The University of Mississippi Athletics
Ole Miss Head Football Coach David Cutcliffe's Press Conference
11/28/2000 | Football
Nov. 28, 2000
Opening Statements:
"I want to thank Dr. Khayat, John Shafer, the University of Mississippi and all the fans and all the people that are involved with the stadium expansion. It was exciting to go out and have the groundbreaking ceremony and be a part of the actual beginning of the construction. I think it is a great tribute to the University and a great tribute to our administration. It is most importantly a great tribute to our fans. I would like to talk further about our fans. I said this the other night and I will say it again, when you are down 16-0 and the weather is what you call uncomfortable at best, and you see all the fans stay with our team in the 11th game, that gives you an indication of the Ole Miss football program and where we are and where we are headed. That is a great tribute to our fans and supporters. That was exciting for our team and think they are all glad they stayed now.
"I am real proud of our team for coming back from behind twice. I am real proud of our staff for their planning and the work they did in the short week. It was a good win for us. We are now in the recruiting mode. We are excited about the potential of playing in a bowl game. Mr. Shafer just alluded to the bowl scenarios. That is not for us to worry about or focus on right now. We have our team working out, conditioning and running. We will give you a practice plan when we know more about the bowl we will be playing in and we can be more specific about the dates. We will get some limited work over the weekend of Dec. 8-10. We will have some short, light practice sessions during that time. That is prior to finals. Finals week begins Dec. 12 and go through the rest of that week so we will probably resume practice somewhere around Dec. 15-16. That would be what I would speculate right now as far as our practice schedule is concerned. We are heavily involved with recruiting right now. It is a contact period for us so most of our coaches will be on the road during this time prior to those practice sessions."
Q: Can you say in your earlier contacts in recruiting that you are seeing some benefits from finishing the season strong?
"I think that the old saying in football is, and I have heard this all my life, that they remember what you do in November. I think it affects a lot of things. It certainly does and should affect bowl people, but I think it also affects prospects. It affects your spirits, I know that. We went through November with a very tough schedule and we were 2-2. We would like to be better than that, but there are still a lot of positives for us particularly with our last game being a win. I think young men see where this program is headed and what we are trying to accomplish. We are not just trying to have a good team, we are trying to develop an outstanding program. I think you do feel the effects of that and the effects of playing well and being the kind of program people want to be a part of, and we are seeing that right now in the recruiting process."
Q: Talk a little bit about what it meant for the seniors to play in their last game at Ole Miss.
"These seniors are getting ready to go out and face life. I think most of us all know in our own lives as adults that how you handle adversity has a lot to do with whether or not you are going to be successful. They have faced adversity all year long - some of them individually, some of them personally, but all of us collectively. That game was an indication of our season in a lot of ways. Getting down, coming back to score 28-straight points, getting down again and turning around and coming back >from that deficit. I think that that is a great life lesson for them to carry with them. It certainly was big for them because it was at home. It was their last time to walk through the grove, their last time to play in that stadium, for it to be a victory will make it a very vivid memory for those seniors. I could not be happier for a group of young men that it turned out that way, not just because it was the way I wanted it to, but more because of the way they earned it. The way they worked, it turned out the right way for them."
Q: What was the feeling like on the sidelines when you were down 16-0?
"Well I talked a lot to our coaches on both sides of the ball and I talked to a lot of our players. It was something that I had talked to the team about on Tuesday night, about this season and playing from behind. I had told them that I thought it was something that we needed to do better than we've done. I kind of critiqued our season. I talked to them about how I think you approach doing that. We talked about that during that phase. We discussed playing one play at a time and competing to win on that play and enjoying competing. Nothing changes. I told all of them nothing changes, and we are sticking to our plan. I said there was still a lot of football left to play out there, and I think that is how our team approached it. I never saw anybody hang his head. I never saw panic. I thought the staff and the players did a great job of handling being down. A lot of things start running through your mind. You start thinking what if this gets away from us? How am I going to handle this? Those kinds of things run through your mind, but the most important thing is to draw back and focus on winning one play at a time and I think we did a good job of that on both sides of the ball."
Q: Was there one specific play or spark, where you said 'Okay, here we go'?
"I felt like when we held them to the field goal to make it 16-0, I thought that was significant. I think we had a time-out and I was going up and down the sideline. I told our defensive players then that that series was going to turn out to be huge for us. I told them that holding them to a field goal opportunity was very important for us. It was a huge time in the ball game to make a difference and I thought it uplifted us a little bit. Then we got a decent kick-off return and I liked that. Whenever we are converting third-downs, our offense plays well. We did that pretty much all year long. We have converted on third-down about 46 percent or so for the season. If we get two or three third-down conversions under our belt then I do say to myself 'okay, here we go'. We did do that and built ourselves a little momentum. That 14-play drive following their field goal, I thought, was as significant as anything in the game. To answer a field goal with a touchdown is always a good thing."
Q: If you could get a bowl victory and finish in the Top 25, how significant do you think that would be for the program since that would give Ole Miss a Top 25 finish in three of the last four years?
"I think it is important for a number of different reasons. I think it is important because if we can manage that, we earned it. You want to establish first that you are a Top 25 team and then climb from there. This is a Top 25 program right now. Our responsibility is to play like that. Anytime you are playing in a bowl game, you are playing a quality opponent. It is always different circumstances and different preparation. You have to see how your team handles that, and we will cross that bridge when we get to it. We would like to go out and earn that statement that this is a Top 25 program and one that is headed in the right direction. In my opinion the program is in better shape right now than it was one year ago for a lot of different reasons. A program is more than just wins and losses. Our program is in good shape, and we need a win to indicate that. That would be the best thing for us."
