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Transcript of Price's WAC media day speech

"I can't wait for the season to start. I'm so honored to have this opportunity. This is a great opportunity. President [Diana] Natalicio gave me a chance. Bob Stull, our athletic director, gave me the confidence to come here with a lot of resources. The city has greeted us warmly. The players have been super compliant. We've had no problems with them. We've raised the bar, and we're making it as difficult for them as we can. We had all the players except two, who were excused, stay all summer long and work out. They all did it as a team together in El Paso. They have not done that before.

"It's my job to build up their self confidence. Anybody who has won two games a year for the last three years hasn't had a lot of fun. We tried to make it fun in the spring, and we'll continue to do that in two-a-day camp and during the season. I've got to be able to change the way they think. When something goes bad, that little voice in their heads has to say 'here we go,' instead of 'here we go again.' It's going to take some time to do that.

"When we were raising the bar, not everybody went with us. We've lost about 10 players from last year's roster. We've got about 10 new players on the team from this spring. So we're going to be a different team, not only in our new Nike look but in the size and shape of the players who get off the bus. We're going to look like a football team, and it's going to be my job to make sure we play like a football team.

"Of the 10 new players, six offensive linemen. I thought our offensive linemen were good, but not really tall. We're big enough, but we're not tall enough. We want to be able to get a hold of the defensive guys, and keep holding onto them with long arms. We had some freak injuries in the spring which added to the already limited number of offensive linemen that we had.

"We have a couple of wide receivers who will be joining a pretty good group, and we have two cornerbacks who will be joining our defensive secondary. I felt we needed more height and physical players at cornerback. So I think we've helped ourselves a lot athletically. But it all comes back to the mental part of it. Every one of these kids is a winner, I just need to pull it out of them. The second thing we need to do is blend the new guys with the guys who have been sweating and toiling the last few years on this football team.

"We have to emulate Boise State. They don't necessarily have the biggest players or the fastest players, but they play together as a team really well.

"We're going to go up to Socorro, N.M. for a week and do a lot of team building activities. We're going to make it a really fun and special camp, and hopefully we can come back rested and in shape and ready for some tough early-season games.

"We open against Arizona State and a former UTEP assistant coach and former Boise State coach, Dirk Koetter, who is a friend of mine. Then we play Weber State, my old stomping grounds, and Boise State, who I coached against when I was at Weber and Washington State. It's a challenging start to the schedule. Weber State, although a I-AA school, tied for the Big Sky title last year.

"We have a challenging schedule, but we have some players too. You met Robert Rodriguez, who has a nose for the ball. He's a tremendous player, a tough hitting son of a gun. He's a complete gentleman off the field and on the field he's a tough linebacker. He's going to be one of the best linebackers in our league and in the region.

"We've got some really good defensive players, and that's where we'll win. Our punter, Bryce Benekos, is going to be outstanding. Keith Robinson is going to be our placekicker, and he's excellent. He's back healthy and ready to go. Our special teams will be another area we need to improve in to win. We're well-coached on defense and special teams with Tim Hundley and Jeff Woodruff.

"We'll run the one-back offense. We'll throw first and run second. Howard Jackson is so fast. He's running faster than any athlete I've ever had. He has brilliant speed, he can stop on a dime and he's really durable. Jonas Crafts is an excellent tight end. Our slotback is Chris Marrow and we have Johnnie Lee Higgins, who is a long jumper on the track team. It's going to be fun.

"I love the people of El Paso. The weather is great, the people are great and the Mexican food is the best in America.

"We've got three quarterbacks who have all started about five games at one time or another. We have three candidates. They all competed well in the spring, but not one of them won the job. After about a week of two-a-day practice, we'll decide on one guy and go with him. I think we have three good quarterbacks, but not one great one. The way you make a good quarterback a great one is to give him all the reps and go with him.

"We've got a plan, and it's going to work. I don't know when it's going to work, but we're going to be winners in the end.

"Jordan Palmer probably gets the most publicity [of the quarterbacks] because of his brother Carson, but he's also the biggest one out there. Each one of them has something special. What's probably going to determine who starts is who makes the least mistakes. We turned the ball over horribly last year, and didn't get a lot of turnovers.

"I don't speak Spanish. I'm going to learn to speak Spanish and I want to go to Juarez more. I've only been there once. The community has been so positive and it's so fun to be there. We love it. It's a very special place. There's no agenda, the people are honest and forthright.

"Our mission statement for our program is really simple. We want to win our league championship and graduate 100 percent of our athletes. Anything short of that is not reaching the goals we set. We set high goals, and do everything we can to achieve them."