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Davie Reflects On Season

Dec. 1, 1999

Press Conference Audio!

BOB DAVIE: First of all, this has been a difficult and a different season, but I couldn’t help but think as I came here from my office, here, just how fast it goes. You look back, and you know, it’s amazing how fast these seasons fly by. And the tough part you is wish you could start the whole thing over again right now, and just go play the whole thing again from start to finish, but you can’t, and that’s the thing that you have to live with in the off-season. We need the off-season, for a lot of obvious reasons, but you just wish you could go play again and get the thing rectify it. Me talking about things, this football team talking about things, that’s not going to satisfy the wounds, you know. You’ve got to go play to get the thing back, and I think we all realize that.

But the great thing is hopefully, we’ll have a — we’ll have that opportunity, and that’s what it comes down to. We need to go win and get the thing back on track.

But I think back to that first press conference we had up in the press box in the stadium, and the questions that were ahead of us, with that football team we had coming back with who we had to play. The first thing you ask is: Can we protect these young offensive linemen? We’ll look back on this and say we did at times, but we gave up, I think, 30 sacks this year, compared to 9 last year.

Can we protect the football with those young backs we had. You look back on this season, and you’ll see that, you know, we had 30 turnovers this year compared to 18 in ’98. The next question we had was: Can we cover, you know, can we cover. And you look back and say probably we couldn’t. The big passes, we gave up this year, the third down defense this year.

So, you know, you always go into the season thinking in the back of your mind even though you don’t talk about it much is, can you stay healthy. Because you look back at the last year ’98, and other than Jarious getting hurt in that LSU game, we stayed healthy. And it compounded things this year because we were inexperienced to begin with, and then to have as many injuries as we’ve had.

So you always think back to what the big picture of when you started and what the questions were on your mind. Now that all the dust is settled, I think those problem areas were the problem areas. You look back on this team, you look back on this season, what I saw was we started the season. You know, we beat Kansas and then we lost at Michigan. We lost at Purdue. We lost to Michigan State. But our football team competed in all three of those games and got better. I thought we were an improving team. We made a lot of mistakes in those games. We didn’t take advantage of opportunities we had. But in each one of those games we had an opportunity to win right there at the end.

So we’re a 1-3 team, and then we win the four games at home: Oklahoma, Arizona State, USC, and then Navy. And not that we’re a great team, but we’re an improving team. We’re a 5-3 team, you feel like we’re going to end this season strong. We’ve fought through the 1-3 start. We fought through the — you know, the lack of experience in some spots on this team.

You know, looking back on that open date prior to the Navy game, we had a lot of injuries. We didn’t practice the way we wanted to practice, and it seemed like that open date dragged on. And then it seemed like our football team, because of the injuries or whatever, we just weren’t as sharp from that point on.

And then we go down to Tennessee and I look back to that game and it was probably for our team and for our older players kind of a kind of a vindication game. Where they looked at it as an opportunity — we were 5-3, but if we could go beat Tennessee on the road, what that would do, it would vindicate this team. And we weren’t able to do that. I don’t know if there were many teams or any team in the country that night down there in that stadium could have done that.

And then the last three games of the year: Pittsburgh, Boston College, and Stanford, I don’t know that it’s fair to judge this team on those three games, because we really were just a shell of what we were earlier in the year. We were not — not as an excuse, but a reality, of just 16 players out with injuries, and a total of 21 players out. You know, obviously affected the offensive line, it’s affected if the running backs because no backups, and I think it affected the defense tremendously because there were no backups. The fact that Grant Irons was out — you are always going to have a guy out — but where it really hurts you is you have no backups. I thought this football team at the end of the year was just a mere shell of what it was earlier. We didn’t look nearly as quick on defense as we did earlier in the year.

You know, so, you look back on all of those things. But I think none of us, obviously, are proud of the record. But I can tell you, I’m proud of this team. And you may look back and criticize the performance. You may criticize that this was a 5-7 team, but don’t criticize the performers, because these kids busted their tail this year, and there were some great individual efforts on this team. I don’t expect people to understand the setbacks we had or what we’ve had to overcome through this season or what these kids did overcome. You know, I understand the bottom line, just as our team does, but don’t criticize this football team’s effort or this team’s character or this team’s heart, because they put themselves in a position to win each and every week.

