On outside perception:
“We’re hungry, yeah, but there’s a lot of fighting that, ‘People are just happy to be here,’ thing. It’s not really inside the organization, it’s outside; all the media, the fans, everybody saying, ‘Oh, you made it to a bowl game, great, great, great.’ There’s still work to do.”

On the team’s work ethic:
“Like coach Golden likes to say, ‘Be where you are.’ When you’re out in functions like this, you talk with people and accept the grace, accept the high-fives and all that. But when you get in the facility, keep your head down and work. We ended this season with a regular season loss that knocked us out of the conference championship. We ended the season on a bitter note – yeah, we won nine in a row, but if you lose two in a row to end your career, that’s not a good way to go out.”

On UCLA:
“They’re very athletic. Defensively, they have some guys like Penn State. And we only scored six points against Penn State. We believe we’ve gotten a lot better since then, and this is our chance to prove it.”

On what a win would mean:
“There are a lot of teams in history who had a good season and then went back down the drain. Winning this game has all the importance in the world. We’re getting a lot of guys back next year, our running game is going to be strong, our defense is going to be strong, so we’re looking forward to starting a tradition here. No better way than going out with a win.”