Tommy Bowden Weekly Press Conference

by TigerNet Staff - Tue Nov 08 13:54:51 GMT-04:00 2005

Tommy Bowden Weekly Press Conference, Windows Media, (27:52)

Dan Scott Interview with Chansi Stuckey, Windows Media, (9:58)

Bowden Quotes

" I'm usually asked when was the last time I talked to my father and I did call him today, for his birthday. Terry Don Phillips made me call him. He has everything, so what can you get a guy that has everything?"

"I will look at the amount of practice time Charlie (Whitehurst) gets this week, and then obviously how his shoulder feels. It will all depend on pain tolerance and practice time as to whether or not he will play. I think with his background, he is not going to do anything to cause further injury to himself. He's too smart for that."

"Charlie is a competitor, I know that. But I don't think he would push it too far, or push it beyond his limit, I don't think he would do that. I don't think he would do anything that wasn't safe."

"Today and tomorrow are key days because they are long practices. Yesterday was a bit of a shorter practice and you don't have much of your gameplan in. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the ones that really merit whether or not a guy is going to play or not. You don't have to decide by Monday, but as the reps continue to grow on Tuesday and Wednesday then you have to go ahead and decide."

"I think at the position of quarterback, the anxiety of building up to know that you are going to be starting and then going in there and performing well does wonders for your confidence. Will's (Proctor) management of the game and the checks he made have given him even more confidence. We felt like he would perform that way as a staff, and he certainly had worked that way, but the staff's confidence is surely elevated because his is elevated."

"I think playing at home helped Will last week some, but at the same time some guys like playing on the road. They like getting booed and things like that. I think it will be a definite advantage this week playing at home because we won't have to fight crowd noise like you would on the road. When you operate on the line of scrimmage with checks like we do and Florida State does, then it could be a problem. But we won't have to face that this week."

"I think common sense would tell you we would be more confident playing with a quarterback that had beaten Florida State, Tennessee, and Miami as opposed to one that hasn't. So if your confidence level naturally would be higher with the guy that had won those games.

"This senior class has accomplished a lot. They have beaten Florida State, Miami, Tennessee, all top 10 teams. There haven't been a lot of classes at Clemson with three top 10 wins."