Oct. 8,1996

Off The Practice Field….Notre Dame Head Coach Lou Holtz

COACH HOLTZ: First of all, the attitude of our football team, Ithink that is the thing that concerns me and the question I am askedmost obviously. We had one of the poorer practices we’ve had yesterday;walked off the field – and some of you were there – one thing thatbothered us — if I am not real happy, I don’t hide it particularlywell.

We looked at the film. After looking at the film I was a littlebit more upset. We came in this morning and the encouraging thing wasseveral of our players came in and were watching film on their own andthat doesn’t happen very often with the academics. I know they areconcerned as well. You know you ask why. Well, we had a couple of daysoff, I expected them to come back, but we had some people that were outthat really disrupts the continuity of it.

Mike Rosenthal has bursitis,an infection in his knee. He will not be able to practice today. We arehopeful he will be able to play on Saturday, but we don’t know yet. Jeremy Akers. So when you lose your two starting guards, that is aproblem.

Raki Nelson has a hip pointer. I don’t know if he is going tobe available, but he could only go about three plays yesterday and he hadmissed about the preceding five days.

Peter Chryplewicz is just comingback from an injury on his ankle; he is in completely full speed. So youjust had a lot of inconsistency and one thing led to another.

Ondefense, Jarvis Edison has serious back spasms which came up overnight. And Jarvis, we don’t know, we are going to have to see. I’d like tothink that they can get rid of the back spasms in time for him to play,but we will have to wait and see. Back spasms are what occurred to MikeDoughty down in Texas that caused him to miss the last two and a halfquarters of that football game. But it wasn’t a particularly goodpractice. But I think injuries have somewhat to do with it. If wedon’t have a bounce-back real good practice today, I will be very, verydisappointed.

The thing that we haven’t done this year is we haven’tplayed for 60 minutes. We haven’t played a complete game on offense,defense, kicking game. There hasn’t been the sense of urgency thatthere needs to be on a consistent basis. And we probably haven’tpracticed a complete practice – offense, defense and kicking game withthe concentration that you’d like to see. How good are we? How bad arewe? I don’t know. I do know that I was exceptionally disappointed withour performance against Ohio State and I talked about that. I don’tget a chance to read the papers, but mail has come in saying that I putthe blame on the players. The blame goes on me, but it goes oneverybody. I thought I made that abundantly clear. But I do know we didnot play well at Ohio State, yet if the punt returns holds up, we arewithin a touchdown with 3:35 and two timeouts and the wind in our back, butit didn’t hold up. The point I made is after that game I felt we mustreally be an awfully bad football team and yet I gave Ohio State anawful lot of credit. I think they are very, very good. But the fact isthat there were many things that occurred in that game we were notcompletely ready for that Ohio State did contrary to what they had doneall last year and even this year.

So I don’t know how good we are, butit does seems like it has been months since we played a football game. It seems like the Ohio State game was six months ago which tells yousomewhat about the kind of two weeks that we have put in. Washington isa very, very solid football team, obviously. They lost their openingball game to Arizona State at Arizona State, I think, by three points.When you first see that in the opening ball game, you don’t know. ThenArizona State turns around and wallops Nebraska quite decisively andgoes on as undefeated at the present time and that is the only loss thatWashington has.

Offensively, they changed a lot of things since lastyear. Last year there were a lot of I-back, play action passing,etc. Rashaan Shahee, I think is the correct pronunciation, rushedfor I want to say for 153 yards against us which was a career high forhim. He did not play at all against Stanford last week and they have ajunior college tailback there named Corey Dillon who is 6’2″, 225, whocarried much of the load. I don’t know whether Shahee was injured orwhatever the case may be, but I do know they have two fine tailbacks, andthey have gone predominantly to a one-back set and Shane Fortney throws theball very well. I think Huard probably is as accurate a quarterbackas we have gone against – throws very, very well; nice quick release andfinds the receivers very, very well. Defensively, they returned, I wantto stay, seven starters from last year. They did move a few of themaround – Ink Aleaga was an inside backer last year; now he has been more of an outside backer. Although I see in the depth chart here they havemoved him back to the inside backer, but played very, very well. He isan excellent player. Their secondary plays well. Last year withapproximately five minutes to go in the game, we were behind 21 to 7 inthat football game out there and I know that Washington feels theyshould have beaten us. The thing is that when you look at them, theyare a much better football team this year than they were last year. Idon’t think there is any doubt about it. They are a better offensivefootball team and certainly a better defensive football team. Thequestion I don’t know is where we are and we will find that out when wehappen to play them. What questions could I answer for you?