When I look back, the first thing I think I see is the sacrifice this team made by deciding to play in the Eddie Robinson Classic, giving up their summer, none of them going home. I think back to the challenge they had with this schedule. You know, eight bowl teams, three of those teams probably in BCS teams, all three of those teams on the road. I think just from a won/loss record, I think it was ranked the third toughest in the country. I don’t think you can judge it all on that, I think it was the toughest in the country.

I look back to the injuries. I talked to Jim Russ a little bit ago, and he said it’s the most he’s seen in 25 years in this profession. He’s got 15 players that either had surgery or will have surgeries. Not to mention several players who years ago would have had surgery. You know, Raki Nelson, Lance Legree, Tony Weaver, Jordan Black with the knee, Jamaar Taylor, those are just a few more five years ago would have been surgeries. That gets to 20 players that are legitimate surgery, either had them or candidates to have them.

I look back to the close games: Seven legitimate football games down to the last series of the game, deciding who would win and lose. That’s remarkable, seven games in one season. Two more, Michigan State and Pittsburgh that were decided, Michigan State with probably four minutes ago, Pittsburgh with about two minutes to go when they scored that touchdown.

I look back to the comebacks that this team had. Michigan, Purdue, Michigan State, trailing in the 4th quarter, put themselves in a position to win. Oklahoma game, we’re a 1-3 team, they are 3-0. We’re down I think 31-17 or 31-14 — 30-14 come back to win that. The SC game, we were down, 20-3, came back and win that.

But probably the two that stand out the most are the last two, because they were both in very trying circumstances. You know, you’re a 5-5 team, you trail Boston College, but to come back and to have a chance to win. You know, you’re a 5-6 team playing Stanford down 17-0 in the first quarter, to come back and make that a football game that you had a chance to win.

So the reason that I bring that up, not to make excuses at all, but I think just so people will appreciate the effort of these football players, and especially, these older guys. Because I talked about the injuries, the thing it doesn’t show or the thing we don’t talk about are all those players that played and practiced all year with injuries, and there were a significant amount of those.

Offensively, we made some progress on offense, which I thought we would. You know, we made some last year. I think all things considered with the young offensive line with the young backs, I thought our offense played well enough for us to win a lot of football games. But the thing that will stand out, turnovers, as I mentioned, 30 compared to 18 last year. The sacks, 33, actually, in ’99, one out of every ten times we threw the football, we were sacked compared to 9 in ’98 which is one out of every 22 times we threw the football. But we were a young offensive line, and those turnovers, we were young backs, put the football on the ground.

I think we’ll look back to the missed opportunities on offense. I can’t think of many teams that really stopped us, other than Tennessee down there, stopped us at times. But I think of the red zone opportunities we had and didn’t get, I think of some open receivers that we had and didn’t quite get the ball to them. So all in all, I think in offense we played pretty well.

Defensively, all of us thought we would be better on defense, there’s no way around that. We looked at our personnel coming back, thought we would be able to rush the passer a little better. We had 18 sacks. 18 sacks in 407 attempts, that’s not tough. You look at the passing game, the big plays we gave up, you look at third down defense, 44%. You just look at our statistics on defense, it’s not good enough. It’s that simple, not good enough.

We had a couple inherent problems in there. It’s tough. We had one corner and there were eight touchdown passes thrown on. That’s tough. But I think that young corner will improve. I think he will be better off in the future.

Kicking game, I thought we actually showed improvement. Kickoff returns, ’99, we ended up 22nd in the country compared to 1998 when we were 75th. That’s a pretty good jump.

Punt returns, ’99, we were 17th in the country. In ’98 we were 63rd, pretty good jump.

Kickoff coverage, with the exception of the Oklahoma game, I thought was better than last year, statistically better than last year.

The thing that hurt us late in the year, as you all know with the injuries, I think we could have really been a special teams football team, but we were just thin on guys by that point.

Punt , opponents ran punts back for 3.1 yards in attempt, that’s excellent. We punted the football as far as we had a year before, but we actually covered it a little bit better.

Where we hurt, where our nemesis, field goals and extra points. We were 18 for 18 on the year, our opponents were 21 for 29, that’s three points a game, just in field goal kicking.

Extra points, we were 36 for 41, our opponents were 36 for 37. So you can see, that’s the area we need to improve on, just our mechanics, our operation and efficiency and field goal and extra points. But I think we can do that.

