HELENA — With No. 25 Carroll College coming off a Week 3 bye and looking to challenge No. 11 Dickinson State on the road Saturday, MTN Sports' Jonny Walker sat down with Fighting Saints head coach Troy Purcell.
A full transcript from the video interview is available below:
MTN Sports: Talking about Dickinson State — one of the newcomers to the Frontier Conference, coming from the North Star Athletic Association. Is there something stylistically different about these North Star teams that are new to the Frontier compared to the older teams in the Frontier?
Troy Purcell: I think you get so used to seeing, you know, the old Frontier, I guess. Kind of what they do is what they do. So, it's kind of some fresh faces and fresh offense and defensive schemes. You know, that will be more of their trademark when they come in and what we'll expect. And so it was good to have a nice two weeks to prepare for an offense and defense we haven't seen yet.
MTN Sports: Talking about the Carroll offense, you scored 20 in your season opener, 19 last week against Montana Tech. Obviously, you want to score more points than that. Is this the game where we see the offense kind of become more explosive?
Troy Purcell: Yeah, definitely. You know we have to become more explosive. When you're making those mental mistakes and you're getting the little bit of holding, a little bit of this, when you're not assignment sound. So become assignment sound and you're going to see more explosive action out of them.
Like I said, we've got a couple running backs back, which is cool. And they could help with being more explosive.
MTN Sports: You used the bye week to look ahead to Dickson State — two weeks to prepare for them. What does this team present in terms of unique challenges that other opponents don't present?
Troy Purcell: They know how to win. I think in the North Star over there, they won eight or nine conference championships in a row. And they expect to win, and they know how to win. And so they've had good playoff runs also. And so, although it's going to be a fist fight all the way up there, guys haven't been up there yet. And to experience that atmosphere. And so, it'll be exciting to see. And it'll be definitely a business trip to make things happen.
