Tommy Bowden Press Conference Quotes

Nov. 12, 2002

Clemson Football Press Conference Media Player Downloadthe Free Real Player.Tommy Bowden(29:16) Download the Free Real Player.CharlieWhitehurst(17:36) Download the Free Real Player.Gary Byrd(1:41)

Tommy Bowden Press Conference Quotes

On the depth at running back for Clemson: “Tye Hill will get a lot more playing time this week, and one of the other two (Bernard Rambert and Yusef Kelly) will get less. We’ve only got one ball and three guys, so there’s only so many plays each can get. You’ve got to have a pecking order and I think Tye’s performance deserves his pecking order to go up a little bit. But, he has not moved up the pecking order enough to start, Bernard will still start.”

On the balance of Clemson’s offense last week against North Carolina: “Balance is what you strive for. To me, balance is more determined by what the defense does. It didn’t bother me against Duke that we had to throw it 50 times as long as we had completions and scored. The balance was more so a result of the defensive scheme played by North Carolina. I was pleased, because traditionally this offense has been balanced over the course of the season in the past six years. I’m a little more pleased with how the statistics look at the end of the year than after a single game.”

On Maryland’s defense: “They’re good. They’re good versus the run and the pass. That’s why they’ve won so many games in a row, at least one of the main reasons.”

On Maryland star linebacker E.J. Henderson: “He’s a really productive player. If you’re going to run the ball, you have to be careful about assigning two guys to him because that will free up someone else. I wish he wouldn’t have stayed, I think he was close to coming out after last year. He’s a good player and a potential first-round draft pick. He plays like one. He’s in the middle where he can make a lot of plays from sideline to sideline. He is like Keith Adams was for us a couple of years ago. His intensity rubs off on the other players. He is aggressive and runs real well and has size and speed. I can see why a lot of folks would be interested in drafting him.”

On the difficulty of the game against Maryland: “It’s going to be similar to the Georgia or Florida State game, or even the N.C. State game. If we turn the ball over like we did against N.C. State, we’ll get beat bad. If we don’t, we’ll have a good chance to win the game.”

On the notion that Clemson has stage fright for national TV games: “No I don’t believe so because I thought we played really well against Georgia and against Florida State. We scored 31 points at Florida State and we hadn’t scored many there in the last 10 years. I wouldn’t call that stage fright. I thought we performed pretty well. I’d like to play perfect on national TV. But anytime you play on national TV against a ranked opponent, the mistakes that cost your team are magnified. The players get more excited than scared to play on national TV.”

On this game being a measuring stick for Charlie Whitehurst: “This will be a good indicator. Maryland is better than both the teams we’ve just played and they’ve beaten those teams rather significantly. I don’t think there is any doubt that for us to get to the next level, not so much Charlie, we’ve got to beat Maryland. We all need to play better for us to win Saturday, and he’s just a piece of the puzzle. Everybody plays a significant role, but this will be a bigger measuring stick than last week for sure.”