Oct. 17, 2000

JOHN HEISLER: Just a couple of quick notes, kickoff this week is at 12:10 Eastern time, 11:10 here in South Bend. If you are hooked in with us via satellite there will be five minutes of highlights from the Notre Dame/Navy game at the tailend of our satellite feed.

Coach Davie is here and he will make some opening comments, then he will take some questions.

COACH DAVIE: Well, it is obvious we are getting to the point in the season where you really hope to show continued improvement on a week-to-week basis. And I think it is important for our football team right now to take the next step.

We went through a period there early in the season, as there always is early in the season where there is some questionmarks. Then we had the Arnaz Battle situation. That is all behind us. No longer do we have a freshman quarterback. He is now Matt LoVecchio, he is the starting quarterback at Notre Dame. No longer do we have some guys that haven’t played a whole lot in the secondary. They are now guys that have played a lot.

So my point is now it is time for us to make a move and to become a football team that can go win a game like this on the road against a real good opponent. It is time for us to make our move right now to be a football team that is in the middle of things as you go down the stretch run of the season.

Certainly we have our opportunities right now. We are healthy, by and large, as a football team.

Grant Irons has been gone a long time. That is way behind us. So we are healthy. We have got a good attitude right now. The football team is hungry. The football team is still together. So now it is the bottom line deal of us being good enough to go win. And that is kind of what it is.

This isn’t a week, I do not think, where there is a whole lot of talking or a whole lot of conversation or a whole lot of theorizing on a lot of issues. That is probably a positive. We don’t really have a lot of issues right now. The only issue is to play better and be able to go win a football game in a difficult place to play against who I think is a good football team.

If you look at West Virginia, they remind me an awful lot of Michigan State in playing Michigan State through the years. They are big, physical players. They are very athletic. They are a football team that when they get hot, they are really hot and they are talented. You look offensively, they have really big linemen. They are probably 320 pounds several of those players.

The wide receivers are all talented guys. All four of their wide receivers are talented. They have a No. 5 that is extremely fast, maybe world-class speed.

The running backs, you know, it has been — they had the opportunity certainly to play on Thursday night, everybody got to see their big fullback. Two tailbacks are extremely talented players. One of them we know extremely well.

The quarterback, I think, is a unique player. He has got a quick release, has got a very strong arm and he can move around. And he is extremely competitive.

So offensively I think they are really good. They have a lot of talent. They have a scheme that they don’t make many mistakes. And they throw the football down the field on running downs. Not a team that is easy to sack. Not a team that is easy to harass. They are in maximum-protection-type schemes a lot of times and they throw the ball well off play-action passes.

Defensively, you know, West Virginia has always been a solid defensive team. I think their defensive coordinator does an excellent job with schemes. They are multiple. They do a lot of things. It won’t be anything that we haven’t seen at some course during this season though.

So they are a talented team and haven’t played in Morgantown — for some of you guys is probably — I don’t know if Notre Dame — this is the first time I think Notre Dame has ever played in Morgantown. It is a difficult place to play, but yet in the same token, it’s a great college atmosphere.

People come from all over the state to support the team. It is a very partisan-type crowd. This is Don Nehlen’s opportunity, I believe, to win is 200th game in college football. There will be quite an atmosphere there. It is a big game for West Virginia. They are 4 and 2. They have lost to two Top-5 teams in this country, Miami and Virginia Tech. And I don’t think either one of those games, when you look at the tape, the score got out of hand a little bit because of some things that happened – Virginia Tech in the kicking game, Virginia Tech with some big, big plays.

Miami intercepted a couple of balls and there were a couple of turnovers, so the score kind of got out of hand a little bit. But those games were a lot closer when you look at it with the exception of just a couple of plays.

So this is a big opportunity for us. It is a big challenge for us.

As I have said repeatedly. I really like this team. I really like our football team. There are guys that — they are making this season fly by. I told them that last night. It is hard to imagine this is the 7th game of the year already. I think that is always a good sign that you just enjoy everyday and you enjoy working with them and they come in hungry to play.

So you know, it is not a whole lot of conversation. There is not a whole lot of issues. It is just about us being good enough to take advantage of what I think is a really good opportunity for us to be a good football team and finish this season out. That is all talk. We have to go do it. I am kind of anxious to see how good we can be.

Q. I am doing a story on Tony Driver this week for MSNBC. Your defense obviously came up big time against Navy again. Can you just talk about Tony Driver and setting an NCAA record becoming the only second player to return two fumble recoveries in the same game for touchdowns?

