Tim Lappano Quotations

The No. 1 thing you have to do against USC is win the battle of the clock. You've got to keep their offense off the field. That's the best defense there is. Nobody's stopped these guys; I don't know if anybody will. The thing you have to do is limit how many touches they get.

He's one of those guys that changed his body in the weight room.

Until he commits himself to really learning the system, it'll be tough for him. He's still one of the best athletes on this football team. He has to understand that playing quarterback in this system takes a lot of work, a lot of film study.

He'd see the pass rush and just start running around. I told him we weren't doing that anymore.

Everybody knows who the general is right now. It's hard on your offense when guys are really not sure who is the leader, who is going to take us down the field. They know that Isaiah can do all that now.

Other than that, he made some good throws. He missed a couple, but when you are throwing the ball more down the field vertically like we did today, those are harder to make. You're not going to make every one.

I think the biggest thing we have to do at that position is become consistent. We saw flashes at that position last year and I thought Rankin showed flashes, but we weren't consistent. We need to be consistent and we aren't physical enough still.

I think everyone knows who the general is right now.

It's not like he's just been sitting around. I'm not worried about the rust, but what I am concerned with is that our reps are very limited in the next couple days, and it's going to be hard for him to get a lot.

Johnny had a really good winter, and I've told him what he has to do to be the starter. I told Isaiah he needs to be consistent to get us to where we want to go, and that's a bowl game.