Nov. 4, 2002

“It was a difficult loss. Any time you want to win something so bad, you put so much time effort, and you don’t it is very tough. Yesterday I went to the dentist and had three teeth capped and one pulled. It was a four hour ordeal and the dentist called today and asked me how I my bone was, because they had to rip off part of it, but it didn’t hurt half as much as the game.”

“Looking at the film, our players really played hard. Andrew Pinnock was outstanding, not just with the football, he played his best football game since he has been here. Daccus Turman also performed well. Hart Turner, Watts Sanderson, Travelle Wharton, Shane Hall all played really well. On defense, Shaun Smith played an excellent football game as did Moe Thompson. Lance Laury played well at linebacker, Dunta Robinson and Rashad Faison played exceptionally well.”

“The last three years, (Tennessee) has made the plays in the fourth quarter to win. They ran the football better then we thought, but looking at the film we didn’t play as good fundamentally and didn’t control the gap, but give Tennessee credit.”

“The difference was in the passing game. We cannot complete passes, we dropped three passes in critical times. Our inability to throw the football on a consistent basis was the difference in the football game.”

“We face an uphill struggle. We have three very difficult games ahead of us. All we are focusing on right now is the University of Arkansas.”

“Arkansas is the number one rushing team in the conference. They have a great tailback in Fred Talley, he has been tremendous. Their quarterback Matt Jones, I would venture to say he runs 4.4. He’s given everyone fits, runs the option. He’s also a much improved thrower. He’s the quarterback and the leader of the team. Their offensive line is excellent, I was really impressed with them last year. You can tell why they are one of the most successful offenses in the country.”

“Defensively, they played us very well last year. They have much of them back. You don’t know where they are going to line up. They are very quick, very athletic and jump all over. They play great rush defense.”

“They are just a good solid football team and we are going to have to play very well. We are going to have to throw the ball because obviously with their rush defense it’s going to be very difficult to run.”

“We played a great Tennessee football team that went back to playing Tennessee football. For us to beat the University of Tennessee, we didn’t need to play a perfect football game but we couldn’t make some of the mistakes we made. We played a good solid football game but not a flawless game.”