Q. Lou, you may not be able to totally address this since youmentioned the line injuries, but you talked before about some indecisionat guard and/or offensive tackle. And also some competition at widereceiver. Have you settled on who will start at flanker and in theoffensive line?

COACH HOLTZ: Let me cover — that is a good question,Jack, and I didn’t cover that adequately. Weare going to look at Ridder and Petitgout and Clevenger to one tackle. Ithink Mike Doughty is playing very, very well — consistently well. MikeDoughty and Mike Rosenthal and maybe Kaczenski areplaying the best in the offensive line. But I think the starting lefttackle will now come down to Luke Petitgout and Chris Clevinger. Ithink one of those two will start. Petitgout played very, very wellagainst Texas and he has practiced well. It is a little bit of anadjustment moving to the other side. Left guard, it will have to beJerry Wisne starting. I think Jerry Wisne is going to be an outstandingguard. I think Jerry Wisne will be as good a guard as we have had hereat Notre Dame and we have had some great ones. I think Jerry Wisne andMike Rosenthal in a year are going to be as good a guards as there arein the country. I think with Kaczenski and Doughty and Clevinger andPetitgout all coming back, the offensive line is virtually the same onethat we played with last year and this year with the exception guards. But Wisne is an excellent football player. He is just not veryexperienced he makes some mistakes. He is a aggressive and he is toughand he has done an awful lot of good things. He is just not veryconsistent with comes with immaturity. Rosenthal is mature beyond hisage. I mean, I have never seen a football player that is as smart asMike Rosenthal or pick things up as rapidly as he does. And with JerryAkers’s injury that sorts of resolves that it will be Jerry Wisne,although Jeremy Akers does give you a lot of consistency in there.

Atthe wide receiver, we are going to look at different things. Nobody hasreally come to the forefront except Bobby Brown. Bobby Brown is a youngman who hadn’t played much, but Bobby has really come alive the last twoweeks and I expect Bobby Brown to play an awful lot this week in thefootball game. At safety, we felt moving Deke Cooper there, we will givehim a good chance. And he doesn’t have the best quickness in the world,but I think he is a natural defensive back. I think he is a naturalsafety. And with Jarvis Edison back’s spasm there is a very, verystrong possibility that we could start Deke Cooper at free safety. Weshould get A’jani Sanders back by Navy. That doesn’t help us this week. That doesn’t help us next week. I don’t anticipate any other defensivechanges, Benny Gilbeaux at strong safety and Rossum and Covington at thecorners. Of course, Wynn and Dansby and Alton Maiden and Bert Berry,Minor, Cobbins and Tatum will be in the defensive front 7.

Q. In light of some of the, I guess, practice struggles you havehad, if you could have would you have rather got back out and played agame Saturday?

COACH HOLTZ: We could have gotten out– pardon?

Q. If you wouldn’t have an Open Date would that might have beeneasier to get refocused after the loss?

COACH HOLTZ: Yeah, I think itwould have. I think it would have been easier to shed the loss. Youknow, then you are involved in the other team’s opponent, etc. When you have an open date, it just does make it a little bit different,but we did and what we tried to do is (1) get them a little bithealthier which we really haven’t been able to do, (2) was get a littlebit better fundamentally which I think we are, but we have not become ateam, but as I say, some of the offensive players were watching filmvery early this morning, so that was an encouraging sign.

Q. Lou, with the style and personnel that Washington has,particularly at wide receiver, do you see them as more of a big playthreat than, say, last year?

COACH HOLTZ: Oh, I don’t think there isany doubt they are a big play threat for several reasons. They isolateyou into a lot of coverages where you are spread out clear across thefield and they hit their receiver and get you in a one-on-one, and theycatch a short rout and breaks a tackle and turns it into a big gain orelse you squad on them, and they go by you deep. Yeah, it is a big-playoffense. And anybody that can spread people out and keep them fromplaying man-to-man coverage is usually going to be a big-play offense ifyou have somebody that can get those individuals the ball. I think Washington has both of them. Problem we had was when we split people outagainst Ohio State, etcetera, they just went out and covered them withone man and played you with everybody else inside. And we can’t dothat. And I am not sure that we could resolve that because as you and Iboth know Washington plays a lot of man-coverage and they blitz a lot. They play with an 8, 9, 10 man front. And this is not going to shockus. We saw it last year and we will see it again.

