Coach, your first collegiate game as a head coach in 1977 was at Georgia. Do you have remembrances of that game?”

“I sure do, Vince Dooley was coming off the SEC championship, maybe a national championship, I can’t remember exactly. The stadium was a lot smaller. I remember getting off the bus up by the railroad track and walking down the hill to go in and get ready for the game, and a bunch of the fans standing up there throwing rocks yelling `dog meat, dog meat, dog meat (laughter from audience).’ We were leading them late in the third quarter. We weren’t very good, but we were leading them late in the third quarter … we battled them and then we turned it over going in to score, and then they came back and scored twice to beat us in the fourth quarter.”

“You mentioned earlier that you have played better on the road and that weird dynamic that it is usually the other way around that you play better at home and it is hard to win on the road. What do you account for that, is there anything you can point to that you have played better away from home?”

“Well, I know two reasons we haven’t played better at home, they are called Alabama and Florida. Last time I checked, they haven’t lost a game, and that’s one of the reasons. Then we seem like we always have one stinker game where we don’t play as well as we should, and that was Mississippi State. But Mississippi State played very, very well that night as well. So the combinations of those two things were not very good for us.”

“Is it a focus thing? Some coaches say that when you get away from girlfriends, family, etc. and you go on the road, it’s easier to focus on task at hand, as opposed to with all that going on around you.”

“Maybe it’s the trimmed down numbers. You only have 70 guys (on a road game), and most of those guys are going to play some anyway, there are a few that don’t get in the game. Most of them have a role, and when you are at home you usually dress more guys and reward them for what they are doing. There are a lot of people who know they are not going to play. Really I cannot count the Vanderbilt game as an away game, we had more fans than they did, and that was very good of our people to follow us down there and show up and support us like they did.”

Regarding different levels of expectations from when this senior class was freshmen four or five years ago:

“Yes, I think it’s a major difference in expectation level of our team. We all know that the fans have a different expectation level now. And that’s a good thing. Sometimes they express it in very negative ways, but by and large, I think the expectation level of this football program has changed dramatically, and I would like to think that that’s a really good thing. I hope our players are willing to work like they worked in the last 30 minutes of the Vanderbilt game all week this week, and during the Georgia game so you can have an impact, if you will, so we can climb up the SEC East ladder a little bit higher.”

“There has been a lot of talk about this team compared to other bowl eligible teams and how significant that is here – is that something you would rather not discuss?”

“You can’t help but discuss it. Some get bowl eligible earlier, and we didn’t get it early enough in my opinion, but we have it now. Now that doesn’t meant that you are going to go to a bowl, but you are eligible. We have to play out our season, and try to get another win. One more win assures us that we will be in a bowl. There will be no problem if we get one more win. If we don’t, then who knows? We will probably have two go up to the BCS, so I think we will still be okay but I would rather not take that chance.”

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