Holtz's transcript

LOU HOLTZ'S OPENING REMARKS:
I was really pleased with the effort of our football team. We beat a good Arkansas football team. I thought that we played our best game of the year, that we played as a complete team, that we played intelligently and that we played field-position football. Other than the missed extra point, we performed well in the kicking game. We made some big plays, got some big plays, and it was a tremendous win.
I thought Derek Watson, once again, ran very well. I thought our line protected the passer pretty well, except when they came with some blitzes. I thought Phil Petty executed very well with the exception of the one interception.
Defensively, we mixed up things. We stopped the run enough that they couldn't fall into a rhythm, and I thought our pass coverage was pretty good. I just felt our football team played very, very well.
Once we got up on them 13-0, we played very opportunisitc football. We just wanted to kick the ball, try to utilize the clock and get out of there with a win. We weren't trying to impress anybody ... but I'm beginning to think that we're a little bit better than our players think we are.

WHAT DOES BEING BOWL-ELIGIBLE SAY ABOUT THIS TEAM?
It means we've won six and we only have four more left. We've wanted to be bowl-eligible, and I've got to be honest, it means a lot.

DO YOU FEEL AS GOOD TODAY AS YOU DID 22 YEARS AGO AFTER BEATING OKLAHOMA [IN THE ORANGE BOWL]?
Well, I tell you what. That was a special victory, and I didn't realize the impact it had nationwide or the impact it would have on the Arkansas people. But I have a lot of respect for the Arkansas people and I have a lot of respect for Houston Nutt. He's a great football coach and a class act.

ON DEREK WATSON'S LONG TOUCHDOWN RUN, DID YOU REALLY WANT TO SEE [QUARTERBACK] PHIL [PETTY] DOWN THE FIELD [BLOCKING]?
Yeah, I do. He's a football player and we've only got 11 of them. If they're going to pull one guy and say we're only going to play with 10, then we'll consider that. But if they're going to play with 11, then you go help. But I think that says volumes. If you want to win, you go try to do those things.

HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE IN THE IMPROVEMENT OF THIS TEAM OVER THE TEAM A YEAR AGO?
I don't think we were as bad a year ago as people would believe. Now, we looked terrible, I grant you. But we had no chance on offense. We had 16 offensive linemen play, we were moving defensive linemen around and having walk-on quarterbacks play. But we didn't lose our team.

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE PRESSURE YOU WERE ABLE TO GET ON ARKANSAS TODAY?
After the fourth quarter of the Mississippi State game, I put some limitations on us defensively -- what we could do and when we could do it. After that, we talked about our offense and defense being a full-court press. And as it was so aptly pointed out to me, we were only allowing [the defense] to be a half-court press. So we decided we were going to full-court press today, and we did. We were able to get good pressure on them and mix it up on them.

ARE THERE ANY TIMES WHEN YOU TAKE A BIG GULP WHEN DEREK [WATSON] DECIDES TO REVERSE HIS FIELD, LIKE ON HIS 68-YARD TOUCHDOWN RUN?
Derek is a lot like Barry Sanders in this respect: There were times where the play was blocked for 4 yards and Derek got 2. But there are some times when the play is blocked for 2 and he gets 42.

This article was published on Sunday, October 15, 2000

RETURN to main page

Copyright and permissions
Copyright © 2000, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved.
This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.