Quotables: Rick Neuheisel, Pt. 3

On having a quality quarterback:
"Every team has to have a quality quarterback. There are examples around college football where the quarterback just has to keep from losing the game, but those are hugely talented teams. Those are ones that when they line up, they have an advantage. Given the caliber of teams in this conference, we're not going to line up with that advantage. So we have to have great play from our quarterback. And I think we're on schedule. We played with a freshman quarterback last year and he had growing pains. That's just part of it. The upside in that is now he's a sophomore. A number of teams, Oregon, they lost their quarterback. Now thy have to have another guy. There's a learning curve, no question about it."

On increased passing leading to increased turnovers:
"Ideally, that would have been wonderful if we would have been able to limit the amount of times Kevin Craft or Kevin Prince had to throw the ball. But when the running game is getting done what it needs to get done, you got to keep track of the score, you got find a way to get back into the game. Both of those kids (Craft and Prince) had to come under duress because we were playing with an inexperienced offensive line, protection was an issue. That's why turnovers were rampant in year 1. We tried to curtail that last year but it wasn't error free. And it never will be error free but we can be better."

On the new offense:
"I hope it's a permanent fix. Is it a permanent offense? No. But I want to be in a permanent place in the top half of the conference in rushing offense. If we can do that, I know we can handle the rest of it. We'll get right back into the conference race and we'll get back to UCLA winning Rose Bowls again."