Sept. 27, 2005

Q. Have you stopped eating? Every time I see you, you look skinnier. Are you on a special program or something?

A. Yeah, I run 22 miles a day.

Q. While watching film on the treadmill, right?

A. With all the other stuff I have to do? I was lucky to watch two quarters of tape today.

Q. What do you think about Duke?

A. I'm very impressed with how hard they play, especially defensively. God they play hard. They fly around on defense. They've had some problems turning the ball over and on special teams, but they play hard. They've been in every game except Virginia Tech, but Virginia Tech has done that to everybody. He has them playing harder.

Q. The Virginia game was closer than it appeared?

A. It was 10-0 at halftime and 3-0 for a long time. They turned the ball over in the second half and they couldn't get much going offensively and it eventually got away from them.

Q. They appear to be a team similar to Navy in that they are very young.

A. Yeah, they have a lot of kids that played last year but they are young.

Q. Do they look different than last year?

A. They might be more athletic. They certainly play harder.

Q. How about there offense?

A. They do a lot of stuff. They will run the power game, some double slots, run the option, get in the shotgun, go with no backs, they are pretty multiple.

Q. When they bring the Dukes kid in does he normally run the option?

A. He's been pretty much the option guy, but he can do both. They played a freshman in the last game.

Q. Cedric Dargan had a pretty productive first half last year against you. Do you expect to see a lot of him?

A. I'm sure that everybody that plays us is going to check us out running the ball. I'm sure they will do that. I've been impressed with the Boyle kid, #20. He runs hard.

Q. How do you describe the challenge of having three weeks off between games?

A. I don't know. I've never done it before so I don't know how to describe it. It seems like it's been forever since we've played.

Q. Do you feel like you are at a disadvantage as a result of this?

A. I don't know. Honestly, who knows?

Q. It's impossible to predict how your team will react come Saturday isn't it?

A. I'll be disappointed if we don't come out and play with some intensity and fly around. We haven't played in a while. You just never know.

Q. Prior to last week, when we were talking about the Rice game and we asked you about the quarterback situation, you said you would be surprised if both quarterbacks didn't play. Are you still of that mind?

A. More than likely.

Q. Does that mean you've made a decision that you need to use two?

A. We will just have to see. More than likely is all I can tell you. We will have to play it out and see what happens. We've played two quarterbacks in every game; I don't know why we wouldn't in this one.

Q. But that was out of necessity. Are you planning on doing it?

A. I don't know. We'll see.

Q. Based on what you've seen in practice and in the film room how is the focus and the intensity?

A. It's been good and bad. Today wasn't as good as I would have liked from a focus standpoint, but that's what tomorrow's for. That's why you practice.

Q. What was your opinion about last year's game against Duke? I believe you guys took control towards the end.

A. It was a tough game. We turned the ball over the first three times we had the ball. Fortunately we played pretty good defense early on and hung in there with them and once we got going a little bit we kind of put the game away, but it was a tough game.

Q. Its Homecoming down there. I noticed they aren't playing an ACC team for Homecoming.

A. No, they probably hand picked us. That's all right; if I was them and I had to choose between Miami and us I would have picked us too.

Q. Are the extra days of practice going to help?

A. We haven't really had but maybe one or two extra practices. We were getting ready for Rice up until Wednesday.

Q. Have you had any new injuries crop up?

A. None that I can think of?

Q. How's my man Zach Gallion looked? Better?

A. He was out there today.

Q. What's the most difficult part of not playing? Wanting to get that first win, wanting to get the bad taste out of your mouth from the last game?

A. That's a big part of it. We just want to play. That's the fun part of playing football, playing the games and seeing what kind of progress you've made. Football is tough. It's a tough game and when you practice every day and don't get to play it makes it tougher.

Q. Is it somewhat of an advantage in this setting with all the other things the players have to do compared to another school where the players might have more time to get in trouble?

A. Oh, I don't know. They have plenty of time to get in trouble here if they wanted too. They don't seem to find any problems getting in trouble.