COACH DAVIE: Well, I think, you know, the impact Tony Driver has had on our football team has probably been immeasurable because he is — I was telling someone yesterday — I was telling one of the NFL scouts, I don’t know that I have been around a guy that has more endurance than Tony Driver. He is someone that comes out and runs hard every day, every second of practice. And that is contagious. When you have Brock Williams and Tony Driver back there, I think that sets the tempo not only for your secondary, but for your team. So the things Tony Driver does, not everybody notices on Saturdays. Certainly will — you notice the big plays, but what he does for us I think is create an attitude of truly enjoying football, truly setting the tempo for us because he runs and plays so hard. He always has a smile on his face.

I talked to him after the game against Navy, both he and Brock Williams, you know, and kind of as a message to our football team – for Tony Driver and Brock Williams to compare how they feel right now compared to how they felt a year ago, I think is a good lesson for all of us not to take things for granted. And certainly I think it is a good message to our football team to take care of their business and to keep this football team together.

So having Tony Driver back has been a big, big boost to our team. He is still improving as a football player. He still, even though he is a fourth-year player, you know, his story has been well documented.

He is relatively new playing free safety. He can continues to get better. I think he has a tremendous future beyond Notre Dame in football. Because it is just hard to find players with that run and hit and truly enjoy it like Tony Driver does. If he never played a down on defense or offense, he can be one of the best special teams players in professional football, I think, that I have seen.

Q. Just a follow-up to that question, everyone knows the story about starting out on offense, then defense as a sophomore, offense last year. Has this been due to what is best for Notre Dame or what is best for Tony Driver?

COACH DAVIE: I think that is probably a good question.

I believe that Tony Driver’s future is on defense. I think if Tony Driver was on offense, he wouldn’t be playing right now. And I think Tony Driver realizes that too. I don’t think he is a better tailback than Julius Jones, Tony Fisher, or Terrance Howard, and that is the reason we made that move. Certainly his sophomore year, he wouldn’t have played because he was behind Autry Denson. I would imagine that there is some Autry Densons, Julius Jones, Terrance Howards and Tony Fishers at other places and particularly at the next level of football. So I think it is what is best for him and what I have always believed what is best for that player is usually is what is best for your team because they are happy and they feel that you are doing the right thing.

So I think we made the right decision with that. A lot of thought went into it. I think he is a good tailback. I don’t think he is a great tailback. I think he can be really a good defensive player.

Q. Final question: How much character did he show coming back to school after he left for a couple of days as a sophomore when you decided to move him over to the defense?

COACH DAVIE: Well, I think his mom showed a lot of character. He got home and his mom sent him back.

But, no, that story, the biggest reason Tony Driver left is because he felt he let a lot of people down in that Michigan State game. Things kind of mounted up on him. I think he showed a lot of character just sticking through what he has been through. Some of it he has created himself and he will be the first one to tell you that. But with everybody, as you go through those lessons in life, if you handled them the right way, you can be stronger and I think he has done that.

But there has been some things that he probably could have done better – he’d be the first one to tell you. But he has been an absolute pleasure. By and large, he has been an enjoyable guy to be around because he plays the game the way it is supposed to be played.

Q. Arnaz Battle was — I believe was supposed to come out of the permanent cast. Has he done that? When he was first injured you hinted that if he wasn’t ready until the final three games of the season then he probably wouldn’t play. So what is his status?

COACH DAVIE: We sent him home for a little bit of time over this weekend just to get him out of here for a while and let him kind of get back around his family and — which I think was good. Because we don’t have school this week. He is coming back this week and the next step is to take the cast off and X-ray and see just how far that thing has healed.

Once again, I don’t know. I don’t know. I still feel like I don’t think it is realistic at all. In fact, I have been told that he is not going to play against West Virginia or Air Force so we are down to Boston College, Rutgers, and S.C..

You know, he is our No. 1 quarterback, but it is going to be his decision if in fact he is healthy to play. It will be something that he’d have to come and convince me that he really wanted to do. Because it doesn’t really matter what I want. It is what he feels he can do and what he really wants to do.

I think we will cross that bridge when we get to it. I would think it would be doubtful right now that he would come back though.

