What San Jose State’s Ken Niumatalolo said before traveling to Texas

San Jose State head coach Ken Niumatalolo called the Spartans’ week one 16–14 loss to Central Michigan “one of the worst losses of my career.” He later compared the defeat to “a horror movie” and said his whole team was “hurting.”

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But it wasn’t his candidness that will make Niumatalolo familiar to Longhorn fans. They should recognize him from his tenure at Navy, where he became the winningest head coach in the Naval Academy’s history. The former Hawaii quarterback guided the Midshipmen through countless big games against high-profile opponents, and his teams were known for being disciplined and battle-tested.

Now leading the Spartans, Niumatalolo made it clear he’ll have his group ready to face “one of the blue bloods” when they take the field in Austin.

Here are more notes from his press conference ahead of the trip to DKR:

Compliments to Texas and Steve Sarkisian’s roster and staff: “With as much disappointment I have in the loss (to Central Michigan), super excited for this opportunity to play against this Texas Football team. One of the blue bloods of college football. Coach Sarkisian is one of the best coaches.”

“Roster full of five stars, guys who are going to get drafted. Potential Heisman Trophy candidate.”

“For many years I recruited the state of Texas, football is everything there.”

“We’re going to have to play our very best to even have a shot.”

“This is the best team we will play all year. That’s not a secret.”

Coach Niumatalolo also named Kyle Flood, Pete Kwiatkowski, and Duane Akina by name and heaped praise on each of them. He called them some of the best coaches in the game at their respective positions.

“I was looking it up, the last time we played them was in 2017 (Texas won 56–0). Hopefully the score doesn’t look like that again.”

On mental strategy in an environment like DKR: “There’s nothing we can do about them. Control the controllables, our effort, our preparation. Give it our best shot.”

On quarterback Walker Eget, who struggled in Week 1 (24/43 for 308 yards, 2 TDs, 2 INTs, QBR 35.3): “He’ll be the first to tell you he didn’t play well. But, I have the utmost faith in Walker. Any quarterback knows you have good games and bad games…I trust Walker. He texted me at 1:30 in the morning on Friday night, taking credit for the loss. You can’t play that position unless you have thick skin.”

On what Arch Manning is going through after a tough Week 1: “Their quarterback is going through some stuff. Opened up at Ohio State. It was one game, a close, close battle. Every opportunity to win. The kid is a very good quarterback. It’s the nature of the position.”

On preparing for the SEC environment in Austin: “We recognize it’s going to be a tough environment just playing who we’re playing. You add on the crowd, 100,000 fans. That’s tough. If we played their players in an empty parking lot, it would be tough.”

If this is the most talented team he’s ever coached against: “This is one of the best teams I’ve ever played. But every year at the Naval Academy we played Notre Dame. I coached against Ohio State at The Horseshoe, they weren’t too bad either. Then South Carolina when they had Jadeveon Clowney…I’ve been coaching a long time, so I’ve been to some tough places and gone against some tough teams.”

On what makes Texas and Arch Manning so hard to defend: “They do so many things. Different formation, personnel groupings. Eye candy in the run game. With Arch Manning you can do so many things.”

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One last funny note: “I haven’t heard back from the NCAA on the petition if we can play with 13 defenders to stop them.”