Mike Bellotti People Quotations

People were viewing him as the savior, as the guy who's going to take care of everybody. I felt the pressure as his coach. Everyone is counting on him.

He is a tough, strong runner. He has to learn to run more with his eyes than his brute strength ... so he can avoid some of that contact because after you run over two or three guys, it can slow you down. He needs to use his eyes and make some people miss.

I think they realized it wasn't enough for them to want it, or to be giving everything they have. They wanted to be sure other people understood and felt the same sense of urgency and sense of importance about the game of football and about the team.

Dennis has been the starter the entire time, and he is the starter. We have just tended to play our backup more than other people are maybe comfortable with doing. I don't know that that's going to change.

I'm not saying we're not trying to get the big names, but we worry less about the name-recognition value or the number of stars behind a name. We look at films, and we look at people that can fit into what we're doing. These guys, offensively and defensively, will fit into the scheme of what we perceive we need to do in the future to be successful.

But I do think overall they are probably more creative in finding ways to win and supporting each other -- offense, defense and special teams. It's a balanced football team because we can look a lot of places for people who will win this game.