September 08, 1998
On the Florida State game and playing in the preseason bowls:
We played a very competitive game. We had some chances to win the game in the second half and didn't get it done, but we played with great effort against a good team. The time before (Kickoff Classic vs. BYU in 1996) I was really disappointed in the way we played on defense in that game.
On losing the preseason game to a top five opponent:
In the last nine years in college football, only seven times has a team outside the top five beaten a team in the top five. I talked to the team about that and told them 'Don't make it seem like you've gone and screwed this whole deal up and done this awful thing by not beating the number two team in the nation. That's why they call them upsets. You went up there and fired your best shots and you came up short.'
Getting ready for Louisiana Tech and the nation's leading receiver Troy Edwards:
We responded with a good practice this week. I don't see any signs of a 'hangover' effect from the Florida State game. We'll either beat Louisiana Tech or we won't. I think Troy Edwards (La. Tech.) is one of the best receivers we've played against. He does all the things that a good athlete should do. He's a leaper, has great running skills after he catches the ball and plays with great confidence. And he has a quarterback that can get the ball to him. I can't imagine there being a better receiver around.
They have several good receivers on their team, so its not a case where you can say `let's do everything we can to stop this one guy'. If you do, within their scheme, they'll find answers. They're a harder team to face that uses a `run and shoot' style offense. They have more combinations of running backs, wide receivers and tight ends than what you normally see, such as having no backs in the backfield and five wide receivers. They have the whole field to throw to. And that takes up your secondary, especially when you have to double cover a guy. We have a great deal of respect for this team because they had almost four times as many total yards against Nebraska than we did last year. Four hundred yards receiving by one guy is impressive, especially against a team that just won a national championship, I've never seen that before.
The Aggie Offense:
"I think our offense was a little misleading against Florida State last week. If you think about Ohio State being the No. 1 ranked team in the nation right now, and the fact that the last game Florida State played before ours was against them, they beat Ohio State 31-14 and they beat us 23-14, you might wonder.
I was disappointed in our offensive performance during the Florida State game. We played well enough defensively to have won the game, but we couldn't win the game playing the way we did offensively.
Talk about Aggie cornerback Jay Brooks:
I was pleased with Jay Brooks performance and coverage of Peter Warrick to the extent that he did in the Florida State game since it was the first game of his college career. He'll take big leaps from having had that intense of an experience that early in his career.