On the short term, where do we go from here, I think first, we get those surgeries out of the way, the ones that still need them, some have already had them. We get healthy. Get this football team healthy, take care of academics. We recruit, because that is the bottom line. You call it whatever you want to call it, it’s recruiting and getting players. We have had two back-to-back classes I think that will prove to be outstanding. I really believe that. We need another one.

I think next year, just looking ahead, we’ll start the season with a solid football team. Offensively, the only ones we lose that were playing at the end of the year, John Merandi will not be back, that’s been confirmed now. Bobby Brown and Jarious are the three players that really played at the end of the season. I think the three tailbacks we’ll have coming back will be excellent with Julius and Terrance Howard and Tony Fisher.

I think the question mark, as we all know, is on the quarterback. I think he’s totally capable, and I think the positive is that he’s in a little different situation than Jarious Jackson was this year. He doesn’t have to carry this football team, particularly early in the season against that schedule we play.

Defensively, you know, we’ve got to look at everything that we’re doing, scheme-wise, got to make sure we’re putting our players in the best position to have success. We just need to look at the whole scheme, everything we’re doing, and we will. We need to cover. We need to cover. And we need to rush the passer, because without those two things, there’s only so much scheme you can — the scheme is difficult when you can’t cover, and that’s where — what we have to do.

I think we have some good corners coming back. You look at the five corners that we have a potential to come back, Jason Beckstrom had no chance late in the season. He played against Stanford and you could see him buckling on that ankle in the few snaps he did play. Clifford Jefferson, you can’t ask a young corner to play every snap of the game the whole game. You can’t do that. I think it’s remarkable, remarkable how that kid competed and made it through the season. Played every single snap this year.

Albert Poree is back. Obviously, Brock Williams, it’s up to Brock, but he’s critical to get back. And I think just Justin — I think Shane Walton.

So we’ve got some positives, and I think we all see what a fine line it is between winning and losing. None of us ever want to be in this situation again, most of all, these players. And we will be back, though. So any questions that you have, I’ll be happy to answer.

Q: Seemed like a pretty reasonable assessment of the season, especially wondering about the defense. Based on what you’ve done with defense and what Coach Mattison has done with defense, very uncharacteristic numbers. Any staff or personnel changes expected, that you expect to do on defense?

BOB DAVIE: First of all, there won’t be any staff that I necessitate. We’ve got an excellent defensive staff. I don’t know where we’d go find another Greg Mattison and the other guys that we have on this staff. So that’s not even an issue with me.

Will we look at everything we do, starting with my involvement with the defense on down, we will. We’ve got that responsibility. But as far as staff changes, there won’t be any that I necessitate. You never know what happens, as you know, in this profession when guys have opportunities.

But I’m totally comfortable with our staff. And what I’m most comfortable about is how they respond, particularly on our defensive staff, to when bad things happen. We all wants the same thing, and we all are looking for the solution. And our players play a part in that responsibility, as well.

You look at on defense, the turnovers on offense, our offensive staff would be the first ones to tell you., You can’t turn the ball over 30 times. You look at when you give up big passes, it’s almost impossible to stop someone. You think of all of the third downs this year. So you know, we’ve got some problems. I think we’re all aware of what they are, and it’s all of us working together to get them solved.

Q: I guess the team obviously, I was just feeling here looking around at the 2000 lineup obviously with all of the experience of stuff that you have going back, at least on paper, assuming guys would cover from surgeries it looks like you probably do — probably do have some reason for optimism, yet I’m sure a lot of — as you say a lot of your critics probably think you’re being silly, but I guess on paper, it does look like you do have a lot to look forward to coming back?

BOB DAVIE: What I do look back to is when we were a 5-3 team, I think, first of all, walking out of that stadium after beating USC, the kind of effort that went into playing that became, the plays kind of plays that were made to win that game.

Losing those last three games, you know, affects all of us, I don’t minimize that at all. But I don’t think it should take away from the big picture of the positives of where this football team has a chance to go. You know, coming back next year, we will be a more solid football team in August we were this past August. I think all of us see that.

Got some good, young players in this program. So I’m excited about it, and I mean that. You know, right now, you it’s a different situation. This is the first losing season I think I’ve been involved with probably since 1983 or ’84. And I don’t like it. I mean, I don’t like it. I don’t feel good about anything right now. It affects everything you do, every minute of the day. You wake up at night and you feel like crap. But I’m not going to sit and whine about it, and I’m not going to feel sorry for myself. This football team is not going to feel sorry for themselves, because nobody is going to feel sorry for us, and they shouldn’t. There’s a bottom line, and we need to win. I think there’s a lot of positives, if you can look through what happened late in the season, and I think there are reasons why it happened late in the season, just like there’s reasons that everything happens. That’s what keeps you excited is you see how close you are to being good.

