I went with experience, game experience, ... I should've gone with practice experience. That's the lesson I learned.
So you draw from the positives (of getting the game to overtime). I don't know how we'll regroup. We won't find out until Saturday.
I don't know if it's fair to the players to get an extended game as long ours was.
I wanted to win as many games as I could with a full deck right off the bat, try to get off to the best start that I possibly could, ... Then I would address it after that.
A coach doesn't get giddy. The excitement from a coaching perspective is if we can get those guys to make improvement. And it's not like a lot of improvement because we were close in the four games we lost. We can get better.
This is again a very challenging schedule. We will face seven teams that won at least seven games last year, including two of the top teams in the ACC, within our first three games both on the road. Plus, we have to go to Virginia Tech.
You win games with strong offensive line play, but you win championships with strong play on the defensive line. The play of the freshmen defensive linemen will be important for us. They made great improvement over the course of the season and they will have to keep improving.
That happens, and you march on. We're sitting here 3-3 with five games left with a chance to either win or lose them all. ... James gives you more aces in your hand. We'll have to pull another hand.
Are our games close? Well, yes they are close. It would be crazy for me as a head coach to go and change a lot of things. I have learned to stay the course. Now if we were losing games by 30 points, then yes we would have to change things, but we have not been doing that.
We worked real hard on that during the open date. That's kind of a concern. The kicking game here has been pretty solid for seven years. I think we've got it solved.
One of the keys to this game was the fact that when Tennessee scored and we answered, and then we scored and it was not answered. That gave us confidence.
I liked the competitive atmosphere we had today and as long as we have the depth, I would like to continue to divide the teams for the spring game in the future.
He's now put three games together that have been really, really impressive. He's putting himself in position right now to do some things Leroy Hill was doing.
We will face seven teams that won at least seven games last year, including two of the top teams in the ACC, within our first three games, both on the road. Plus, we have to go to Virginia Tech, who won more games than any other ACC team last year.
We've played a tough schedule, and when you play against people like that, you get lots of games that go down to the wire. Sure, I wish we could have won a few more, but I like the way things are shaping up.