Mark Clifford Quotations

Battling heat, the long preseason, continuing to lift weights, I think the kids are ready. I think mentally, we're ready.

He'd obviously been there a long time and whatever he was surviving on wasn't giving him that much nutrition. (He is) a big tall man, six foot two, six foot three, and he was just a walking skeleton basically.

He was just a walking skeleton. That's the best way to describe him.

He was skeletal, he was really emaciated and when the boys found him he could only walk and fall and stumble.

Just like last year, they've got some big kids on the line. It's going to be a tough game. Their defensive line is tough, and we're going to run the football.

We have to research, evaluate to figure out why we are getting these penalties. Is it because of our aggressiveness; is it because of our physical nature?

We're not going to get tricky. We're not going to invent anything.

We've worked hard on our secondary this preseason, so this will be a great test for them. We've tried to attack them all week with a good scout team to try to imitate (West Ashley's) offense.

We've had a great week of practice. I was anxious to see how the kids would show up on Monday.

When you lose, you're more critical. Everybody is more critical of themselves.

We scored some points; our offense competed better (than last week).

Big game. They're a good ball team. This will be another test. I can't wait to see how we play next week.

They are a much better football team this year. Their numbers are up.

They've got a lot of pride in their running game. We've got a lot of pride in our running game.

They've got a defense that's kind of similar to Berkeley's. They try to get in and penetrate and disrupt.

They've got a defense that's kind of similar to Berkeley's, ... They try to get in and penetrate and disrupt.

They run a spread offense. They throw the ball 55-60 percent of the time. They have a good little running back. They've got a scary offense.

They don't show a whole lot on defense. They blitz a little bit. They line up in the same spot almost every time. When you face a football team that doesn't change a whole lot, who just comes at you with what they have, those are the teams that are usually the strongest. They do what they do well.

They'd like him to get down to 310-320 pounds.

They're going to do the same thing they did to us last year. We've got to get physical.

They're all kind of blue-collar guys, you know, hard-nosed kids. All of them are very strong, take pride in their strength.

It's going to be a hard-nosed football game.

Everybody saw last year what the offense needs. The offense we run needs two compatible running backs. And I think (Aiken) mixes in about as good as Jermaine (Gray) did last year.

It'll be a good test for us to find out how good we are.

They are going to have to make us turn the ball over and capitalize on our mistakes.

The kids just have to step it up.

I'm getting pressure on them now. It's our job as coaches to negate them, but they have to take the responsibility to correct the problem.

You can't avoid the bus ride. We're doing some other things this week to make it a little bit more like a home game.