Q: Talk about the SEC having nine bowl-eligible teams and what that says about the conference.
"Well it is unusual. I do not think we have ever had as many 7-4 teams. It is an indication of parity. It is a unique situation. The SEC has 12 good football teams. I have said that all year long, even the teams that weren't bowl eligible were very good football teams. Things have to fall right for you and you have to play well each week to put yourself in a good position. It says a lot for our conference, unfortunately we beat each other up a lot and now we only have one BCS team. I think this is the first year we have only had one BCS team and I think that means that we have balance. It hurts us in that regard, but it is a great thing for our conference. It is a tough conference and is very competitive every year."
Q: If you had your choice of which bowl you go to, what would be your criteria in choosing?
"I do not have that privilege, first of all, but I would say that this team belongs in an SEC alliance bowl. I will stop short of saying any specific bowl beyond that because all the bowls we are aligned with stand on their own merit. They are great cities, and they do a great job. We have been fortunate enough to be invited to an SEC alliance bowl the past two years in the Independence Bowl, and they have done a wonderful job. The sponsorship and organization is outstanding and that is very typical of the bowls the SEC is aligned with. John Shafer mentioned Atlanta with the Peach Bowl and Nashville with the Music City Bowl, and both of those would be phenomenal for us to be a part of with the match-ups they would involve. I would look forward to taking this team to any of the SEC alliance bowls, but those are the two he specifically mentioned, and they would certainly be right in line with my preference."
Q: Normally when you go to a bowl you are looking for a win, but will there be the temptation forward to next year?
"We will do a lot of that in bowl practice. We are going to have what we call 'opportunity periods' for our younger players and returning club. You take advantage of that time. We will do some two-a-day work when finals are over. Some of that two-a-day work will be designed for our returning players, we will let our seniors be rewarded by letting them depart practice a little earlier than the other players. We utilize the time. We will take our redshirts and get some real quality work with them, so you get a real jump with them. We have an early spring practice. Hopefully we will be playing in late December. Then we will come back and get right into our winter conditioning. We start spring practice around Feb. 25, so there is not really that big of a gap involved so this would give us a big jumpstart. Our spring practice is basically going to be the month of March. Those young men that have been redshirted or have been working on the scout team are going to get a lot of quality work in, and hopefully it will benefit all of us."
Q: Was the Deuce-to-Romaro pass something you had been keeping in your back pocket?
"I knew an area of the field I wanted to use it on. I knew what hash mark I wanted to run it on. And it all fell together for us. I felt good about it. With certain teams, it may be there certain times. We ran it last year against Oklahoma, and it would have worked perfectly except Rocky Calmus was right there. What he saw I am still not sure of. I may call him and ask him. It would have worked against them last year had he not made such a great play. You cannot depend on something like that to win, but when it works, it sure is nice."
Q: On that throw-back pass, Romaro said they were in a zone, and he had to check out of it and he did not want to?
"I know he did not want to. We did not get exactly the look I thought we might get. I was over there saying 'keep it on', and he did. He did not hear me, but he kept it on. And I knew he would if he could. It was the first time he has been healthy against State, and it was great to see him get to play full speed. I did not know he was that fast. On that 50-yard run he showed some speed. I am going to have to ask him where that came from. He must have really been celebrating being healthy in that 11th game."
Q: Is that the best game Romaro has played since you have been here?
"I think it was the most diverse game. He has played well in so many games, but from a production standpoint of making the big plays at the right times, I would say it was one of his best ever. I was real proud that he threw an interception and came right back and played real well the rest of the game and did not let it get him down. I asked the seniors to leave something behind for the freshmen, something they can do unique. Romaro is the epitome of the 'team man'. A humble spirit, sometimes to a fault, but he is a great youngster and a great competitor. He certainly earned that great performance in his final game."
Q: He gave you a lot of credit after the game for a talk you had during the week, did it affect you as well?
"Yes it did. It was a good talk, a talk we needed to have. We talk quite regularly, but this was pretty straight forward. We let a lot of things out. I have a great respect for him as a person. It was just a good honest talk, and he responded like I knew he would. People that do not know Romaro Miller do not know the warrior that he is. They do not know his make-up is, he is fighter. He has the right stuff I will tell you that much.
Q: How do you feel about your health now?
"I think for our bowl game, we will obviously be much healthier. We cannot get Kenny Woods back, and we will still not have Eddie Strong. Gus Carwell and Charlie Perkins have had knee surgeries and are gone for the season. It has been an unusual year. Now that we have finished playing, it is amazing how many injuries we have had and what these kids have had to overcome. I asked them not to talk about it, and I asked our staff not to talk about it, because I did not want it to be our focus. But we will certainly be healthier. Deuce has not been 100 percent since the third game of the season. He will have a chance to get near that. Ben Claxton will gain some ground. Anthony Sims, Syniker Taylor and Ken Lucas have been playing with pain and pushing through, and those are the ones I hope can get feeling better. I talked to Tim yesterday, and he felt real good about how we came out of the game. The kids have been in the training room working hard. Rehab does not happen by itself. Time alone does not heal their wounds. They are already working hard trying to get better."
Q: Can you clear up any rumors about possible coaching changes you might make?
"There is nothing that has occurred here. I do not have any plans at this time. I hear the same rumors you do, but they are just speculation and I do not respond to that. I get it all the time. If I worried about all that I hear, I would really have some problems. We are focused on trying to get this bowl game resolved. I want an opponent. That is what we need right now, somebody to go play."