Q. I wonder if you could assess just generally how your defensiveline has played this year?

COACH HOLTZ: I think our defensive front 7has really played well. Even against Ohio State which was anoutstanding offensive line, I thought we played awful, awful well upfront with our front 7. We missed some tackles in the secondary – nineof them to be exact – which accounted for an awful lot of yardage. ButI think our front 7 — and the guy that is underrated in that wholefront 7 is Alton Maiden. I think he has played awful well for us atmiddle guard. In practice this week, I might also say that Antwon Jonesis really making good progress there. But I think our front 7 hasplayed awfully, awfully well. But then again, the season is onlyone-third over.

Q. What quality about Ron Powlus stands out to you?

COACH HOLTZ: His intelligence. His peripheral vision. His football sense. Hisquick release. His accuracy in throwing the football. We had — wethrew two interceptions against Ohio State. He has thrown three for theyear. The one interception hit the receiver right in the hands. It wasman-coverage and the guy was riding on his back. I mean, he made aperfect throw. You can’t ask it; hit the receiver’s hands; bounced upin the air and they intercepted it. And what was the other interceptionhe threw? Oh, the other one was when their nose guard dropped back intocoverage and we had a crossing rout and their nose guard dropped backand we hadn’t prepared for it. Those are the only two interceptions,but I think the fact that he is a very, very talented individual.

Q. Coach, the Huskies are expecting through the bye-week and so forththat you are going to get back to really a power game, Lou. Has thatbeen your emphasis since the OSU game?

COACH HOLTZ: I don’t think so. What we are trying to do, we are trying to get unsettled offensively. That is the main thing we are trying to do.

Q. You mentioned how you were concerned with how the press thoughtyou put too much emphasis on the team going into Ohio State. Well, howabout this game and its importance to your post season placement?

COACHHOLTZ: I am not sure I heard the question because my hearing is goingdown a little bit. As I understand it, I put too much emphasis on theOhio State– I don’t–

Q. No, you said you were concerned with how people perceived thatyou did, but what about the importance of this game?

COACH HOLTZ: Oh,this is an important ball game. Of course, every game I feel is veryimportant. You know, I can go back and I reflect back when I coached atWilliam & Mary and anywhere else, every game was important at William &Mary as any game I have ever coached. If you are involved in it and youput forth a lot of time and effort it is very, very important to you. And I feel the same way about our players. Out players at William & Maryfelt the game was exceptionally important when we played. This is avery, very important ball game. We are playing a very, very goodfootball team. What I am more concerned about at the present time ishow well our football team is going to play because I don’t knowanything about it. I have never had a football team I can’t get a pulseon. I can’t. Absolutely no pulse. Now, that is a bad sign, you can’tfind the pulse, you call the coroner, but I don’t think that is thecase.

Q. After the Ohio State game, one of the quotes that you had, yousaid that you can’t shake it; you probably never will be able to shakeit. Knowing how important it is for the team to put this past them andmove on and knowing that they do take their cues from the head coach,what have you done to get the team in the right frame of mind?

COACHHOLTZ: Next question. I think that is starting to come around now- starting to come around now. Main thing I have tried to do to shakeit is to make total preparation for the University of Washington. Ithink that you are absolutely correct in your assumption that players doget their cues from the head coach, by his attitude and whether he givesup on the side line and during the year, whatever the case maybe. Ithink they also take their cue of preparation and what kind ofpreparation you have made and things along that line. We haven’t talkedabout bouncing back or anything else yet. I think what is important isthat we bounce back from yesterday’s practice and go forward from there.You know, I lost my father on January 11, 1977, I guess it was. And youknow, you don’t ever shake that. You still think about your father fromtime to time. I think about my father an awful lot since I have beenhere at the University of Notre Dame. Just sometimes your mind willwonder. You say, gee, I wonder what my dad would say. But you go on -life goes on; you move on. You take what you have and you move forwardand I am not philosophic — I am not philosophizing — I am not reallysaying what I really feel in my heart except this: Just you have totake wherever you are and you got to do what is your obligation, yourresponsibility. Our obligation and responsibility is two fold as I seeit. One is to prepare the team for the University of Washington. No. 2is to get over the Ohio State loss and those will be accomplished. Theyare not now. But they will be.

Q. Autry Denson is a guy that you took a look at wide out before theseason; then had to move him back. Talk a little bit about the thingshe gives you and perhaps the versatility that he brings?

