OGDEN, Utah - NAU football coach Jerome Souers participated in the Big Sky Conference weekly teleconference Wednesday. Here are his thoughts from the questions he received from the local, regional and national media on the call.

Head Coach Jerome Souers
Big Sky Teleconference, Aug. 27, 2008

What do you hope to take away from the game at ASU?

“It is a challenging program. As good as they are this year; they are really good, make no mistake about it Arizona State probably is deserving a higher ranking than they are right now. It's hard to go over the positives, but the positives are, what an opportunity it is to go up against the best and I think each individual program recognizes the challenge and what kind of an opportunity that is. It is certainly a great profile of exposure for our program, and an opportunity to play in that kind of a venue for recruiting purposes and what not, there is value in that. There is an economic value to the game as well, there is not any secrets about that, and it helps the athletic department in a lot of ways financially. The most important that I think for us is an opportunity in where we are at in the season against a great football team and we realize the difficulty it presents, but we are going to embrace it head on, and we are going to learn a lot about ourselves by the end of Saturday night.”

Have you decided yet who your quarterback will be?

“We are going to wait until game time to make that decision.”

Is there a chance more than one quarterback will be used, or do you know if there is just want to go with one?

“We are going to go with what gives us the best production and an opportunity to move the football on Saturday and that presents some difficulty. So depending on what Arizona State's posture is, what there stamina, their tactics, we will kind of dictate what we are going to do.”

With so many guys from the Tempe and Phoenix area, what are they telling you about this game, is it a chance for them to prove that they earned or deserved a spot on the Pac-10 team like that or is this extra fire power?

“Well for anybody that goes back home it's a big deal. You're playing in front of a lot of family and a lot of friends, so there is a lot of pride at stake. You look at the kids that grew up down there, who grew up watching Arizona State, and I'm certain at some level, that's where they thought they wanted to go to school. When it doesn't work out, and they get a chance to go back and play in that venue, it's a special opportunity for them.”

How good can this team be potentially?

“I think that this is they best line up of talent that we have had since 2003. A lot of these guys have been emerging through the program for a couple of years and they are finally getting to the point where they can, they're mature enough and are able to perform at the level we need them to be competitive in our conference. It's important that we get to our first game healthy, or as healthy as we can anyway, and to recognize the challenges of that, but I think if we stay healthy we have a chance to be a pretty good squad, and one that's capable of challenging in our conference.”

Is it nice to have a team that's at FCS level that's close enough by that you don't have to go across the country, or to play an Appalachian State?

“You know, that's been hard for us, the schedule has been difficult since you know a lot of the California schools at this level have dropped football. It really took a lot of opportunities away from us. You're either playing up, or your playing D2, and its tough to find that balance. But yeah it is good to have that game on the schedule where there is more regional interest. For the benefit for the families, they can get to the game. We went to the Appalachian State game last year for a couple of reasons. To honestly meet head up is the level we need to be at, if we want to be a contender when the playoffs come around. We learned a lot from that game last year but that's not something we do every year.”