Photo credit: @mercnews

By: Ana Kieu

SAN JOSE, Calif. — While other college football teams will play this weekend, San Jose State got a bye week at a much-needed time. The winless Spartans knew they were in for a long season this year. Although the Spartans’ 0-3, 0-0 MW record doesn’t show their progress, SJSU has been making strides from Washington State to No. 20 Oregon.

This bye week should help the Spartans recuperate, regroup and reevaluate their ways. The Spartans will be facing an improved Hawaii Rainbow Warriors team at SJSU’s Homecoming game on September 29th. And, if you’re a Spartan alumni, don’t forget to RSVP for the Fire on the Fountain Alumni Social by September 24th.

As usual, Spartans head coach Brent Brennan held his weekly press conference at Simpkins Stadium Center on Monday. Here’s my Q&A with Brennan.

1. How are you going to make sure the Spartans will build on their most recent performance for a win versus the Rainbow Warriors?
The greatest thing is that we have this bye week so this will give us the chance to prepare with an extra few days of practice. When we went on that trip last week, we had 75 guys on the plane–50 of them were first or second year players. The traveling team was pretty young, but when they were on the field that was loud and rowdy, they were able to handle it well. The team needs time to develop. They need to practice this week so we’ll get a week of practice. We’re going to have a really good week of practice today, Tuesday and Wednesday, and we’re going to let them have two days off, and hopefully, we get a little bit refreshed. … Some of those young guys need to go home and see their families as they haven’t seen them in a couple of months and maybe go watch their high school teams play or something like that and then we get back to work Sunday. We got a big week of work and I’m excited to put in the work and get ready to go.

2. How are you going to get a more effective run game?
We’re going to work on it this week and I think that hopefully the work the offensive line has been doing is kind of going to show that we’ve come together. Obviously, that’s a really important piece for us. When you’re going against a front like Oregon, you know it’s going to be a tough battle running the football against that group. It’s just with their size and their length. I thought there were a couple more runs there that we just missed or kind of got out of a gap. … But the forefront is what we’re talking about offensively right now. We gotta find a way to run the football.

3. What did Army do to hand Hawaii their first loss on the season and how are you going to help the Spartans stifle the Rainbow Warrior offense?
I’d say stifling the Rainbow Warrior offense is an incredible challenge. They did really, really good. Their quarterback is an excellent player. They got great guys on the skill positions. They looked really good and their offensive line…we know a lot of guys from that coaching staff, a lot of good offensive minds on that staff starting with their head coach Nick Rolovich. Our team, our defensive staff has a real challenge getting into dialed into what they do. … The Army game against Hawaii–the biggest thing is that they controlled the possession of the ball and did a really nice job.

This morning, Dr. Harry Edwards talked to the Spartans and told them that the shortcut was hard work and there was no actual shortcut, which were some wise words coming from an even wiser man.

“That’s what this week is all about,” Brennan said. “The physical practices, a lot of focus on fundamentals, a lot of focus on getting our young guys more up to speed and closer to being game ready. … As we get into our conference games, it’s going to be a long stretch and these guys got to be ready to play.”