Oct. 15, 1996
Off The Practice Field....Head Coach Lou Holtz
"This is Sports Information Director John Heisler here at Notre Dame. A couple reminders, kickoff this weekend is at 1:30. We normally
have Sunday wrap-up at 10:30 on Sunday morning, that will not be
happening; nor will our press conference next Tuesday during the Open
Date because between the Open Date and fall break, our coaches and
players are really not going to be here for three or four days.
"We won't be starting practice again until
Thursday, I believe. Our next scheduled press conference won't be until
Tuesday the 30th of October, I guess, basically two weeks from today. To
begin this afternoon, Coach Holtz will make some open something remarks;
then he will take some questions."
COACH HOLTZ: "First of all, wrapping
up the University of Washington game, looking at the film, we probably
played as well on offense and defense for about 56 minutes of that game
as we have in a long time. Many people played awfully, awfully well. I
specifically wish to point out Peter Chryplewicz and Mike Doughty and
Mike Rosenthal. Those three, the other ones all played well, but those
three were exceptional."
(On the receivers) "I don't think I have ever seen a position
improve as much from the time they reported in the fall to where we are
right now today as our receiving core has. Just watching them practice
yesterday, they just don't look like the same group as they did three,
four weeks ago and they are really, really playing well - blocking awful
well, running better routes now; catching the ball. Cikai Champion is
really playing well without the football."
(On the defense) "Defensively I was surprised
that we could play as well against Washington as we did. I was
surprised we stopped the run as consistently as we did not because I
don't think we have a very fine defense, but because Washington has a
very, very explosive offense. I mean, they moved the ball against
everybody. Renaldo Wynn and Bert Berry really had an exceptional game,
but all of our football team did. Our secondary showed great improvement
there and we move on."
(On injuries) "We came out of Washington, once again, without any
serious injuries which I am happy to report, but we have a lot of bumps
and bruises that are starting to add up. Ivory Covington will not be
able to practice today, nor will Jarvis Edwards. Renaldo Wynn still has
a bad ankle, and, you know, they may or may not be able to play on
Saturday. I would think they probably can, if they keep making
progress at the present time, but what we need is we need the practice
time against the Air Force Academy."
(On the wishbone) "I think our players buried the
Washington game and realize the challenge we have ahead of them this
week. You go from a one-back offense to all of a sudden a team that runs
a wishbone as well as they do, and their quarterback Beau Morgan is just
an exceptionally fine, fine player. And you know, Fisher DeBerry has
been there so long and does such a tremendous job with them that they
present an awful lot of problems to you in a lot of different ways.
"But
trying to get ready for the wishbone in a short period of time is a
problem in itself. I think Beau Morgan, as I said, is one of the better
option quarterbacks I have ever seen and you would have to go back to
possibly Thomas Lott, or Dee Dowis, I think those three would -- if
people asked me who are the three wishbone quarterbacks you remember the
most would be Lott, Dee Dowis and Beau Morgan, but he is an exciting
offensive player. They run the offense so well. The only way you have a
chance against wishbone and it could not be defended on paper. You put
it on the board; you cannot take a chalk and say he does this; he does
that. You can't defend it on the paper. The thing that makes Air Force
so difficult is that they have been running this offense for years, and
they make great adjustments during the course of the game and we played
them last year and had some degree of success against them last year.
"It
has been my experience when you go against an offense of this nature, if
you have some degree of success one year, you can bet your bottom dollar
you may not have as much success the next year because they have studied
you for the past year. So it does present some problems to us."
(On the offense) "Offensively, we ran the ball very, very well last week and probably ran
it better than I thought. It was ironic that Notre Dame would have four
rushers that rushed for 100 yards on Sunday in the pros - Jerome Bettis,
Ray Zellars, Ricky Waters and Anthony Johnson all rushed for 100 yards.
So we are little bit more comfortable when we are run-oriented style
football team and I am that way, but that doesn't mean you don't throw
the football.
"We were more productive throwing the football, by
throwing it fewer times than we have in the past. Air Force Academy will
do a lot of twisting and stuntin and slanting and you don't know exactly
what they are going to do; once again we had a lot of success running
the football against them last year, but you never get a lot of big
plays against Air Force Academy. You go back and look at last year's
game, we played awful well and ran the ball well, but there weren't any
really big plays that did it.
"The area that I am greatly concerned about
is the kicking game. Air Force is very, very solid and I am worried
about their kickoff return; our kickoff coverage, which is something I
haven't worried about in the past. The thing I told the football team
yesterday, we are playing too good a defense to give up 20 points and we
are giving up -- we gave up 20 points, not because of our defense, but
our failure to field punts; failure to cover kickoffs adequately and our
failure to hang on the ball to consistent times, put our defense in poor
field position."
(On defense, again) "I think our defense was put in poor field position way
too many times last week and have been this entire year. When you play
the Academy the one thing you better do, you better be well disciplined
and you better play with great execution. This is the only way that you
are going to be able to beat the Air Force Academy. I don't remember
what the score was exactly, but I remember watching it in the Bowl Game
last year, Air Force, I think, lost the Bowl Game and they scored 45
points in that Bowl Game. So, you know, you don't want to play a
football team that is used to winning after a loss. You don't like to
play a football team that is used to losing after a win."
