Three for Three with Reggie Carter:

On a potential 4-0 start:
“I’m sure if we do win, people will start talking a little bit better about us, but I’d rather them not. So far, they’ve been talking bad about us, and we’ve been doing well. Keep treating us like dirt, and we’ll just keep playing football.”

On losing a game in the last 10 seconds:
“It sits with you, it sits with you a while. I know it happened to me when I was a freshman against Notre Dame. I guess you kind of use that as fuel to feed your fire, but it’s a new year, and regardless of how mad you are, you still have to come out and play the game.”

On Toby Gerhart:
“I’m happy he’s getting pub. He’s the best back in the Pac-10. The greatest. I hope that everybody believes that. I’m looking forward to playing him this week to show what I can do against the greatest back ever.”

Leftovers

Bob Palcic on Nick Ekbatani:
“I told him today that I was thinking of him primarily as a guard, but since he has experience at tackle, that if someone were to get injured, he’d be a possibility. Nick coming back will only make us better. I’m used to having a seven-eight man rotation. You want a backup center, a backup guard, and a swing tackle. If I have eight guys, I usually feel pretty comfortable in that situation.”

Aaron Hester on his recovery from a fractured fibula:
I’m just happy to be walking again without pain. I lost the crutches yesterday; as soon as I got my X-ray results back, they texted me and said there were really good results. I just left my crutches right where they were. Wherever they were, I just left them and started walking.”

Reggie Carter on the bye week practice:
“We don’t have a game to prepare for, so right now it’s more execution, technique. We can slow it down a little bit, work on technique a little bit. Once the season starts, you kind of lose out on that opportunity to work on technique because your game planning.”

Reggie Carter on his performance in the Kansas State game:
“After watching game film, I had an OK game, but there were times where I could have been more physical with offensive linemen, played the ball a little better inside out. I can’t overrun plays; I need to play fast but play the ball inside out. That will be my emphasis this week, working to be crisp with my hands and with my footwork.”

Three for Three with Reggie Carter: Pt. 5

On if the Prince injury should have been called a helmet-to-helmet penalty:
“I play linebacker, so I hope they never throw that flag. The hardest part of your equipment is a piece of steal, your facemask. I’m leading with my facemask every time. If you catch me, you catch me. But it didn’t look like it was that bad of a hit.”

On UCLA’s quarterback health issues:
“Wow, they do go down every year. I think this year we’re a close team, were tight, we tell the offense regardless of who’s back there, we’re going to play our game. We should be fine, we’re not going to let them score too many points.”

On confidence with Prince gone:
“If they don’t score, regardless how many picks our quarterback throws, it doesn’t matter. I don’t know if it will give us something more; maybe it’ll be motivation, more fuel to the fire. Maybe we have to play great now because our quarterback is down.”

Three for Three with Reggie Carter: Pt. 4

On the exciting of winning at Tennessee:
“Last year was just exciting because it was overtime, a big victory. This year I think we were just flat out underdogs, I was watching ESPN earlier and Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso and even Santonio Holmes, they all picked us to lose. They think it’s impossible to win in that environment, and we have trouble winning on the road. To win that game and to win that way in Tennessee in front of 100,000 people, it was great.”

On his surprise that Tennessee stuck with the pass:
“The run wasn’t going to work. We refused to let that work. Really, I told the d we have to force them to throw. We’re going to make the quarterback beat us. No disrespect to him, but I didn’t think he could beat us at all. I just didn’t think he could do it.”

On penalties hurting the defense:
“It was San Diego State right back over again. Tennessee’s first drive, get over the field, make it third down, and then penalty. It’s like we’re hurting ourselves early in the game. We have to find ways to stop doing that. I don’t know if guys are anxious or it’s anxiety or nervousness. I still believe we could have had a third-and-out in the first series of both games. We need to come out strong. Tennessee didn’t hit us in the mouth like SDSU did.”