Oct. 26, 2016

Torii Hunter Jr.

Q. Torii, seemed like you had a pretty event full bye week. I’m wondering what it’s like for a two sport athlete here and a student here to also be planning a wedding?

TORII HUNTER, JR.: I didn’t really have to do much. I just kind of said my two cents every once in a while. But for the most part she let me focus on the season and what I needed to do while she took care of most of the planning and stuff. We talked about it at the beginning of the season, when it was less hectic. But she just kind of executed everything and she made it happen. So I’m thankful for her.

Q. Your schedule is obviously insane. Is the bye week the only option for that?

TORII HUNTER, JR.: Yeah, it was. We haven’t been able to be together a lot over the last couple of years. So we just are ready to be together. And that’s why we did it over the bye week. And also it was just some downtime for me. And, yeah, so —

Q. So how did your nerves last Saturday compare to other Saturdays where you had football games?

TORII HUNTER, JR.: Actually wasn’t that nervous. Maybe surprising, but I wasn’t nervous at all. I kind of knew that I wanted to do it. I knew she was the one. So I wasn’t really nervous about it, I was ready to go.

Q. Assuming the honeymoon is on hold, then?

TORII HUNTER, JR.: Yeah, we’re going to play a couple of games first, and worry about the honeymoon after the season.

Q. Coach Kelly has talked about, we just talked to DeShone about, kind of tightening up the offensive package, the comment Coach Kelly made was let’s practice at what we’re good at and let’s be better on execution. What’s your perspective on that? And what are you guys good at offensively?

TORII HUNTER, JR.: I just think that we may have been trying to do a little too much instead of trying to perfect what we’re good at, like he was saying, which I think we’re really good at the quick game. Just completing some short passes, getting confidence. And also we made big plays and they said our yards per catch, per attempt or something like that was pretty high, was higher than last year. But I think that we’re missing those short yardage plays where you can throw hitches, different things like that. So we get back to that and I think it will generate some confidence and hopefully we can get those yards we’re missing in the run game back as well.

Q. What impact do you think — you went into the season as the most experienced of the receivers. But last year you had all veteran players. And you and a bunch of younger guys this year, what do you think that in experience has had at receiver on the offense?

TORII HUNTER, JR.: I think that it was hard trying to maintain I think the culture that was there last year because a lot of guys, they may not have been able to be around, a lot of the guys didn’t play last year. So me and Corey Robinson, we tried to explain to them and show them the way that it’s supposed to be. But obviously it’s probably kind of tough because they’ve never been out there. And they’re just inexperienced.

So I think that’s probably one of the biggest impacts is just having a lot of young guys, it’s just trying to maintain that culture and that’s kind of what we’re working on right now. Sunday we reevaluated ourselves and just figured out where we wanted to go. And the standard we want to maintain throughout the rest of the season.

Q. Mentally where are you guys at in terms of just the hunger to finally get a W?

TORII HUNTER, JR.: I think everybody is still hungry, man. Everybody is still fighting. And wants to fight to get the next W. I can see it in the way people come out in practice. Everybody wants to succeed on Saturday. Everybody goes out there with a lot of energy and everybody kind of wants to practice. So I feel like the morale and the — in the locker room is still pretty high. Everybody is still pretty confident that we’re going to get this win and get back on track.

Q. What is the motivation for this team at this point? Some people can’t understand why a team would still be motivated as you guys are. What drives you then?

TORII HUNTER, JR.: I think it’s just the love we have for each other and for the university. And what it stands for. We kind of play for each other and when we go out there we want to make sure that we’re giving our all for the man next to us. So that’s kind of our motivation. And we want to play for the school, as well. And for our fans. So that’s why we go out there every day and we play motivated.

Q. Yesterday Coach Kelly spoke about being disappointed that Jack Swarbrick having given him the vote of confidence. Is there a disappointment as a captain and a player that things had gotten that far, that he has to do that, as well?

TORII HUNTER, JR.: I mean to be honest, I didn’t really pay too much attention to it. Somebody had to tell me about it. I mean I try not to look at all the press releases and all the media stuff that goes on.

But somebody had to tell me about it, so I mean I wasn’t really affected by it. We still got to go out and get our job done, coach does, too. I can’t really let any of that media talk or whatever it may be affect us.