Q: And finally, with any of the surgeries, so severe that guys are going to have difficulty coming back next year or does it seem hopeful that most of the guys will be available by the fall if not the spring?

BOB DAVIE: I don’t have that whole list here, but there’s no one that’s going to require surgery that we — that will definitely be out for the spring. The only one — there’s one player, but I don’t want to say that right now. Actually, he’s a walk-on player that because of an injury won’t be able to play, but I want to wait and find out just where we are on that announcement on that.

Q: Could you elaborate on what you mentioned a while earlier as far as looking again at your involvement with the defense, and do you have anything particular in mind that you’re contemplating with that?

BOB DAVIE: No, we’re not playing gotcha today. I just think I’ve got a responsibility as the head football coach, just like I did last year on offense with where he were headed. I felt like we needed to be more of an option football team two years ago. What happens, you need to take advantage of all of the available resources you have, and I’m involved in all of it. I was involved in our defense this past year. And I think all of us have to sit down and look from start to finish in every area of what we’re doing defensively, scheme-wise, personnel-wise, everything. So don’t read too much in between the lines. I appreciate asking me about that, too.

You know, no, nothing different than what was done as far as my involvement. But I’ve got a responsibility. I’ve coached defense all my life, and we’re all embarrassed by the results we had on defense. And we’re going to do whatever we have to do to get it right.

Q: When you look at the long range, how important is it going into this recruiting season to have the support publically that you’ve had >from Mike and to have the extension?

BOB DAVIE: You know, I haven’t thought about that a whole lot. The issue hasn’t come up a lot. You know, maybe it will. But it’s encouraging. I think obviously, going into this season, as I said, when the extension was given to me, I think everyone realized, even though we were a 9-3 football team last year, where this football team was in relationship to the schedule we played. And I think — I think that extension, I can’t think for Mike and Bill, but I think it was probably given for that reason, to a degree.

So, you know, I’m really not concerned about the long term and my stability. I’ve got that stability because of that extension and how I think this program is going. It’s not something that I spent a lot of time. I think, obviously, players out there and families out there that are thinking about Notre Dame, you know, will understand the way Notre Dame does things and what Notre Dame has done in the past.

And I think that contract speaks for itself. And certainly, my resolve and my motivation is going to speak for itself as well. So we’re going to be here and we’re going to get this thing right. I think we’ve got a foundation on which to move forward.

Q: When you are looking at the list of surgeries to come, does Battle figure into that at all, is that being contemplated?

BOB DAVIE: No, he’s not on the list to have surgery.

Q: You mentioned you are your recruiting priorities before, is there anything that’s happened lately that would change if from the prime focus being on recruiting quarterbacks?

BOB DAVIE: That’s still No. 1. Three quarterbacks, I think then corners, linebackers, would be the next priority and always, defensive linemen. Cornerbacks and linebackers.

Q: You said previously that Gary Godsey would remain at the quarterback position, considering he’s not as well-versed at running the option, what plans do you have for him to develop skills at that position?

BOB DAVIE: He has surprised, I guess, all of us. You know, not that he’s an option quarterback, I doubt that we’d run an option with Gary Godsey. But he can move around. For a big guy he moves, the play-action passes, got a good presence, really a strong arm. With our offense, with the diversity we have, it’s not like you have to have two different packages. There are a lot of things within our package that Gary Godsey can go can do.

We’re all kind of excited about him. He’s not a natural fit, because we do run option, but he fits enough that there’s some things in that package that I think he can do extremely well. So I’m anxious to watch him. I don’t know what next year at this time we’ll be saying about that whole thing, but heading into the spring, we’re excited about watching him. He made some progress this year.

Q: Well, given that, how do you view your decision to convert him or to give him more attention at the position, considering the importance you’re placing on the quarterback position for the health of the team next year?

BOB DAVIE: I think it will take care of itself. Obviously, it will be — it will be based on how Gary does in the spring. He’s the first one to know. It will be based on how he compares to those young quarterbacks he brings into the program.

