On playing so many freshmen:
“Part of it out of necessity and part of it is there are kids who are ready to play. I had some true freshman play in my time at both Washington and Colorado. But I’ve never had this many. That is a sign of two things; our depth is still an issue and also the quality of our recruiting class.”

On Rahim Moore:
“Rahim is one of those guys who is just gifted with a great personality. He’s one of the jokesters on the team. He has a smile on his face 24/7. He loves football and being a student. There’s no one who gets more out of life than Rahim Moore.”

On the coaching staff being perfectionists:
“When you get a chance to look at tape, there are things you can be better at. Tim Hundley, who coaches the safeties, I know while congratulating him on the award, also said that we have to put that aside for a second and look at all these things we can improve upon. Truthfully, that can be said about every kid in the program.”

On what he saw from UCLA:
“We’ve got a little bit more ability to be explosive. We’ve got some kids in the program who are going to make some big plays. Guys like Johnathan Franklin, Kevin Prince, even Richard Brehaut, who only threw two passes; we’ve got the chance to get the balls down the field. A year ago, that was all but impossible.
Now we have to just go down into being a more consistent offense.”

On his players not psyching themselves out:
“What they don’t know won’t hurt them. I thought long and hard about it during the offseason, and I don’t think you hide anything. We’re going into one of the great venues of college football. When you list the top 5 or top 10, its going to be on it. The crowd they get on a weekly basis, they’ll all be in orange, it’s going to be a vertical type of stadium, and it’s what you dream about when you’re a kid. We have to soak that up for a brief time, and then we have to forget about it and pay attention to what’s happening between the lines.”