Q. But if you are a 6 and 2 football team, does that change your stance?

COACH DAVIE: It is not going to change my stance. My stance is going to be the same. That he is our best quarterback. He gives us the best opportunity to win. It all comes down to does Arnaz Battle think he can go out there and perform the way he is capable of playing. Does he think he can play at a higher level than Matt LoVecchio maybe can. You know, those are decisions that are going to be made by Arnaz Battle and by the doctors.

I am not going to get in on that. I wasn’t in on that in the beginning. There has been situations that have been well documented where, you know, the basketball player at Michigan State last year — and I don’t know all the details — but from what I have heard, he had the same injury and didn’t miss a game. The quarterback at Tulane, King. So I have tried to remove all those other issues from it completely and do what is best — once again, kind of like the conversation about Tony Driver, what is best for Arnaz is what is best for us. But at some point Arnaz has to be the one to say: Look, coach, I am 100 percent, I am burning up to get back on that field. The doctors have to say that and then there will be a decision made.

Right now, it is really not even an issue and if I had to guess, I would say Arnaz won’t be back this year.

Q. In light of the situation that occurred with Gerome Sapp last week, what is his status with the team? Has anything changed or do you just wait until Student Affairs —

COACH DAVIE: You guys have all been around here long enough. School is not in session this week. I am going to wait until school is back in session obviously and I am going to let Student Affairs take the lead on this. And then whatever team sanctions that would be imposed will be discussed at that time.

We have a policy on this football team that there is no under-age drinking. I have been informed that he was not drinking. We do have a policy on this team where there is no fake IDs so that is an issue. But we do not have a standard set policy where if in fact you do use a fake ID here is what happens to you. We have not locked ourselves into that.

So I am going to kind of wait and see how this things transpires.

Q. You have the civil issue he has to deal with, you have Student Affairs?

COACH DAVIE: I will act on this at some point, but he is going to play this week.

Q. His standing with the team doesn’t change until —

COACH DAVIE: His standing with our football team has not changed. We have plenty of time left in this season, if we do have to take some sanctions or if we choose to take some sanctions against him as a football team, that we will be able to do that. I just kind of want to wait and see, let’s get all the facts in and let’s Student Affairs take the lead.

Q. It as said that LoVecchio no longer is a freshman, it is time to take the handcuffs off. To do that what does he need to do from being a two-game freshman to being what you feel now should be a veteran quarterback?

COACH DAVIE: I think we did take the handcuffs off and I think we made a decision to do that. Obviously, against Stanford, we did and then came back against Navy. And how I feel about that, you know, it is not just a clever way of saying something that he is no longer a freshman. I feel the same way about our team. We have got to raise our level of performance right now. Now is the time.

We have talked about this the last six games. We have talked about having this football team together in a position to make a big run at the end. Well, we have it. We are together. We have lost a quarterback, but that was a long time ago. We lost our defensive end, who was our captain, that was a long time ago. Matt LoVecchio has now been in there for three weeks and if you look at the Open Date, so it is about raising the performance level of this team across the board. And that is really my message with Matt LoVecchio as well as this team. When he misreads, the expectations are now that he should make the read. He has played as much football as Arnaz Battle has played. Let us call it what it is. He may not have those years of practice, but he certainly played as many snaps in football games as Arnaz Battle.

So it is about no safety net for any of us. It is about raising the level and let’s go. We have got no excuses. Let’s go play this thing out.

Q. Talked a lot about how West Virginia is a tough place to play but your players have never been there. Can you compare it to any other place that are some of the tougher places you have been and can you compare it to any of the other places they played recently?

COACH DAVIE: You know, it reminds me of Michigan State a little bit. It is a real nice stadium. They are on top of you. Their fans are very passionate. In the state of West Virginia, obviously it is the NFL team in West Virginia. A lot of their fans come along way, so they are very passionate about it.

It is a nice facility. They have tremendous facilities. When you see their indoor practice field, their weight room, their stadium is very nice. It is a passionate collegiate kind of crowd. To say what place it really remind me of, I don’t know. Reminds me a little bit of Texas Tech when we played in Lubbock, the same kind of atmosphere. It is a neat place to play. I think our players will really enjoy that aspect of it. I have got a lot of respect for West Virginia. They really follow their football team and they get after you pretty good down there.

Q. I know there is always pressure at Notre Dame, but as you look at the first five games, it was more of, let’s get through the five games, see where we are at, go from there. Now coming out of there, the talk has been Notre Dame should be favored. Do you change the approach at all with the expectations like — do you change the mind set of the team to keep them focused?

