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Carlyle Holiday Named Starting Quarterback

Sept. 24, 2001

Notre Dame Head Coach on Naming Carlyle Holiday the Starting Quarterback for Saturday’s Game Against Texas A&M

“We’re going to start Carlyle Holiday. We talked to Matt (LoVecchio) today before practice. We spent an awful lot of time yesterday as coaches really looking at our situation, evaluating everything … The bottom line, and it is a bottom line, is we’re just not scoring enough points. I thought Matt LoVecchio really played well at times Saturday. So, in some ways, it may not be the most fair thing, but the bottom line is we haven’t generated enough points. Matt has done some great things for us over the past two years and he’ll continue to do some great things for us this year. But we all see we need a spark and we need points on the board. Carlyle is a guy that deserves the opportunity to provide that spark. He only played two series Saturday (against Michigan State). He probably didn’t have as much opportunity as maybe we would have liked. So I think we’re all anxious to just see him in the game.

“When you sit and really study the tape of our offensive team, this may be a surprise to some people, but there are a lot of positive things that happened Saturday. In a lot of ways, we made some dramatic improvement from Nebraska. Bottom line is we didn’t score any more points than we scored at Nebraska, so we have to try to get more explosion and more big plays. Carlyle provides us with the chance to do that. The encouraging thing is there are some things that we can build on from what we did Saturday. So we just need to take the next step and hopefully, this will work.

“For Matt LoVecchio, it’s no different than it was for Carlyle Holiday last week. There’s a good opportunity for him to play in this game. There’s a good opportunity for him to become the starting quarterback again before this year is over. But Carlyle Holiday also deserves an opportunity, and our football team deserves a chance to see if he can put some more points on the board for us.”

Sophomore Carlyle Holiday on Being Named the Starting Quarterback

On his reaction to being named the starting QB against Texas A&M… “I’ve just got to go out, take care of my business and hopefully come out with a win to help this football team.”

On whether he’s surprised at getting the starting nod … “I’m not surprised. I’ve worked pretty hard. We just want to win right now.”

On what he has to do in order to defeat Texas A&M… “I have to put points on the board. We haven’t scored a lot in the past three games and we just need to generate points … get something going. I just need to try to do that for the team.”

On his confidence level in terms of the Notre Dame passing game… “I’m very confident I can pass the ball. The receivers are confident in me and my teammates are as well. I just need to go out and do it.”

On how he feels about going into the Texas A&M game as the No. 1 quarterback… “I’m just the same as I’ve always been. There’s a lot more pressure, but that’s what I came here for. I have to generate points and do what I can.”

On what it means to be going back to his home state of Texas… “It will feel good. I’ll have a lot more people down there to support me. But, I’ll treat it just like any atmosphere. I’ll just go in with a positive focus and hopefully give this team a spark.”