What Marcus Stokes said ahead of the first conference game against Charlotte

Memphis is returning from its off week to start conference play, and quarterback Marcus Stokes met with the media ahead of the Tigers’ first conference game against Charlotte.

Stokes talked about the upcoming conference slate, the off week and even his local music taste. 

The starting quarterback was impressive in his last start, throwing for 258 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions before he was pulled in the third quarter against UT Martin. Stokes has thrown for 1,053 yards, nine touchdowns and there interceptions in four games, and it will be interesting to see how he looks lin conference play.

Here’s what Stokes said during the Tigers’ weekly press conference.

How he keeps his focus against an 0-4 team:

Stokes was asked how he and his teammates are approaching a game week against an 0-4 team and how they’re keeping focus against the group. Stokes said he and his teammates try to not look at logos or records and approach every game with the same type of attitude.

“I think the whole team attacks it the same way,” Stokes said. “We’re not really looking at our opponent, I mean we are watching film, but we’re not worrying about our opponent. We’re not worrying about the logo we go against. We try not to see a logo, and we just prepare every single week the way we prepare for any team. So, it doesn’t matter if you put Whitehaven High School in front of us or the New York Jets in front of us, we’re going to prepare the same way.”

He added a slogan that Charles Huff and other players have used, saying he has “appropriate fear” for every opponent on the schedule regardless of their record.

Being comfortable going into conference play:

Memphis wrapped up its non-conference slate in September with a 3-1 record, and Stokes said he feels a lot more comfortable going into conference play. He said the team was adding and testing things out during the first four games, but he feels like they have a good game plan going into the conference portion of the schedule.

“I definitely do feel a little more comfortable going into conference play with this offense that we’re in,” Stokes said. “We were testing out a bunch of new stuff in the first four games. There were a lot of times where we’d prepare for one defense, and then we’d get a completely different defensive scheme throughout the game. We kind of had to adjust on the board, but now we know how to adjust, what to adjust to and what we’re going against moving forward.”

Huff said similar things during his press conference about how the offense tried to add new elements every week during non-conference play.

The differences between D2 to D1:

Stokes transferred to Memphis after playing at Division II powerhouse West Florida. The Argonauts made the move from D2 to FCS during the offseason, and they’re currently sitting at 3-1 and No. 17 in the country.

The quarterback was asked about the differences between between D2 and D1, and he said the biggest difference is the size and athleticism.

“I’m going to be honest,” Stokes said. “Instead of having one to two guys on the field that run 4.4, 4.3, there are a couple more, and definitely in the trenches. Its a lot more, I want to say the physicality is the same, but there’s a lot more size and drive. But, other than that, you know what I’m going to say. Football is football.”

At the end of the day, he said there is good football being played at all levels of college football, but he was surprised about the amount of speed and athleticism there is at nearly every position in D1.

His confidence in the offense:

Huff and his staff added more than 80 new players to the roster during the offseason, and it’s fair to say that a team with that many new pieces would need time to gel. The Tigers have done a great job meshing early, and Stokes said a lot of that comes down to building chemistry.

He was asked about where he has grown the most over the first four weeks of the season, and he said his confidence in the offense has grown the most because of the work he and the rest of the offense has put in.

“Confidence within the offense,” Stokes said. “We’ve all been able to glue and connect together within the offense. I think what’s so awesome about our offense is that we’ve all got to be on the same page, especially in the pass game, and being able to do that. We go out and throw every single morning around like nine o’clock, and it’s just like that chemistry. You just build, and build, and build.”

It will be interesting to see if the offense can take their game to the next level going into conference play as the entire unit builds more confidence with each other.