So he’s going to have an opportunity, and he can make the most of that opportunity, and when we recruited him, that’s really what we told him, that he would have a chance to be a quarterback. And he’s going to have that chance.

So those things kind of take care of themselves, and I’m just anxious to watch him in the spring.

Q: Can Rocky Boiman play on the defensive line? He’s been a pretty good pass rusher, is he going to continue to play linebacker?

BOB DAVIE: You know, I think that’s an area for discussion, because he really is an effort football player, and I think he can develop into one heck of a pass rusher. I’m not ready to say just yet, but that is worth discussing, and I think it will depend a little bit on how big he gets. I love his tenacity. And I think when you look at Rocky Boiman and Darrell Campbell those guys are ferocious kinds of pass rushers, and I think that kind of intrigues me a little bit there. We’ll see. Even if he remains at drop backer, he’ll be a pass rusher a lot in passing situations, because I think he’s really developing into a good pass rusher.

Q: I knew he was a little bit on the lightweight side, but sometimes, that works out?

BOB DAVIE: He’s got a lot of suddenness and he adds something lot to our defense as a rusher.

Q: Just to clarify, when you were saying that there were no staff changes coming that you would initiate you were speaking of the whole staff?

BOB DAVIE: Exactly, yeah.

Q: The other side of that, are you concerned at all that anyone might be vulnerable to receiving an attractive offer elsewhere?

BOB DAVIE: Oh, would I not — you know I would not be concerned at all. In fact, I would welcome that. We all know how difficult these head coaching opportunities are to get, and I would welcome that. That may not be the best thing for us, obviously, because we all want continuity, and I really like our staff. But in this profession, when you have an opportunity to go take a job, particularly a head coaching job, I’ll help guys get a head coaching jobs, that’s an obligation I have. I want to do what’s best for them.

Q: Could you assess the play of Gerome Sapp?

BOB DAVIE: I think Gerome came on strong at the end of the season. He’s really a physical football player. He’s a contact kind of football player. Whether he’s a strong safety or a free safety, I’m not sure, but I was really impressed with him on punt coverage and kickoff coverage late in the season.

In the middle of the season he was setback a little bit because he had a — I think it was either a groin or a quad, but I think late in the season, he really came on, and he’s going to be — he’s going to be a key member of this defense, because he’ll hit you. I mean, he loves to hit, and he’s an impact kind of player. So he’ll be right in the middle of it next year.

Q: And by that, you mean more playing time as far as the rest of the defense goes?

BOB DAVIE: He’ll have an opportunity to start for us next year at safety, without question.

Q: You say you’re going to look at every aspect — are you saying that there needs to be maybe more conservative (inaudible) — or are you saying that you need to be maybe more concerned with the pass rushers?.

BOB DAVIE: Well, I look at it as there’s a bottom line with results. There’s a bottom line of just those statistics, and when the statistics jump out at you the way they jump out at you, I think you have to look at the whole thing.

I don’t know yet, I don’t know yet. You have to look so much at your personnel, but the reality is this: You have to have corners. At some point, whether it’s man, whether it’s zone, whether it’s blitz, whether it’s drop an 8, it becomes the guys out there on the perimeter making plays out there on the ball.

So I’ve got tremendous confidence in our scheme as do other coaches in this country because there’s a lot of them that play the same scheme. But we’ve got to find something. We’ve got to find something. In fact, I don’t want to come back next year at this time and say, well, you know what, we had a hard time covering. If that means we go to an eight-man front and blitz and bluff and do all that and get everybody up there, then we’ll do that. I’m just disappointed in the results of it.

And we’ve got enough expertise on this staff. You look at a guy like Lou West is here, he was at Virginia Tech, they are an eight-man front. Jerry has played every kind of defense there is. Greg and I, heck, I’ve played every scheme there is. We’ve changed that scheme just about every year to try to tweak it to what our personnel was.

So much of it comes down to what your players can do, and who are our corners, are our corners good enough, are they going to develop, just where are we? But we can’t just have the same results. We’ve got to improve.

So I’m not really sure, you know. Like I said, the scheme we play is a good scheme. The coaches we have are good coaches. But the results aren’t there. So where do you go? The first thing you look at is: What can we do to help the players, what can we do to help them? Maybe there’s nothing we can do to help them.

Q: Do you lean towards being more conservative?

