11/28/2003 - Football
Transcript of Head Coach Paul Johnson's Comments Following Practice On Friday, November 28, 2003
Q. Coach, congratulations on the bowl bid.
A. Thank you.
Q. What does this mean to the program and to this team in particular?
A. I think it's a reward for this team. It's one of the goals they set before the season started and they worked awfully hard to achieve it so I'm happy for them that they will have a chance to experience a bowl game. I think for the program it certainly gives us some credibility and hopefully will help us in recruiting. A lot of people have said that we couldn't go to bowl games here, we didn't have any tie-ins and hopefully that puts some of that to rest.
Q. From a practice standpoint, what does it mean to get the three extra weeks to work with the guys, especially with some of the young players?
A. I think when you get into a bowl game it's usually over the holidays so we're probably not going to have three extra weeks. We will have to set down and look at it. More than likely what it will do is give us seven or eight extra days of practice and we will focus on who our opponent is, we won't worry so much about the young guys. It's a great opportunity and a great experience for the team.
Q. Scott was saying that when the team was told yesterday that they were excited but they didn't go crazy, because they understand that they have Army still to play.
A. It's kind of a tough situation, because of the fact we're not done playing. We understand that we have the most important game of the year coming up. There will be plenty of time to think about the bowl game when next Saturday is over. We have to compartmentalize and put that out of the away now. We know that it's over with and that's great, but the biggest game is the Army game and that's what we have to get ready for.
Q. Hasn't this team been pretty good at doing that?
A. I think for the most part they have. Hopefully this team understands that when we don't focus and play really hard and execute we haven't done very well. You can go back and see that. They have to understand how we got where we got.
