Photo credit: @XTRA1360

By: Ana Kieu

SAN JOSE, Calif. — San Jose State was no longer winless after defeating UNLV 50-37 inside CEFCU Stadium on Saturday night.

So what’s next for the Spartans? Spartans head coach Brent Brennan went over last Saturday’s win vs. UNLV, previewed this Saturday’s road game against Wyoming, and much more in his weekly press conference at Simpkins Stadium Center on Monday afternoon.

Here’s my Q&A with Brennan:

1. Tyler Nevens led all rushers with a season-best 103 yards rushing and a touchdown. How great was it to see Nevens return to his original form?
I’m really excited for Tyler. I think coming back from the injury at the Davis game. I think it just took him some time to get his legs underneath him and get comfortable and his reads have been clearer and his pass protection was cleaner. I thought he just did a great job–running hard, breaking tackles.

I also think Tyler and Malik are becoming a nice combination because they’re both kind of different backs and bring us something else so I think having both those guys doing the things they did…Malik averaged over 10 yards per carry so there’s a lot of good stuff from our run game and I was really excited. I thought coach Bernardi did a great job with getting the o-line ready and they came together to provide some good running for Tyler and for Malik.

2. The Rebels looked to stage a comeback in the third quarter, but the Spartan defense prevented the Rebel offense from doing damage. Would you say that was a team effort or just the efforts of a few players?
It’s absolutely a team effort. It’s always a team effort in football. That’s what makes it the greatest game ever in my opinion.

There were some spectacular individual plays there, but there were also a lot of loss of yardage plays or we were getting pressure on the quarterback–you gotta get the ball out of his hands quickly.

I thought our defense came up huge. We had really big moments in that third quarter. We kind of stopped that momentum, and obviously, Dakari’s interception for a touchdown was game-changing and in the right terms of when it happened during the sequence.

3. The Spartans head to Laramie, Wyo. to take on the Cowboys. Last year, San Jose State beat Wyoming at home, so what are three things they need to do to get a win against the same team on the road?
I think first and foremost we need to win the turnover battle. That’s been a very, very important part of our process in terms of playing good football.

We need to do a good job with the quarterback that they’re playing. He’s a big, strong kid. We watched him play in high school. He was a good player and it looks like he has been playing good football for them so we need to get ready for a real physical kind of run attack and rush attack that includes a really good tailback, a really good offensive line and also a quarterback who’s a big, strong kid who can throw.

The other part is that we gotta handle their defensive front. They’re really physical. They have a great presence. They got a rushers who are off the edge. It’s really one of the best defenses we’ve played this year so we got our work cut out for us.

Spartan nation, don’t forget you can call/text (408) 924-7589 for tickets to the Spartans’ final home game of the season versus the Wolf Pack on November 17th at 2:00 pm PT.