. Again, he is another great person. We are blessed right now.

"We are going to continue to emphasize being out in the community. You are going to continue to see our student-athletes at schools, at charity events. We are going to try to do everything we can do to give more back to you than you give to us."