Nov. 18, 2002

“Injury-wise, Jonathan Martin should be ok. We have a lot of players banged up. Thez Robinson will probably not be back for the game with his ankle. We may get Troy Williamson back, we don’t know for sure. It depends on how he responds this week.”

“Let me cover the Florida game. It’s like Groundhog Day all over. Every week it’s the same thing. We take the kickoff, we drive down and get an opportunity to score and miss an easy field goal. They end up scoring, we end up getting another scoring opportunity and don’t take advantage of it. Just before the half, they (the other team) will take the ball from inside their 20, five minutes, score with 20 seconds to go and on that drive convert a 3rd and Long and we will have a pass interference penalty.”

“Defensively the biggest problem we have is third down. Third down, what I call the money down, and we have had all kinds of problems there this year.”

“The lack of field position is predominantly due to three things. One is our inability to cover kickoffs as well as we have and the inability to be a good kickoff return team. The second one is turnovers. Five football games we have not had an interception thrown by an opposing quarterback. We have a total of nine for the year and two are by defensive linemen. The third one is third down, you can’t get off the field, even if they don’t score they punt and we end up inside our 20.”

“Offensively the main problem is third and long and our inability to make a big play. We aren’t going to get a big play. We understand it and know we have to be methodical and can’t have a penalty.”

“I thought Corey Jenkins played very well, I thought Rod Wilson played his best football game since he’s been here. Those were probably the two most outstanding performers on defense. On offense, I thought Shane Hall and the offensive line played well. I thought Dondrial Pinkins played well and Kenny Irons did well when he was in there.”

“Overall, they (Florida) made some great throws where we had pretty good coverage and had some passes where we couldn’t’ cover the receivers. All four games have been mirror examples of one another.”

“Now we get ready for Clemson. I think Clemson is a very fine football team. They are well-coached, I think Tommy Bowden has done an excellent job with his staff. I think offensively they present a lot of problems. Their strengths really gives us all kind of problems. They have great receivers. Their receivers are about as good as any in the country. We know about J.J. McKelvey, Kevin Youngblood, Airese Currie and Jackie Robinson and everybody else. They got a great tight end in Ben Hall as well. Two good running backs in (Bernard) Rambert a senior, who runs physical and had a good game against us last year and Yusef Kelly.”

“I think (Willie) Simmons is a very fine quarterback but when they changed to (Charlie) Whitehurst their whole offense just took on a new dimension. He’s a son of a coach and has good knowledge of the game. Exceptionally accurate, great poise, strong arm, he is really impressive. I think you are going to hear a lot of great things about him in years to come. We just don’t match up well, we don’t match up well at all.”