Samford Picked to Finish 5th; Chris Hatcher Interview

Samford was picked to finish fifth by the coaches in the preseason poll at Southern Conference Media Day. LB Noah Martin made the All-SoCon First Team while OL Chris Noble made the All-SoCon Second Team. For Southern Conference Media Day, Samford head coach Chris Hatcher sat down to discuss last season as well as what to look forward to this season. Below is a few of his answers.

Talk about how you replace a QB that led the country in completion percentage?

“Well it’s a very difficult thing. Michael was a great player for us for two years. Two years ago he led us to an undefeated Southern Conference season. We do have quality backups, Nik Scalzo and Quincy Crittendon. Both of those guys had really good spring practices. Quincy actually led us to a playoff win in 2022 (vs Southeastern Louisiana) when Mike got hurt there in our last game versus Mercer in the season finale. So he has some experience, he just doesn't have experience being the starter. So any great football team has a really good quarterback and right now, that is probably our biggest question mark heading into the upcoming season.”

What is the expectation for this year?

“Well our expectation every year is to be number one, we want to be the best that we can possibly be. We talk all the time with our team, we want to win one game a week. That is our goal each and every year. Last season, we came into the year with very high expectations. We will do the same again this season as far as we’re concerned. We just got off to a very poor start last year. It took us a little while to overcome that. Mike got banged up in the Auburn game, had a few rough patches and then we caught fire. Unfortunately we got to the end and said hey we got to beat Mercer, we got to beat UT-Martin, two ranked teams in order to have a chance to go to the playoffs. We only won one of two so we were a game out and hopefully this year we get off to a better start and finish strong.”

From what you have seen thus far, do you feel as though you have a team that can be a championship squad?

“I do. I have been very fortunate to coach some championship teams throughout my career. I think we have the makings of it. We have a lot of guys that have a bad case of the wants, they want to do it. Now, are we going to work hard enough to make that happen? Time will tell over the course of the next four or five weeks. Some pieces have to fall in place, you got to get some lucky bounces and a few good calls to go your way along the way to be a championship football team. Hopefully, like I said earlier, we have a good start and we’ll put ourselves in a position to be the SoCon champions late there in October and early November.”

Give us one thing, if you do it well this year, you will have a good season?

“Defensively, we got to pressure the quarterback, we got to create negative plays. If we do that, I think that will give us a chance to have better field position for an inexperienced offense and create some turnovers there to give us a chance to win week in and week out.”

Samford opens the 2024 season at West Georgia on August 31st.

Here is the full interview from SoCon Media Day with Chris Hatcher.