I enjoyed the NFL. I respected the players. It was a great opportunity to learn a lot of things, but the challenges were a little different, and it didn’t seem that you could control your own destiny, especially in terms of how you could bring players to the team.
First of all, you’ve got to have a vision of ‘What kind of program do I want to have?’ Then you’ve got to have a plan to implement it. Then you’ve got to set the example that you want, develop the principles and values that are important, and get people to buy into it.
It’s been our goal as a program to always give our players the best opportunity to be successful, whether it’s personally, academically, or athletically.
I don’t think I’m complicated at all. I’m not political, and I’m not trying to be diplomatic. I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings, and I don’t say bad things about people. There is no agenda. There’s no trying to fool somebody.
I don’t know how many times I’ve been 114 yards from the hole and made double bogey. Well, I hit a great drive, but it doesn’t matter. It’s only the next shot that matters.
Teachers are always trying to inspire people to do better, to learn, to grow. That’s what we do, and we’re proud of the success we’ve had here doing that, and it’s something we’ll certainly continue to do.
You can control your own destiny a little bit better in college. It’s hard to control all the variables, especially with the salary cap and things like that, in pro football.
Probably the number one position that has the greatest number of players to choose from is receiver. When we’re out there recruiting, there are a lot of receivers out there to recruit. It’s harder to find defensive players.
People talk about you won four national championships. Well, I feel like we’ve had good enough teams to win eight. So I feel like we failed four times. I feel like I failed four times.
I don’t know that there’s any particular scientific evidence that you could say, more guys get hurt in this offense versus that one, or hurry-up, or whatever, but everything that we’ve ever done in the NCAA is about exposure. How many exposures does a player get?
You can’t keep your team together, and you are going to have more changes all the time. Personnel decisions aren’t always made by you, especially who you bring to your team.
I hope whoever our leader is will do all that he can do to make our country safe and improve the quality of life for a lot of the people we have in our country, and I don’t think I am qualified to determine who that should be.
Now do I get some time off? Do I get a bonus? Do I get to go on a cruise? But it’s not to keep trying to be the best. That’s not necessarily human nature.