COACH DAVIE: If I changed those expectations every time a different issue was presented on the outside, we would be like an yo-yo back and forth. So I think, you know, you approach it just like you approached it from the beginning. And I have said this point before – you guys get probably tired of hearing the same things – but if you make a big issue before the season about what people say, you kind of get that chip-on-his-shoulder-attitude and put all kind of investment into what outside people say, you use that as a motivator and say: You know what, these guys say we can’t win. I read somewhere where somebody said: Look, the first time we saw one of Nebraska’s linemen, we are going to shutter. If you do all that and put a bunch of stock into that then certainly you have to come back and do the same thing. Pretty soon you end up letting other people create what the issues are for you. So rather than do any of that, I think we kind of have a better handle on the issues at hand and that is what I have chosen to do.

To be honest, none of that makes any difference to me. What does make a difference to me is that I have seen us make some progress as a team. I think we are healthy right now. I think the attitude is good right now. I think we have a legitimate opportunity to beat a good football team. We better take advantage of it. Let’s take advantage of it. And let’s all realize that this is a great opportunity. So let’s raise the standard right now based on what we see, not on what people on the outside see, because you know, with the way college football is now, don’t — there is no reason to look at that schedule and say you should do this or you should do that. That day is over.

Q. West Virginia hasn’t played since the 12th. They played Virginia Tech on a Thursday night. Does that give them sort of the advantage that almost like a biweek would having extra time to prepare for the game?

COACH DAVIE: I don’t really think so. I think when you get to this point in the season, the 7th game, you pretty much get on routine that you follow. We have a little bit of an advantage this week that our players don’t have school. But you can’t just drastically change, although you are kind of tempted to change and go two-a-days and just wear them out and take advantage of every minute with the team. You just can’t do it – for a couple reasons.

No. 1: As coaches, you are on a schedule. We are grinding it so that at 2:15 when we start meetings, our special teams meetings, that we have things in for that meeting. So to bring the players in the morning really kind of inhibits our schedule. So we are doing a little more meeting. But by and large, you are locked into your routine this time of the year and probably from an injury point, it may help a little bit. But I don’t think it is of much significance.

Q. One last thing, early in the season when Nebraska was coming up you mentioned the one advantage that they had, one of the advantages they have is the continuity with the coaching staff. Guys had been there for a lot of time. Don Nehlen has been at West Virginia forever and a lot of his coaches have been there for a while. Have they developed the same type of style over the years?

COACH DAVIE: I think so. You look at their offense, they are locked in now. They are locked in to what they do. They are an eye-formation team and they really are. That is why they don’t make many mistakes and you don’t see that quarterback get sacked a whole lot.

The same thing on defense, Steve Dunlap has been there a long time. It wasn’t many years ago when West Virginia was No. 1 in the country in defense. And because of that, their schemes have evolved and they are pretty broad in their schemes, particularly on defense. Kind of like Nebraska on offense, where they keep adding year after year and pretty soon it is a big package.

So yeah, I think that is — I think that is a legitimate point and you think about winning 200 football games in college football, that is a pretty strong statement right there.

Q. You mentioned briefly Sunday about you thought that maybe going to Michigan State that you do touch — as far as talking to the team about being away playing in front of the crowd, doing all that, you said earlier in the year you tried not too much different going on the road — are you doing anything differently at all compared to what you did at Michigan State?

COACH DAVIE: I don’t know that we talked to our team so much about the problems of playing on the road. I just think, as coaches, we may be limited because of our youth at quarterback. Some the things we could have done maybe from the standpoint of checking at the line of scrimmage, maybe it being a little bit more wide open. We anticipated an awful lot of blitzes. We anticipated a lot of crowd noise. We anticipated a lot of bluffing everybody up on the line and then bailing out. And really we didn’t get it. It was probably good logic to anticipate that.

And the fact they didn’t do it, you know, whether or not that hurt us or not, I don’t think it did. I just thought we were a little cautious at that time for good reason. But now I don’t think we need to be quite as cautious. But it is a factor playing on the road with the checks, particularly on offense, and that is something that we will address this week.

Q. Anthony Weaver and Tony Driver, they talked about the road warrior mentality of a player being psyched up to play on the road. I know you played as well. If that is the case why is it that — I know you probably can’t answer this directly, but why is it that the home team still seems to have an edge even though the true warriors on defense in this case, Driver and Weaver, look so forward to playing in a hostile environment?