COACH HOLTZ: He is a very, very fine back. He also can be a fine very, very finewide receiver. When we moved him out there we had lost Randy Kinder foran indefinite period and we were struggling at the tailback situation. Then we put the ball on the ground so many times at Vanderbilt that wehad to put him back at tailback for that game and subsequently wedecided instead of moving him back and forth depending upon the statusof the tailback, that we would just put him at tailback and we wouldleave him. He is a very strong runner for his size. He has goodperipheral vision; good quickness, and he has deceptive speed. He doesnot have breakaway speed, but he does have very, very deceptive speed aswas evidenced by the punt return of 91 yards against Ohio State that wascalled back. I also want to say this: I think Farmer and Kinder, if Iwere to pick out two people who had great preparations during theopening week, it would be Robert Farmer and Randy Kinder.

Q. Denson’s finger is all healed?

COACH HOLTZ: No, but it wasn’tamputated either. He has a splint on it at the present time. It doesaffect him catching the ball. He is a very, very fine receiver, but Idon’t know how much he will be able to catch the ball. I would not betthat he would be able to run back punts with the splint on his finger,but you know, at the present time if you asked me today, but we don’tplay today. Hopefully, that thing will continue to get better, but hedoes have a broken index finger and I think it is on his right hand.

Q. A week ago, Lou, discussion was team speed. You had made, Ibelieve, a guarantee that you would have that team speed rectified nextyear. Are you taking a different head coaching position or how exactlyare you going to pull that off?

COACH HOLTZ: With recruiting. We havesome commitments from some people that can flat run. Now, I think teamspeed is important. Sometimes when you are recruiting a guy said, boy,he has got excellent speed. Well, he does compared to the other peoplethat are going to go to college and play intramural basketball. They dohave good speed compared to them. But to me good speed is somebody thatruns track – where a guy is there at the watch and he is runningagainst someone else and he runs 10, 300 meters. I know 10, 300 metersis pretty good speed. So we will — we are talking to several athletesthat have excellent speed and it has to be done through recruiting. AndI think that speed is the greatest asset you can have, exceptintelligence. I think intelligence is more important than speed. Otherthan that, nothing is more important than speed. You know, the peopleyou — when you had people that could run here and we have had peoplethat could run. You talk about the Pat Terrell; you talk about the RodSmith, I mean, you are all talking about state high school trackchampions in high school. We don’t have that now. At one time, theNotre Dame football team had a 440 relay that had the best indoor timein the country of all colleges comprised entirely of football players. That was speed and that is the one ingredient, the only ingredient I canthink of that we lack at the present time.

Q. What has Bobby Brown done in the last couple of weeks thatimpressed you?

COACH HOLTZ: Number one he is running his routs far morecomfortably; far more precise. He has better understanding of theoffense. He is blocking much, much better and he is catching the balland he is a good target. If you have Bobby Brown on one side andMalcolm Johnson on the other, you have two guys that really don’t havegreat speed, but have pretty good quickness, but they are about 6’4″,they are big and strong and aren’t going to get hung up on the line ofscrimmage all the time by people, and — but he has been impressive thelast week.

Q. How about Shannon Stephens progress at receiver?

COACH HOLTZ: Shannon Stephens is the one guy that can run. There is no doubt aboutit. Shannon Stephens will be a great asset, but when you run a rout and alot of it has to take time, experience. You have got to be at the rightplace; you have got to be able to read coverages. You got to be able –and his development has not been as rapidly as what we would like or asconsistent, but it is — sometimes things just take just take time, buthe does have the speed to get people off of him, or run away from him. He does have that kind of speed.

Q. How far away is your secondary from being the type that youtalked about last week that can control a game or make the big-play whenyou need a big-play made?

COACH HOLTZ: I think our corners are at thatstage now. I wouldn’t say our corners are great, but our corners arepretty good football players. They are good competitors, and theytackle well and they have got a lot of experience. They play well andthey play with confidence. I think Allen Rossum is really playing wellas is Ivory Covington. Our problem is that, you know, we just — when welost A’jani Sanders, that hurt a lot. But we have not — we did notplay well in the secondary against Ohio State with nine missed tacklesand seven missed assignments. I mean, there is no way in this worldthat that is particularly fair, but it is not because they wanted tomake them. It is just new. Things happen quicker in the game and youare reading this; all of a sudden, boom, here comes the guy with theball and you lose your poise, maybe, and don’t break down and don’t wrapup and things just happen quickly, but I think that eventually we canget there. I definitely think we can, but our corners are playing wellnow.

