Donte Whitner Quotations

We stopped him from getting outside the pocket, and we were making him uncomfortable. Once he spiked the ball, I knew we'd got to him.

We're going to match our athletes against their athletes.

He was a little confused. We were trying to play games with him back there.

He was cussing (his teammates) out. He cussed them out when the players lined up in the wrong spot one time. All you could do is smile when they had to call a timeout. You like that.

He showed me how to watch film and what tendencies to look for. What I see on film, I just take it to the football field, because football is a mental game.

It had a big effect. We go out and put our pants on the same way as Notre Dame. Coming in we knew what we could do with their receivers. Tall doesn't mean everything. We just wanted it more.

Penn State's using (Williams) like we use Ted.

I think Cleveland's an up-and-coming team. We have a good division.

It didn't really bother us. We just couldn't let them have a good day rushing and a good day passing. In the first half, they had a good day rushing, but the second half we slowed them down.

Wilson is going to be a great player here. He puts on that No. 93 jersey and he looks like Will Smith a little bit. He's going to be a great one.

We came in knowing that if we loaded up in the box, they would throw outside. Whenever you load the box, you leave the corners out to dry.

We were talking about it today. If you put that No. 93 on him and look at him from behind, he looks like Will Smith. A lot of things he does on the field, he has a lot of characteristics Will had. His stance, his burst off the ball look like Will's. Once he really learns the game on this level, he's going to be a great player.

We wanted to get after Tate and take him out of the game. The key was our defensive line. They put pressure on Tate and we stopped the run.

Off the field, A.J. is quiet. He's a humble guy. He is a great player, but he's not a guy who walks around bragging on himself. He's a humble guy, a selfless guy. And that selflessness, that's a big thing with his teammates. To us, he's just a regular guy, who happens to be an All-American.

You're just curious about what they think about you; it's something I think everybody ought to take advantage of. If the reports are very favorable, then you really have to think about what you're going to do.

They've changed their offense because of those freshmen. They really needed to upgrade their speed and talent.

They're so good. A.J. hogs the tackles. There were a number of games he had 20-some tackles. If Bobby, A.J. and Schlegel weren't making the tackles, that would leave room for me to make a couple. Then sometimes I had to share them with Nate. It wasn't easy.

They?re gonna throw the ball. We welcome that. It?s up to us to stop them.

It's going to be a big chess match. Offensively, they don't do a lot of different things than other college teams, but they do a lot of things better than a lot of college teams do.

I don't really think we should change a lot. We see guys like that every day in practice.

For the next three games there's no fear of a letdown. It's all about what we do. If we go out and we play good, we win. And if we don't play good, we lose. We're not going to let that happen.

The coaches especially stay focused for that week. They say that coaches have lost their jobs on that game.