Houston Nutt transcript

OPENING COMMENTS
We're obviously very disappointed. We expected to win this game. We started out the right way. It just seems like the kickoff return and there was a four- or five-minute span in there, and it just slipped the other way. Their seniors and their experience really showed there, especially midway through the second quarter and in the third quarter. They really took control of the game. Romaro Miller, I feel like we had him wrapped up there right out of the second half, and he breaks out and gets a first down and keeps it going for them. They're big playmakers, and they have been there lots of times. We had Zak Clark, who was nicked up the first couple of minutes of the game or couple of series and that is very difficult. I loved his courage, the way he came back. He went inside, Dean [Weber] went inside and retaped it. I thought John Rutledge had a great fighting spirit and played hard and made plays for us. But we just didn't get it done.

QUESTION ABOUT FRED TALLEY RUSHING FOR MORE THAN 200 YARDS.
Fred Talley gets better every week. He's very, very tough. You know how fast he is. He gets in the secondary and you know he can take it the distance. Early on, they were crowding the line of scrimmage because of No. 20. They were going to say, "We're going to see if your quarterback can beat us." That makes it tough. Somebody said on the way in, "How come we didn't do that first?" It's a different game. They were playing a little bit more backup because they had a big lead. It doesn't work that way.

HE'S NOT A BIG GUY BUT HE IS OBVIOUSLY VERY DURABLE.
He's very, very tough. He gets tougher as the game, gets more confidence. He's seeing things better.

YOU OUTGAIN THEM AT HOME AND STILL DON'T WIN. IN FACT, IT'S NOT EVEN REALLY CLOSE. WOULD YOU ENVISION THAT HAPPENING?
No. If you told me we would have outrushed them I'd say, "Hey, we win the game."

ON MILLER'S SCRAMBLE, WAS IT JUST A MATTER OF LOSING CONTAINMENT OR OVERPURSUING ON THE RUSH?
I'd have to look at it. I had a bad, bad viewpoint from where I was standing. It looked like we had him in our grasp and I look up and he's running down the sideline, over there on their side. I couldn't see.

WHAT ABOUT ON THE KICKOFF RETURN?
We get a bad kick, first of all. It was supposed to be from the hash to the sideline on the right and he kicks it over to the left. But you still have to make tackles, and we're out of position. When you have everybody in their lanes from hash to sideline and you kick it on the other side of the field, that messes up everything. So, it was a bad kick to begin with, and I saw two critical tackles that were missed and it ended up 7-7. It gave them a lot of life right there.

THAT KICKOFF RETURN AND THEIR QUICK SCORES REALLY TOOK THE LIFE OUT OF YOU.
Yes, it did. That hurt us. That's where we need more experience. We have about five seniors who are really playing. I know we introduced 16 but we have about five or six who play. We have to teach them how to win, how to fight. I thought they came back there. We talked to them pretty hard at halftime and told them what we really expected. They came back and gave a little fight.

YOU WENT BACK TO ZAK AFTER YOU PUT IN JOHN, WHO REALLY SEEMED TO GIVE THE TEAM A SPARK.
John gave a spark. I told them both to be ready to play. Zak is still not 100 percent as you can tell. I thought John gave us a spark but he still doesn't know everything when you're behind by three touchdowns. Boy, if you're up and you've got the lead, no problem. We just milk the clock, run the plays, run some waggles and sprintouts, that's fine, but when you're down three touchdowns and running Shotgun, that's not his forte. Especially when we're talking about a three-day crash course. I thought he did a marvelous job.

I SAW ROBBY THROWING ON THE SIDE A LITTLE BIT, WAS THAT JUST TO TEST THE SHOULDER?
Yes.

COULD HE HAVE GONE TODAY?
I don't think so. He might probably have felt like he could but, just watching him throw, didn't look good.

WE'VE LOST TWICE HERE IN A ROW TO SEC TEAMS IN FAYETTEVILLE, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO RAZORBACKS FANS WHO MIGHT HAVE THEIR CONFIDENCE WANE JUST A LITTLE BIT?
I'd tell them right now that I really need them. They better get us while they can right now. I really want to encourage our fans to not jump off too quick with this team. There's still some football left and there's some good, good things coming that they can see, if they have good vision. You get all our weapons back, we'll be back. We hate it. No one hates it more than I do and the players, I promise you. I hope the ones coming out here in the rain, we had a great crowd and I appreciate their effort. I'd just tell them to keep coming and don't give up on this bunch now. A lot of good things are going to happen.

THE FOURTH-AND-5 PASS THAT RUTLEDGE THREW ON THE FIRST TOUCHDOWN DRIVE, HOW MUCH DEBATE WAS THERE ON IT?
We talked about it. That was pretty much, "Let's go." Was that a little bit far out of our field-goal range? I think we were a little bit against the wind. There were too many fourth downs, I can't remember all of them.

EVERYONE LOOKED AT THIS AS ALMOST A MUST-WIN TO GET INTO A BOWL. WHAT DO YOU TELL THEM?
It's very hard. I apologize to the seniors. I hate to see them go out this way in their last game in Fayetteville. I'm going to look real hard right now at character and heart and how they finish. We have 14 practices left together and anything can happen. We still have a chance to go to a bowl but, right now, we really have to buckle it up. We're playing three very, very good teams that are on a roll right now. We needed this. We're not old enough to look down, we're old enough to take it one day at a time, one practice at a time, one play at a time. That's all we can do.

This article was published on Sunday, November 5, 2000

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