BOB DAVIE: We’re pretty conservative now. We’re not a team — one thing you look at is we used to blitz a lot more. When I first came to Notre Dame, we were — we were always 50/50 zone or man, and blitzed as much as any team in the country. I come to Notre Dame, our personnel is different here, starting back in ’94. We can go back and check all of those stats, you know, it’s been different personnel.

If you don’t blitz a lot, it’s a hard to be good at blitzing. We tried to be pretty conservative, blitz at times. But you know, what if you don’t do something a lot, it’s hard to be good at it. So we haven’t gotten much out of our blitz. So, it is the guys blitzing, or is it because we don’t blitz enough? That’s what we’ve got to see.

But usually, what you come back around and see is things happen for a reason. And we went into this season and we lost a corner that we thought was going to be your best coverage corner, a guy that we had invested a lot in the last couple years. We played with a young corner, that played every snap all year, and just like when it was Allen Rossum ^ in ’96, they found that young corner, and it’s hard. It’s hard. You look at the receivers we played against. We’ll go back, and you’ll see say bunch of those receivers playing on Sundays.

Now, next year, as we look through that schedule, A&M, Nebraska, Purdue will, Michigan State losses probably both those receivers, Stanford loses No. 5. You know, each season is different, and each — who are our corners? And it always starts with personnel first. It always starts with personnel first.

So, to say are you going to blitz more or are you going to blitz less, I can’t really say right now. I always want to look at that whole thing, and that’s a huge, huge, huge decision, and one that you don’t know when you can make that decision because a lot is based upon players.

Q: Do you want to go back to –?

BOB DAVIE: I want to be much more aggressive. I’d love to be more aggressive. You know, 50/50 man/zone, and also a team that I think blitzes a little bit more, and that’s where all of us want to go. I mean, that’s been my nature. It’s been my background, the pressure, just like Greg’s. You look back to Greg to Michigan in ’95 and ’96, the year before he came to Notre Dame. I mean, that’s pretty good blitz defense. So, I mean, we all have the expertise. We’ve all had success. We all need to come up with a solution. And I think, you know, once again, I think we’re going to have good enough players. I think we will.

But I also thought this past year, we’re going to rush the passer better than we did, and we didn’t. We had 18 sacks for the year and 402 attempts.

Q: (Inaudible).

BOB DAVIE: That’s football. That is football. You look at Tennessee, they played great defense. You look at USC, go right down the line, go right down the line, just look out there at those conners, and they are up there one-on-one taking two receivers on the game. It’s matchup. It’s no different than Matt Doherty and basketball. It’s a matchup, who matches up with who. And when you can’t match up, for whatever reason, it’s difficult, it’s difficult. Because you can call it zone, you can call it man, it comes down to one guy running down the field on one guy at some point.

That first pass we gave up against Stanford, that was zone coverage. That was 68 yards over the top of our head. Now, you couldn’t tell by looking at it whether it was zone or man when that ball was 50 yards in the air, because there’s two guys running down there with the ball. So it’s coverage, guys that can cover because it’s going to come down to that.

Q: (Inaudible) do you feel like you have them on your roster somewhere?

BOB DAVIE: When I go back and look at this whole year, should Shane Walton have had a chance to play more? Probably, in the Stanford game. Albert Poree went down with a knee. You know, we were just about ready. Jason Beckstrom goes down with the ankle, he’s starting in the dime package, playing against FC, the whole deal. We lose Brock Williams, we lose Lafayette after the Oklahoma game. It was a position that was incredibly thin to start with and inexperienced, playing against probably as good a receivers as we’ve played against, at least since I’ve been here week to week to week to week, including Pitt.

So when you ask that question, one thing I’m careful about doing now is jumping on a guy’s boat too quick, because I think there’s a little bit of a — everywhere, but particularly here, there’s a little bit more of an inclination to jump on that boat quick. What I want to see is when it’s game time, guys jump up and cover guys, and it’s hard to see. You can cover them out here at this practice field against your own guys every day and there’s nobody out there watching. It’s another animal to go in that stadium and cover them, and then after you get beat come back and cover them again.

So you look at Brock Williams, Clifford Jefferson, Albert Poree, Jason Beckstrom and Shane Walton. That’s five guys that I think have the potential to cover, and it’s five guys we’ve invested some time in now. So I think we do, but they are going to show me that. But I think we’re farther along than we were last year at this time, because three of those guys weren’t even here.