COACH DAVIE: You know, I think playing at home is an advantage. There is no question about that.

Your preparation during the week, you know, your home crowd, all those things, obviously you’d rather play at home, but I think it is a unique challenge to play on the road and you do get excited coming in and taking peoples’ best shot and there it is a little bit of mentality to that of trying to take that crowd out of the game by your performance.

Bottom line and I think for any coach or any player, would probably rather play at home. Particularly when you have the advantage of a crowd like we do in a soldout stadium.

I think for some people that play with less than full stadiums in their home stadium, it is an advantage for them to play on the road because they come in — for instance, you come into Notre Dame stadium, it is a full stadium and national televised game, all of a sudden the excitement factor may shift back to that opponent a little bit if in fact they are not playing in front of full houses. But for us, with the atmosphere we have here at home, I think it is a little more difficult for us to go on the road than some teams.

And also I think — I mean, let us face it, when Notre Dame comes in – and I know this from experience and I know it from other coaches-when Notre Dame comes in to those away stadiums, I mean, there has been a big buzz about that game for a year – for over a year. I think we — no doubt we lead the country in those slogan T-shirts when we come in.

I never forget, we went down to play in 1996 when we went down to play Texas, in Austin there, has been some incredible games now in Memorial Stadium in Austin. And I remember Darryl Royal (phonetic), I read somewhere that weekend he said that he thinks that is the biggest game in the history of Texas football, Notre Dame coming into Austin to play. That is pretty strong now.

So I think you get that same thing everywhere. I think people really get excited when Notre Dame comes in and that is exactly how it will be in Morgantown, particularly our first time coming in there. So I kind of like it. You kind of embrace that challenge. At least you tell yourself you do and you try to use that mindset.

Q. For the reasons that you just mentioned, and the way the schedule is set up, the situation where the team is at right now, is this game the springboard that can catapult you guys into where you want to go?

COACH DAVIE: You know, when you get to this point, every one of them are so big and, let’s face it, there is a big, big difference between being 5 and 2 and 4 and 3, particularly when you have two home games coming up and an Open Date between those two games. So it is a big game. West Virginia is in the very same position. It is a big football game for us.

Q. Talking to one of the offensive linemen from West Virginia yesterday and he talked about being a big Notre Dame fan growing up and he talked about coming here four years ago and how he played five snaps, but it is something he will tell his grandkids about. Is the intimidation factor — I mean, he still sounded in awe of the game coming up where it is Notre Dame, you know, and that type — is the intimidation factor of coming into a place you have never been before, is that something that can work in your favor?

COACH DAVIE: You are talking about us going in there?

Q. Yeah.

COACH DAVIE: I don’t really think so. I think you know, it depends what they see on that tape and how they think we are playing and how that player that he is going against 65 of those snaps in that game plays. I don’t think, you know, I don’t think just us coming in there is going to be — anything that is going to be worth many points. I think it is more or less what are we when we come in there that is going to be worth the points.

Certainly Notre Dame coming into Morgantown is a big game just like Ohio State coming in there several years ago, they opened the season on ESPN in that game. It is a marquis game.

And I can’t speak for their players, but I know I can speak for our players. It is not so much the hype, it is about the reality of it and who am I playing against, what style of play is that player, what style of play is that team? And once you get through all the different hypes and all the different slogans on the T-shirts and all the spins on things, I mean, it comes down to a bunch of guys coaching against each other and playing against each other and this wouldn’t be any different.

They may have a little different stadium and little different turf, but it is going to come down to all those things we do out here on this practice field everyday.

Q. At the beginning of the season you mentioned a couple of areas that you needed to focus on to have a successful season. One of the areas was running the football. The other one was protecting the passer. Could you comment on both of those areas for me if you would, and how you are today and where you have come from?

COACH DAVIE: I thought we made a little progress running the football last week. We still, you know, going into the Navy game that was a concern because we weren’t very consistent running the football, way too neg — way too many negative plays in the running game. I thought against Navy we did run the football, you know, we wore them down a little bit. We were bigger than them. It will be a much bigger test this week against West Virginia to see if we are now more consistent running the football.

But that is something that we really have emphasized. I’d like to think we are a little better but we will find out.

As far as protecting the passer, there has been a combination of things. Our offensive line really has been pretty good. There is times that our quarterback didn’t get us in the right protection or didn’t throw the site adjustment type-of-thing. We are making progress protecting the passer as well. I have been encouraged with our offensive line even though I can understand, from a fan perspective, it doesn’t look like we are dominating everybody and I don’t think it is accurate to say that we are dominating anyone, but I do think we are getting better and turning into a pretty solid offensive line.

