Day Four: In the Zone

Dec. 19, 2002

Head Coach Tommy Bowden Quotes After Practice

On the team’s spirit level: “It becomes more mental now, whether we want to win eight worse than they want to win nine. We have a chance to go against a Big XII team. Right now, they’re probably the premier conference because how things ended this year. It will be a measuring stick against the premier conference this year. We are doing a really good job with our enthusiasm.”

On what Clemson is working on in practice: “We are working on formation recognition, coverage recognition, and front recognition. It’s the things that we can anticipate before the ball is snapped.”

On Texas Tech’s defense: “Aaron Hunt is a really really good player. They play really hard and have some good run stoppers. Their defensive coordinator has professional experience and is very sound in his schemes. Their offense challenges them a whole bunch with what they do in terms of scoring so quick.”

“They do not play a lot of man defense. They’ll blitz and give up some short zones, but are sound about not giving up the deep one. Looks like they’ll try to pressure with more than four and play zone behind that.”

On potential of game having a long duration: “It could be a long game. Though our formations are similar, we don’t throw the ball as much. We could line up and throw it as much as them, and we might have to. If they’re scoring and moving the ball, then it could be a long game.”

On players focusing on football: “The players have done a good job. The #1 objective is to win and to have fun is #2. We’ve talked about that from day-one.”

On Kliff Kingsbury and whether Clemson has seen a similar-type QB: “Nobody has his statistics! Matt Schaub is similar to Kingsbury in size. But we don’t see anyone that does what he does offensively.”

On early practice times each day: “Most of our scheduled bowl functions are in the afternoon; so we have to go in the morning.”