Q. Last week you mentioned — you used the phrase splitpersonality. I think it was last Tuesday talking about your offense. Iam wondering where in a week’s time have you made any progress with thatdilemma?

COACH HOLTZ: The thing that is really frustrating to all of usoffensively, nothing seems to mesh. We have a quarterback that canthrow and read coverages. We have problem beating man-coverage which iswhat we see. And we don’t run a lot of option which presents someproblems on that. When people play you in straight man and blitz youand line everybody up there for your power football game, you know, youcan split people out, but every time you split people out you become alittle bit more vulnerable to the blitz; then people really have to beable to beat the receivers quickly. And we don’t have a lot ofquickness in the offensive line. We have pretty good size. But youcan’t do a lot of pulling and trapping and we do trapping – I am talkingabout long traps and sweeps and get outside by pulling guards, etcetera, we can’t do that. So you have a quarterback whose talents areone area and you have people that are doing things that take his talentsaway and we just aren’t good enough to be able to take and run thefootball. In the past, this hadn’t been the case. When we had RickMeier, he had some fine receivers out there that people were afraid toplay man-coverage. And that is what is really frustrating, which we dowe go, which direction do we go, etcetera. But nothing seems to fit thepuzzle at the present time, and we thought that, you know, couple ofyears ago that we would resolve the receiver problem with some people wesigned. It just did not turn out. So where do we go from here is westill have a split personality.

Q. Because of that and some of the problems that presents, couldthis be a week that you would, even before the game, decide to spotJarious for some certain series of downs?

COACH HOLTZ: I have reallyentertained the thought of playing the entire second team at one seriesin the first half, just see how people responded. We talk about havingsome competition at left guard, at left tackle. I think we have gooddepth at tailback. I think Jamie Spencer needs to get on the field. Let’s see Jamie Spencer. I think Jarious Jackson would like to get onthe field. But that could not be substituted by a whole team. It ispossible that a second team could be substituted at a series or acertain segment of them and that is always possible.

Q. Comparative the scores are very often misleading andmeaningless, but Nebraska scored zero points against Arizona State. Washington scored 42 points against Arizona State. Is that asignificant comparison?

COACH HOLTZ: Yeah, I think that what Nebraska– you know, when — I didn’t see the game, but Nebraska, I would think,met a nine-man front and Nebraska is probably like us to a certainextent, either they couldn’t get the ball to the wide receivers or theydidn’t try. But in any event, what highlights I saw, Nebraska tied tocombat the 8 and 9 man front with the option. And I think they threwthe ball away about three or four times on it which cost them. Whereas,Washington splits you out and has an excellent offensive line – fine,fine receivers; good tailback and they couldn’t play them in straightman and yet at the same time, if Arizona State went out and doublecovered, they ran the ball and they brought everybody in and they threwthe ball which. You know, sounds likes good logic if you can do it.

Q. Can your players take any kind of confidence or get any kind ofconfidence just looking at the Ohio State, Penn State game the factthat they were able to stay with Ohio State compared to what Penn Statedid?

COACH HOLTZ: I didn’t get a chance to see the Ohio State, PennState game but I was shocked by the results. I came in and saw thehalftime 24 nothing and watched a little bit of the third quarter whenthe guy said that this was the first time Penn State was in Ohio State’sterritory, I couldn’t believe it. I think Ohio State is an excellent,excellent football team. They played Penn State very, very similar tothe way they played us. They lined up and got up on them man-coverage. Ohio State lost Howard in the first five minutes of game I understand,their one corner. Springs is a great corner and Howard is a very goodone. But I was surprised. Ohio State is an excellent team. I knew thatwhen they came out of our game. What I was disappointed in was thatOhio State — we allowed them to jump up there and play us man-coverageand stuff the line and twist and everything else along that line. Butas I said, that is one of the reasons I said it, I don’t know how goodwe are; I don’t know how bad we are. All I know is we have got someinjuries problems right now and we are not practicing right now and wehave got a very, very difficult task with us; particularly if we arestarting a freshman safety that has only been there a couple of weeks. He will definitely play. Deke Cooper will definitely play and he willplay in the first half, but whether he will start or not, I don’t know,so yeah, I do have some concern. Because I know Washington is capableof moving the ball on anybody. What we have to find out, whether we areor not.