Q. I am working on a story on two young men you have on your team, Chris Yura and Ronnie Rodamer both from Morgantown. They are kind of young for you right now. Kind of wondering what you see them doing in the future for you?

COACH DAVIE: Well, Chris Yura is right now playing a lot of football for us. He is involved in special teams. He is on our punt team. He is also on our punt return team. He will run down and cover kickoffs. Chris Yura is a good football player. We played him on defense last year. He played some for us as a freshman. He really wanted to be a tailback, I thought that was his best opportunity, to be quite honest, either tailback or fullback, so we moved him to offense this year. He is playing behind some really good players, I think. But he did get to play against Navy. He is a good football player. I mean, I think the future is bright for him. Whether it is at tailback or fullback, I am not sure, but he is going to be a valuable guy on special teams.

Ronnie Rodamer really had a good training camp. He was injured. He had a stress fracture that really impacted his progress. He is back now. He is still not 100% healthy. I doubt that Ronnie will play this year. I think we will probably just keep him out because he has not been healthy. He looks like he has a bright future here. He is a big strong receiver that I think has a lot of potential.

Q. What did you say his injury was again?

COACH DAVIE: He had a stress fracture in his the lower part of his leg.

Q. Obviously them coming back home to Morgantown, I am sure they are probably looking forward to it. Anything that you talked to them about?

COACH DAVIE: I am sure their families are looking forward to it. We are not going to be there long enough to have them stake out any sight-seeing for us or any of the fine dining establishments there in Morgantown, so we are not going to have a whole lot of time.

But I know how excited they are about this game. I know in recruiting, I can remember sitting back there not long ago in January with Ronnie Rodamer sitting down there in the coaches’ office talking about coming back and having the opportunity to play West Virginia and I know what a big game that is, I mean, for his family and for everyone. So I was kidding him the other day saying that I don’t think we are going to see any billboards with Ronnie and Chris’s picture on them. At least none without an X crossing them out on it anyway. (laughter) But they are anxious about it. I am sure it is a big game for those guys.

Q. Hopefully last time you will have to address this in a teleconference, you probably need to one more time anyway. Could you talk about what it would mean to snap the road streak?

COACH DAVIE: What classification are we putting that Navy game in?

Q. (inaudible)

COACH DAVIE: Now we got a neutral site classification. I knew I shouldn’t have said that.

No, you know, it is something that is kind of embarrassing, to be honest. I look at it more of we have played some good football teams on the road. You kind of go back through the games, you know, the Stanford game, Stanford kicks a field goal at the end. Pittsburgh game, last game in Pitt stadium. The Tennessee game, not many people going to Knoxville and winning. The Michigan game, we certainly had an opportunity at the end. The Purdue game, we had an opportunity at the end. The Gator Bowl against Georgia Tech came down to the final series. I guess we won one maybe before that, didn’t we, Boston College, we won it there at the end. So I mean there has been some great games on the road. I am sure that is going to be a big issue. It probably should be — it should be because we have not won.

But you know, I look at it a little closer than that. There has been some big-time games in some big time places – we just need to play better. That kind of ties in my message of just raising the level of our performance because you never know what play it’s going to be, you never know who it is going to be particularly on the road. It could be the smallest of things that make a difference in winning and losing.

Q. I am wondering because I mean, so much of what you guys as coaches do, you are perfectionists. Do you remember the losses more than the wins because you are dwelling on doing better and coming back —

COACH DAVIE: I remember every one of them really. You can go back and — I mean, I remember the losses. I can — I remember — you know, I can remember being defensive coordinator and a game one time at Texas Tech and we had them third and 27 and we called a timeout. We brought the whole defense over and I never seen this happen before. But I had them all around me and we are going to call the defense and all of a sudden I look up, Texas Tech is already back on the field and they basically quick-snapped us. There was nobody came over to get us off the sideline. Our guys go scurrying out there. They are late getting lined up. They throw a 35-yard touchdown pass to beat us with about 10 seconds left in the game. I can remember that.

That is what you do in coaching, you — just like you guys can remember. I mean, you remember all of them. You remember all of them. But sometimes there is no question that, you know, those big, big losses kind of hang with you a lot longer.

FastScripts by ASAP Sports