Sept. 29, 2005

Q. Do you feel like this is a game you should win?

A. I feel like we have a chance to win every game. If I didn't think we had a chance to win I wouldn't go.

Q. Is there anything after two weeks of not playing that really concerns you about your club? Is there one area in particular?

A. I don't think there is any one area. We have a lot of things to work on. We are going to find out a lot more about our football team here in the next couple of weeks. Normally, by this time of the year, you have a pretty good idea about your strengths and weaknesses and right now I don't have a clue.

Q. What about the fact that this is your first real road game? Does that matter?

A. We'll see. We have a lot of guys that haven't played on the road before. Until you play you don't know.

Q. Does practice make perfect? You sure have had enough of it.

A. I think you play like you practice. We had a really good week last week. We had a day this week that wasn't so good, but the rest has been okay. If our guys aren't ready to play by now we deserve to get thumped.

Q. Do you have any feelings about going back to North Carolina?

A. No, not really. My home is about as far away from Durham as it is Annapolis. It's always fun to go back to North Carolina. I have a college roommate that called the house last night and talked to my wife and they are going to come over to the hotel on Friday night. I haven't seen him in years. He made me feel old. He said he had two daughters at East Carolina. I'm sure there will be some people there that I know, but my focus is on the game.

Q. Do you still have family down there?

A. Oh yeah. My mother and brother will be at the game.

Q. When was the last time you played in North Carolina?

A. When I was at Georgia Southern we played at Appalachian State every other year, we played at Elon and actually we played at East Tennessee State, which is about 35 miles from my hometown. Appalachian is about 14 miles from my hometown.

Q. Marco Nelson. I was going to do a little thing on him. Can you just talk about what you've seen out of him? He's a guy that hasn't played a whole lot up until now and all of a sudden he's one of your better players.

A. Marco has made a lot of big plays for us. He has a good work ethic. He has a pretty good understanding of what's going on. He's a senior and he needs to be a leader for us. He's getting it done on the field and I hope that continues.

Q. Obviously size doesn't matter with him.

A. Marco is a very tough kid. His size is misleading. He probably weighs 180 pounds. He's not real tall. He's got good speed. He's a good player.

Q. Is it rare for a slot back to play special teams?

A. No.

Q. I don't think Roberts and Lane played any did they?

A. They returned kickoffs for a while. Those guys are some of the better athletes on the team. A lot of special teams are played in space so they are the kind of guys you need.

Q. Campbell is on a special team isn't he?

A. Yeah, he's the gunner on the punt team. He caused the fumble against Stanford that Marco returned for a touchdown.

Q. Are there other slots on the special teams?

A. Yeah, Karlos Whittaker is on a bunch, Byron McCoy, Eddie Martin is a starter on the punt team.

Q. That answers my other question on how are you going to find playing time for all the slots you have?

A. It's a long season, I'm sure they will all get plenty of playing time.

Q. Has Eddie played at slot this year?

A. Yeah, he played against Maryland and played a play or two against Stanford. So did Zerbin Singleton, who also plays special teams.

Q. Scott Strasemeier has a note about Kaipo being a quarterback that plays another position, is he still a quarterback?

A. He will be in the spring.

Q. So he's going to get another chance to play quarterback?

A. Yes

Q. Does he work at quarterback during practice?

A. Not right now.

Q. But it's not a permanent change?

A. Not yet, no.

Q. What do you remember about the Duke game last year?

A. I remember we fumbled the ball two or three times to start the game. We fumbled at the six-inch line on first and goal one time, they batted a pitch down, and we fumbled on about the 10. In the second half we played a little better. We didn't play very well in the first half offensively, but we played pretty well on defense. In the second half it kind of flipped. Dargan got some yards against us in the first half and didn't play a whole lot in the second half because we got ahead and they took him out.

Q. Apparently the other guy is a good runner.

A. Boyle? Yeah, I think he's a good player. They are both good players, but Doyle has been impressive.

Q. Are they not using Dargan as much?

A. They play them both.