Q. In the Ohio State game Ron Powlus, I think, was leading rush inthe first half with some pretty good numbers. He had 38 yards orsomething in the first half. Was that by design or did he make somereads and take what they gave him?

COACH HOLTZ: What we felt we had todo we felt that we had to miss-key them some and so we put in a littlequarterback counter and we got the ball on the 13 yard line; ran aquarterback counter and he ran it for about 8 – 8 to 10. Then in thefirst half also we ran a quarterback counter, he only got 5 on it, butthe safety man tackled him in an open field – which tells you somethingabout how close they were playing. We ran the option. He went 22 yardson it where they elected him to keep the football, etcetera. Butbecause of what they are doing, we ran some option. We didn’t runenough of it. As I said, we ran it 10 times for 104 yards and dropped a40 yard pass and I am talking about play action passing and the option,etcetera, but we knew he had to win the ball some, but we didn’t wanthim to beat them running the ball. We just wanted to get a criticalfirst down or two.

Q. You mentioned Bobby Brown stepping up. Is there anybody elsethat, you know, it is painful to watch Pete Chryplewicz to try and goout there at the end of the Ohio State but you’d rather have a guy thatknew what he was doing at 80% than maybe taking a chance but is it timeto give Dan O’Leary a look?

COACH HOLTZ: We have worked Dan O’Leary andJohn Cerasani and I think Mike Gandy is a good tight end too. We havethree good tight ends, Cerasani, O’Leary and Gandy I don’t know what itis. Sometimes I swear that — I am personally — and I don’t want tomake this political, but I think English ought to be the main languageeverybody in this country speaks because I think we have some footballplayers that don’t speak English. And I say that because if you saysomething to them in English and they look at you after the play is overlike they never heard it before. But that is the only thing withCerasani and O’Leary and Gandy is just consistency. So many inoffensive play that you take for granted – what foot you step with iscritical. Where you put the toe is absolutely critical. And where yourlandmark is on that block is critical; then all of a sudden they stuntand this and you have got to pick this guy up and that guy, it is justan awful lot for a young player to learn, but O’Leary is an excellentreceiver, excellent receiver.

Q. Couple of years ago when Ryan Leahy was hurt a lot and JonSpickelmier was just kind of finding his way, you talked a lot aboutlong snapping and it has kind of taken care of itself, you don’t hearabout it anymore. Is that something that people take for granted —

COACH HOLTZ: It is. A long snap is something people take for grantedjust assume that it will be there. John Spickelmier has worked veryhard on it and takes a lot of pride in that. Dan O’Leary is anexcellent long snapper as well. What has made it more difficult with thelong snap and it is two told. One, you can always find a long snapperwhen everybody is in the single wing because somebody is used tosnapping the ball all the time, spiral, et cetera. You get away fromthe single wing, it became a loss start. I don’t want to reminisce toomuch, but at North Carolina State we lost a game when we made a bad snaptwice and I said in the press conference if anybody in the student bodycab long snap, I’d appreciate it you call me and gave my phone numberand 20 people showed up and we found an outstanding long snapper who wasa freshman who snapped for all four years. But John Spickelmier withthe spread punt now also has to block. Before, you know, when you hadtight punt, all he did was snap the ball and everybody else blocked, butwith the spread punt, he has got to block and it is a very, verydifficult block, so we really, really appreciate the job he has done. And I think one of the reasons that we have kicked the ball pretty wellon field goals is we have a timing and if you want to real good keywhether the place kick is going to have a good chance to be made lookand see does the ball come back at the same velocity as normal; does itfloat back; does it come hard; is it left; is it right; is it high; isit low, because that all affects the timing. Many times the kicker willpull the ball left; that is because the guys get there, the snap isbehind them; by the time he gets it down, the guy’s foot is alreadystarted through, etcetera. So when we go to the motel on Friday night,we don’t take very many players, but we take John Spickelmier. He isvery, very valuable to us.

Q. How much can you expect from a guy making the snap with theblock?

COACH HOLTZ: He has got a gap the block. And it is not easy. It is not easy to make that block. He has got to snap the ball and hehas either got to the slide to the right or left and if there is a guyin that gap, he has got to set it back and move it over to the right. This is one reason that we spent an awful lot of time on fake punts andwe never go into a football game that we don’t have a fake punt and afake pass ready for a football game. We will never go into a footballgame. But he has done an excellent job. Any other questions? Thank youvery much.