Dave Heeke Quotations

There is no question that Jay has been a winner. It's a tough league to be a coach in and very few programs stay on top when they get there.

We've been in conversations with (Boston College) about an opening weekend game. We are close but there are still some details to work out.

We're glad to have him here because he's one of the best coaches in the country. I'm committed to doing a multi-year deal with Tom; the search just delayed that.

I think the players play extremely hard for Jay and that isn't always easy when you are struggling.

Jay has shown he can win but he also understands that this program needs to be more consistent. We can't have the valleys - we need to stay more in the middle of the pack in our lean years. We need to be more competitive on a year to year basis.

Jay has proven he can coach at this level. What you will see with most MAC schools is that there will be good years followed by down years. That's something that will be taken into consideration. Jay is the only coach in the MAC to win two titles in the 2000s. We'll do what's best for the program.

Jay and I had a lengthy conversation and then I sat back and decided that Jay is the right guy for the program. I thought the players played extremely hard and I think they have a nucleus to be a very good team next year.

We are really excited about what might be the biggest football game in Kelly/Shorts history. With new lights, on a national television stage - what an opportunity to showcase Central Michigan University and the Mt. Pleasant community.

There have been times when television networks might have wanted to come to Mt. Pleasant but because there were no lights, it was tough to be flexible. This gives us the flexibility to be creative with our scheduling and also allows for us to move games if we have to during the season to later times for television purposes.

This team didn't have any seniors. Some of the guys left the program or were asked to leave who were counted on to help.

Every year is different. We bring a team back with a lot of returning players and hopefully that will be reflected next year. This young team needs to show some significant progress next year.

They did a lot of the prep work for lights when they renovated the stadium the last time. There will still be some things that need to be done but that was real foresight by this university to put those plans into work.

I had an opportunity to observe a portion of the season and have looked at the history. The program has made some strides and I think it's headed in the right direction. But it needs to continue to grow.