Saturday night will be the head coaching debut for Missouri State’s Casey Woods. But to hear him discuss the matchup against No. 8 Texas A&M (6 p.m. central, ESPN), Wells seems just as excited to see Kyle Field.

“I don’t think there is a better place to get started than College Station, Texas,” Woods said Tuesday. “Kyle Field is an unbelievable location to experience a college football game. So let’s go on there Friday. Let’s be fans. Let’s be impressed by what’s going on. Let’s let’s take an appreciation for what people can invest in college football.”

Here’s some of what else Woods said during his press conference:

On the challenge of facing Texas A&M at Kyle Field: “I think the messaging is it’s going to sound a little Hoosiers, but it’s I mean, the field’s the same size. They play by the same rules. They got the same number of players on the field. We got to go out there and execute. You know what it is that we we’ve gotten good at. We can focus on ourselves and and and and have the victories that we need to to see as far as approaching how we want to play and and and and not do something that’s outside of what we would normally do-that’s what we’re ultimately trying to get done. So, we want to celebrate the atmosphere. We’re all college football fans. We want to celebrate the fact that we get to play in such a fantastic environment where football’s so important to people, and we want we want our fans to go down there and experience that.”

On coach Mike Elko and the A&M program: “Certainly, what Coach Elko has done down there is is is really really impressive. And so, to be able to measure what it is we’ve done over the course of the last nine months in a setting such as that against an opponent as quality as Texas A&M, we’re certainly excited to get started … I think that there are certain trademarks that you can see the identity of Elko-coached teams, and those show up. It doesn’t matter what scheme they’re running, so I know that they flip coordinators on both sides, but I don’t (care). They’re still going to be tough. They’re still going to be physical. They’re still going to be resilient. They’re still going to tackle really well. They’re still going to utilize that defensive line to to create problems, to create TFLs and sacks. I think offensively, they’re going to put their nose down. They’re going to run it. They’re going to put the quarterback in high percentage throw situations, and and they’re going to be calculated in the in the shots that they take.”

Why UTEP transfer Skyler Locklear will start at quarterback: “He’s a great story. He is-he is-he’s-he’s too small to be a college football quarterback, and he’s about to start in Kyle Field. You know, so it’s like he is a-he’s a great kid. Our players love him; they do rally around him. I think probably some of the moxie that he’s got and some of the you know things that he’s overcome to put himself in this position probably do give him a different level of confidence than other quarterbacks that are out there. And I think that he’s a guy that that that his teammates feel that and they feed off of that. And they when he steps into the huddle, they listen to him and they believe what he’s going to say. You know, they believe what he says, and so Skyler is a super talented player. He’s a little-I mean, he is like you said-he’s got-he’s got a kind of a scrappy dude mentality a little bit. But he’s but he’s got ability, and he’s a guy that has played in environments like this.”

The chance to play on national TV on ESPN: “It’s an amazing opportunity. Again, it’s it’s a series of firsts for this school, right? We said that when we got here, we said we’re going to do it better than it’s ever been done before, and so just the acknowledgement and the recognition that boy, this is a team that’s worthy of putting on ESPN during prime time on college football’s opening kickoff weekend on Saturday night is is unbelievable, you know. So there’s going to be if you’re watching ESPN, you get a chance to see the Missouri State Bears for the first time ever, and I think that that’s a that’s an awesome testament to the direction that this program is headed. And so, no, we get a fantastic opponent, a top 10 opponent there, and you know we do that. But again, I think it’s just I think it’s we’ve got high goals here, we’ve got big dreams here, and we want to make sure that we’re in position to accomplish.”