Opening Statement 

“First, I want to thank our fans. It sure felt like more than [20,524], but it felt like a lot of fans out there. I  thought the crowd noise was helpful. The temperature was certainly helpful. I know that it was much cooler  than last week. The atmosphere was a lot better. I thought we showed improvement. We left a lot of plays  out there. I thought we played really hard defensively but sloppy on third down. I thought offensively, when  we play clean, meaning we don’t have a busted assignment, a penalty, or somebody doesn’t know what  they’re doing, we do well; but we can go backwards as quickly as we can forwards offensively, and we  probably left more out there. I thought it hurt both defenses not having the signal caller, leader in the  backend with them losing Smoke [Monday] and us losing Richard [LeCounte]. It affected both of us, but I did  think we both played really physical tonight. I think when you play Auburn, that’s where it starts, is the line of  scrimmage and the physicality. … I was really proud of Stetson [Bennett] and the way he handled things,  very composed. He probably had some balls he wishes he could have back, but he’ll only get better from  here, and he gives us some continuity and we’ll continue to develop the other guys as well.”  

On whether Stetson Bennett has surprised him…  

“[Stetson’s] not surprising me, no. You know, it’s a tough situation where I can recall the day we decided to  offer him to take him back and we had to fight, scratch, and claw to get him to come back, and I’m certainly  glad we did. It was an interesting decision because we had an interesting dynamic on our team, and we felt  like what we knew of Stetson he would be a productive player and a good player. Stetson’s never lacked  

confidence in himself, you know. I’m happy for him. I want to temper that enthusiasm that he knows he’s got  to get better. People around him played well and that’s important for Stetson. He did a good job of  understanding what we wanted to do in the game plan, and he executed that really well, so I was very proud  of him, he studied really hard this week.”