ABILENE, Texas – Two days away from its 2019 home opener, McMurry Football held its weekly press conference on Thursday afternoon in the McMurry Athletics Annex.

Head Coach Jordan Neal was flanked by junior offensive guard Ryan Miller and sophomore linebacker Dakota Russell-David, as all three were made available for questions to the local Abilene media.

For footage of the press conference via Facebook Live, click here.

Below are some of the highlights from Tuesday's press conference:

Coach Neal's opening statement

It's exciting to be back at home to play a home game. We're really fired up about the opportunity. Howard Payne had a good win last week against Austin College, and we're going to have our hands full. We expect a well-coached football team that's going to be hungry, but confident and excited to play. We learned a lot in our first ballgame and got a lot on things on tape.

I think we improved quite a bit this week. We actually had an extra day of practice, so that was a benefit in preparation for this week. We've been focusing on buying in and doing the little things right, and we feel confident going into this game. We're excited to be out in front of our home fans.

Coach Neal on emotions for the home opener

There's always emotions attached, as it's an emotional game that we play. However, we try not to play on emotion or coach on emotion. We want to play and coach with emotion, for sure, because we are passionately about what we do. Our players have worked really, really hard and have responded really well after a loss. That was our first outside competition…we did not have a scrimmage…it was good to take a loss and learn from it.

But we don't approach (this week's game) any differently. It is a home game, which is just exciting as a matter of fact, but it doesn't change our mentality or approach. We've always said that we want to compete to win every time we step on the field, so we're just anxious to get on the field and get that bad taste out of our mouth from last week.

Coach Neal on senior quarterback Xavier Alexander's performance last week 

"X" was actually our offensive performer of the week. We felt like he played a pretty good football game, and I was just really excited to see him get through a game. It's been almost a year since he's had the sensation of playing four quarters of football. We kept him in all the way through, and I felt like he battled the entire time. He's getting more and more comfortable in the offense…it was really good for him to see some live bullets and take some hits…he's had a really good week of practice this week and I expect him to rebound really, really well. I expect him to have a big game Saturday.

Dakota Russell-David on Howard Payne's offense

Looking at the game film, their offense really moved the ball well against Austin College…One of the main things we want to stop on defense is probably going to be the fly sweep. And then (for us) just doing your responsibly and doing your job as a defense. Make sure your lined up correctly, make sure you make that tackle when that's your tackle, and basically going in headstrong and doing the right thing.

Dakota Russell-David on last week's 72-yard interception return

Man, I was excited for it. Last year, I actually got an interception against HPU my first start, and that one didn't turn out as well either (did not score on either return). But I did…I ran out of gas because I was playing all three phases of the game to the best of my ability. I was tuckered out (before the endzone), I'm not going to lie.

They had a short field and they were driving the ball down, and I went to cover the running back and then I just looked back at the quarterback and the ball was coming right at me. I was kind of shocked…then I just grabbed it and took off.

Ryan Miller on what buying in to the program looks like

During practice, it's making the ultimate sacrifice. It's making sure that you're there every single day putting in 120 percent effort into everything. You hear "buy in" and some people don't understand it. When you really start to understand it, you know that you got to let people know you're not going to let them down. I'm not going to let Coach Neal down; I'm not going to let Dakota down. Even though me and Dakota do not play on the same side of the ball, he expects me to perform to the best of my ability…and that's what I'm going to do.

Ryan Miller on learning a new offense together with veteran teammates

Staying with the same guys makes it a lot easier. We can kind of bounce off each other, go through the playbook and pick at each other's minds to understand it. Honestly, it wasn't a hard transition, but it also wasn't an easy transition.

Coach Neal on Howard Payne's explosive, but familiar offense

The other part of this whole thing for me that's very surreal for me is having coached at Howard Payne for four years. We were fortunate to have a couple of really outstanding quarterbacks and skill players, and I know first-hand the kind of athletes and the kind of skill that is at Howard Payne.

The quarterback (Caleb Estes) had an outstanding game. He actually took some shots early in that game, and he responded…he's got a strong arm, he's a heads-up player, he's smart with the football and he's got some very good weapons around...I feel like this is as good of a Howard Payne team as I've seen in a while.

Coach Neal on coaching at multiple ASC schools and having connections to the other sideline

You know, I jokingly say that I'm trying to break a record to see if I can coach at every ASC school before my career is over with. Hopefully, we can put an end to that (at McMurry). I think it's really amazing the quality of the coaches in this league, and so many of them that have played at programs in this conference. That goes to show why this is the best conference in Division III in the country…bar none. It's as good as it gets.

It's fun to be friends outside of the three hours on a Saturday afternoon, then be bitter enemies during that time when we step between the lines…it makes it all the more fun and exciting to go out there with people that you respect, people that you like. You know they're going to conduct themselves in a professional manner and their team will play with good sportsmanship…and we will do the same.