Tommy Bowden Weekly Press Conference

by TigerNet Staff - Tue Nov 15 12:41:08 GMT-04:00 2005

Tommy Bowden Weekly Press Conference, Windows Media, (32:52)

Dan Scott Interview with Gaines Adams, Windows Media, (6:38)

Bowden Quotes

Coach Spurrier is a coach who has been in big games, Washington and Dallas are pretty big games, Florida and Florida State, and Florida and Georgia, I would not think he would be naïve at all in his approach to this game. The wisdom he brings to a game like this is evident in the success he had in those rivalry games I just mentioned."

"I think the two teams get a lot of motivation off of what the media writes and the hype of the game every time they turn on the television, listen to the radio, and look on the internet. I think it will be important this week as to how I approach my team. Towards the end of the week you guys usually do a team-by-team rating as far as staff, offense, defense, and those type of things and check off who wins each match up. Right now they are playing with a lot of confidence, and probably would have more boxes checked if you guys did one of those types of comparisons."

"The fact that we are going to have twice the amount of freshman on the field on defense than they do, from an experience standpoint is something to think about. Also, they know how to win. It's not like those guys don't know how to win. Coach Spurrier is good at picking apart defenses, especially ones that don't have a lot of experience."

"The talent level, as evaluated by you guys, five of the last six years they have had better recruiting classes than ours. I had my best one last year by far, and they hired him and he trumped it in four weeks. Special teams, we have had four punts blocked and I think they have had none. So when you look at all of these boxes and the statistics, we are going to have play well if we expect to win."

"I have to make sure that our team goes into the game feeling that they can win. I can't have them going into the game tight and tense. With the fact that we are going to have to play extremely well, and we are probably going to go into the game as underdogs, I think it is important how I approach our team mentally."

"I prefer the role of the underdog, and I always have kind of been the underdog. My father sometimes has a chip on his shoulder and likes being the underdog, and so does my brother, Terry. I think sometimes the guys that didn't have a bunch of accomplishments and all in college sometimes like being the underdog. The underdog doesn't always necessarily help you though."

"The success we have had against them so far in my first six games against them is something I may look back on when I'm done coaching, but I don't plan on that being any time soon. Maybe later on down the road I can sit down at the beach with my father and reflect on it, but not at this point. It is hard to appreciate it because we have to face another Hall of Fame coach this Saturday."