Q: Have any players have indicated a desire — (inaudible)?

BOB DAVIE: No one. And with the fifth-year players, I’m going to wait on that. I’m going to wait and just see, take my time with that a little bit, as I want to sit down with each guy and just see what his — where they are right now.

Q: (Inaudible)?

BOB DAVIE: I think it’s the same thing we sold when we were 7-6 two years ago. First of all, your players — your players sell your program. And I think you’ll see, visiting with our young players, the enthusiasm and the leadership that this team is going to have. I think you’re going to like this football team, and I think recruits that visit will sense that same thing.

So I don’t know — I don’t know that that affects you as much as you might think. Players are looking for opportunities. We still have a graduation rate that’s pretty darned good. I think people will appreciate this team, look at the games we’ve played and how we played and the fact they never quit. I think they will appreciate this coaching staff for hanging together and not point fingers and not trying to deflect the blame. I think there is just so many positives. That 5-7 record is a disappointment to all of us, but that’s not going to put the nail in our coffin. There’s been too much other things, too much investment in this to let that take us down.

Q: (Inaudible)?

BOB DAVIE: I don’t think you do that. I think you take each one of those fifth-year players and you find out what’s in it for them from an academic standpoint, and also for a chance maybe to advance their career, if they have a good year. I think you take each one of those individually, and I don’t think it’s going to be impacted by who we sign or don’t sign.

Q: (Inaudible)?

BOB DAVIE: I think so. Yeah, you know, we’ve got all those offensive linemen coming back and we’ve got some young ones that didn’t play that we’re excited about. We may take two offensive linemen, two maybe three, but no more than that. We’ve got some good players.

Q: (Inaudible)?

BOB DAVIE: The young guys on our team? I think all of them. I think Curtin and Faine are the two that jump out right off the bat, they didn’t play the scout team all year. They were on offense all year, and really are comfortable with the system now. Gillis is a guy that we like, as is Neil Ambron. Neil Ambron we think has some potential. Milligan was injured with a shoulder all year, we didn’t get much of a chance to see him. But I think those four that I mentioned, we’re pretty excited about those guys.

Q: How do you feel about the recruiting banquet?

BOB DAVIE: I think it will be exciting. We’re putting all the pressure on Regis Philbin. We’re going to have a great banquet and a great recruiting weekend if Regis can deliver for us, which I’m sure he will. It looks like a lot of players. It looks like maybe 17 players coming in this weekend, and as always, you try to get them in early before the snow falls and before the bad weather gets here. So it’s key weekend for us.

Q: Do you anticipate — (inaudible)?

BOB DAVIE: That’s one of those things you can never anticipate. We’re close to getting some verbal commitments, but who knows, who knows. We really can’t control that.

Q: (Inaudible)?

BOB DAVIE: I haven’t really thought a whole lot about his shoulder. That question when it was asked kind of surprised me. I didn’t realize it was an issue, to tell you the truth. I’ll need to talk to Jim Russ about that because I really wasn’t — I really wasn’t aware of that. I know that — I just visited with him Jim a little bit ago, and he’s not on any of the lists as far as surgery or any steps that we need to take. But we will — I am concerned about his health and his strength.

Q: Can you talk about the bottom line and doing whatever you need to do to meet the bottom line, how important is next year to fulfilling your goal –?

BOB DAVIE: Next year is critical because it’s next year. And I’m not going to look any further than that A&M game, that first game of the year, and then I’m look to Nebraska after that. It’s critical because we just finished 5-7 and the only way for us to go feel better is to go win, and that’s all — all the complexity and all the more complicated I need to be is it’s just about winning the game.

Q: (Inaudible)?

BOB DAVIE: I think we’ve made progress. I know, obviously, it’s been clouded a little bit in people’s eyes I’m sure by the way this season finished, and by the record that we’ve come out of this thing with, and I can understand that. That’s the reality of it.

But there are a lot of positives. You look at the recruiting classes we’ve had. You look at the young talent in this program right now I think is — has been built up. You look at this coaching staff that we’ve assembled, all good coaches from good places that are good people. I think the character that this team, and really, this program, has shown through some trying times. You know, you can find out a lot about people when things are going well, but I think you find out the really important things when times aren’t going so well.

And I think this football team and this program has been pretty resilient under some tough circumstances. I know people, maybe not fans, but peers in our profession and people across the country, respect what we’ve done. And I think there’s a lot more positives than there are negatives right now, and I think we’ve made some progress.

