Andrew Luck will meet the Patriots for the first time Sunday. (AP)

Andrew Luck is excited about the opportunity to be a part of the Colts-Patriots rivalry. The rookie quarterback, who was the first overall pick in the 2012 draft out of Stanford, will get his first taste of New England and Gillette Stadium Sunday when the Indy meets the Patriots.

“Hopefully it’s going to be a good game,” Luck said Monday. “Obviously as a football fan, you know about the New England Patriots. I’m very excited to have the opportunity to play against them. Hopefully we’ll give them our best shot. We know it’s going to take our best shot to have a chance to win.

“I’m sort of being educated on the great rivalry of the past 10, 12 years or so between the two franchises. Hopefully, we can continue that.”

As a young quarterback, Luck was able to enjoy the rivalry between Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, a head-to-head matchup that dominated the league for a decade.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I think anybody who played quarterback had to sit down at least a couple times and try and learn something from when those two were going at it.”

It sounds like Brady has a fan in Luck, who was 12 years old when Brady made his first start with the Patriots.

“It’s amazing — he consistently wins,’ Luck said when asked about Brady and his work. “He consistently puts huge numbers up, and the Patriots are consistently perennial contenders for it all. He’s obviously an unbelievable quarterback and it’ll be a great challenge for us as a team to go up there.”

Here are a few other highlight’s from Luck’s Q&A on Monday:

Knowing that New England has the ability to score a lot, do you feel more pressure to not have empty possessions?

“We realize that you can’t waste possessions against any good team and the Patriots are a good, if not, great team. We’re going to need to capitalize on everything just for a chance to win.”

Where’s the focus this week?

“I think offensively, we’ve got to improve on third down and red zone, areas where we didn’t do so well in the last game. Hopefully we can do better in those areas.”

Do you have some confidence after two straight road wins heading into a tough environment?

“Oh yeah. We know it’s going to be loud and rocking, tough to play in. It’s nice to have a couple road wins under our belt. But we realize that it’ll be kicked up another level this weekend.”

The team has won five of six since Pagano’s treatments. Is there some way to quantify how that has impacted this team?

“I don’t know. That’s a great question. I think if anything, its reminded guys of a sense of purpose, a sense of being here and enjoying it, enjoying each other. Obviously, I wish it didn’t happen by any means but I guess maybe it’s a reminder to some guys.”

How does the weather factor into your preparation given playing college in California?

“It’ll be interesting. Obviously, going to school in California, you don’t play in too many different weather systems. I don’t think it’ll be a problem. We’ll practice in it here and we’ll do it up there. Guys have played in cold, rain. Guys will be fine.”

The fact that you guys have won four in a row, what does it say about this team?

“I think it’s nice that we’ve won four in a row. We realize that at the end of the day it just means we are in a good position now to hopefully get some more wins. Hopefully we can keep stacking them together. We realize that four games in a row is not our end goal. It’s not what we shot for starting the season so hopefully we can get better.”