Q: Your first recruiting class will be the seniors now, does that make it more meaningful?

BOB DAVIE: You know what, though, they are really all our guys. We’ll have some fifth-year players probably come back. You know, and I’ve been here long enough that I feel like all these guys are my guys. That first recruiting class, to be honest, you know we started in December, and we kind of started from scratch with that class. It wasn’t a very big class, but there are some good players in there. You look at Grant Irons and Jabari, Anthony Denman, there’s some good football players in that class, Joey Getherall. We have made some progress, we’ve built it back up to a degree.

Q: (Inaudible)?

BOB DAVIE: I don’t think — I thought a little bit — I probably shouldn’t even say it, but Jason Murray had played some linebacker in high school. It will be a great just to get Jason Murray back healthy. He’s gone two years with that shoulder, and now he gets it fixed.

But I don’t think — you know, Driver will be a safety, but other than that, I think we’re pretty much the way we are.

Q: What’s the next step to becoming a 12-0 team, going to the National Championship — (inaudible)?

BOB DAVIE: I think with the maturity that we’ll have on this team next year. It’s realizing when this season starts in August, what all that entails, I mean, it is a grind, particularly playing the early schedule we play.

So, I think keeping it all together from start to finish, whether that means staying healthy, all those things that go into it. You know, it is a — there’s not many teams, if any team in this country, that open up the season like we open up the season with the teams we play. And because of that, it’s a grueling season. You don’t have that exhibition season to kind of slide into it and get your feet on the ground and play some young guys at the end of games and those things. You’re in the middle of it from start to finish.

So I think it’s the realization of what it takes, what it takes to be successful here, because this is a unique place, it really is, for a lot of reasons.

So I think willing to make that sacrifice, and what it takes to be successful.

Q: (Inaudible)?

BOB DAVIE: I think you draw some positives from that because they did hang in there and they did compete, and there’s something about feeling bad, that old saying, sometimes you have to feel bad before you appreciate feeling good. There’s been a bunch of feeling bad around here, starting with me. So it’s important to us, it’s important to us. I know it’s important to people out there, our fans and everyone, but it’s important to us because of our pride. And all of our pride’s been hurt, but I’m not embarrassed about this team. I’m not embarrassed about the effort of this team. I’m just disappointed in the results.

Q: Kicking game, what does Setta need to show you?

BOB DAVIE: Setta is right in the middle of it. Setta has made continued improvement through the fall as a punter and as a kicker, you know, maybe even more so as a punter. You know, there at the end of the season, you know we were toying with the idea of maybe Setta, so he’s right in the middle of it both as a punter and a kicker. He’s a tremendous competitor. So it’s ‘s wide open, between David Miller and Setta as the kicker and Joey Hildbold and Setta as the putter.

Q: (Inaudible)?

BOB DAVIE: Well, it’s more than a reasonable expectation, because it is the expectation. That’s our standard and that’s our goal. I think we all see what that challenge is, with the schedule we have the next couple years. You know, Bob made the point about the close games. I mean, if you look back last year, all those games were close, and there’s a reason all these games are close. You know, we can go back and forth on a lot of issues, but for the last two years, just about every football game we have played has been close. And with us playing the kind of schedule we play week-in and week-out, it’s more difficult probably than it’s ever been. But I’m not lowering the standard that’s what the expectation is, and that’s — it’s not reachable, it has to be reachable.

Q: (Inaudible)?

BOB DAVIE: You know each and every year, it’s a, different season. We were certainly capable this year of reaching that standard. If in some areas, maybe we’d have done a better job, if in some areas, the things — with the injuries and those things.

So you know, I think that things are in place to do that. I also realize what the challenge is to get that done.

Q: Can you talk about your fullbacks?

BOB DAVIE: I think the one thing we have to be careful if we think the fullback should carry the ball more by being productive. If you look around the country, most places, I don’t know if the fullback ever carries the ball. I think we’ve played six or seven teams this year that the fullback never touched ball the whole game, whether it was running game or passing game and all he did was block. So our fullbacks are pretty productive. I think we need to get better at fullback, across the board, just over overall performance.

But I don’t know that you’re going to see the fullback just carry the football a whole bunch of times. So I don’t base productivity on that. I just think our overall play at fullback, our blocking, our pass receiving needs to and will improve.