(On focus) "But we are in
the last week of mid-term exams. I have been pleased with the players's
concentration; been pleased with the players's focus. But we have to
have two good days of practice. We could not simulate the way Beau
Morgan runs the option. I mean, there is just no way you can. Now, we
can't afford the luxury of having Jarious Jackson going down and run the
scout squad such as we did last year because we still had Ron Powlus and
Tom Krug. This year we only have three quarterbacks on scholarship and
Jarious Jackson is a backup quarterback and has to receive ample amount
of work in practice to be adequately prepared for the football game. So
the kicking game concerns me, but, you know, once again, we will go out
to practice today and we will see; looked at practice yesterday and had
some concerns after practice, but we will just have to see how today's
looks."
Q. "Lou, in defensing (sic) the wishbone, is the philosophy to gang up
and stop the run and force them to passers or is that oversimplifying
things?"
COACH HOLTZ: "I think that oversimplifies a little bit.
First of all, they run it more like Hawaii and the Naval Academy now.
They run more different formations. They will put three wideouts to one
side. They will have a tightened. They'll be unbalanced. They present
a lot of different formations, but they run very, very few plays and
most of the plays they run feature their fullback or Dee Dallas.
"They
also will throw good play action passing. I think that they were a lot
like we were last week. And the fact that they tried to establish the
run and you know, you can jam 11 people up on the run, the one thing
about it, 11 people on the line of scrimmage is not going to stop the
option not if they execute it flawlessly. You can say, well, we are
going to have this guy on the dime; this guy on the quarterback and this
guy on the pitch and this guy on the pass. Well, that takes four guys
to one side. The other side, we better have a guy on the quarterback;
guy on the fullback; guy on the pitch; guy on the past, that is 8.
"Well, if they run the trap up inside we better have a guy here - that is
provided that -- Air Force has 11 guys too that are assigned to block
your guys. And the option, there is just no way in this world you could
possibly defend it, unless you execute very, very well. And you aren't
going to stop it. You try to give them a bad play. You try to throw
them off rhythm. You try to get them where they are forced into being
behind the chain (sic), so to speak, in other words, it is second and 9
or third and 6; then you are ahead, and you have a chance that way."
Q. "Coach, after the Ohio State game some of the players, specifically,
Ron Powlus, was quoted as saying the season was basically over. After
the dominating performance last week against the nationally ranked Husky
defense, your thoughts now on the remainder of the season with only
six, seven teams in front of you?"
COACH HOLTZ: "You know, the season
is not over for us. I didn't think it was. It felt like the world was
over; not the season. You know, you wake up Sunday morning, you feel
like you are going to die and afraid you won't. You just have that
feeling, but you just have to bounce back from it. Strange things
happen. Let's win as many games as we possibly can; this next one up on
the scene and let us go from there. The fact that it does present many
challenges keeps it interesting, but I have never talked to the football
team about a National Championship since the loss to Ohio State. As far
as I know, let us just go play Air Force and see what happens."
Q. "I can't remember the particular year, but one year we had Bryant
Young and Eric Jones both went down at Air Force because of the blocking
techniques of Air Force. Does that concern you and do you talk to Coach
Moore and the linemen about that?"
COACH HOLTZ: "We discussed that. We
discussed the fact we went out there and lost Bryant Young and we lost
Eric Jones that same game. We also had Frank Jacobs break his leg and
then went to professional baseball after that. Air Force does not block
as low as they did before.
"I must say this that what Air Force did was
perfectly legal, within the rules. You are allowed to clip a guy if
it's in within X amount of yards and Air Force -- and Fisher DeBerry in
particular would never tolerate or coach anything that was not within
the rules. But when you play this style offense, you are more apt to
lose defensive linemen than you are when you are rushing the passer or
things along that nature. The other thing that causes more injuries with
this, it is a different fit.
"In other words, the action happens a
little bit quicker and you don't -- we haven't seen the wishbone. One
time when I first came here and Air Force had beaten us four straight
years, we had a little bit of an advantage because with Tony Rice and
some of them, we ran a little bit of the wishbone. You put Tony Rice at
quarterback; you put rocket at one halfback and Mark Green or Ricky
Waters at the other, and, you know, Anthony Johnson at fullback, pretty
good wishbone team back there, so we got a chance to practice against it
all spring. Now this is completely different. This is just going to be
a new experience for our players."
Q. The one advantage you had last year with your special teams was that
you had a volunteer assistant Jon Fabris who could devote all of his
time on special teams. What can you do to try to bridge that gap with
him not being there?"
COACH HOLTZ: "Well, I don't think our problem on
field position -- and let us take the punt return. Our only problem
that I see on the punt return is not fielding the ball. I mean, as many
times as Washington punted last year - you can go and check the film -
when the guy punted the ball, there was not a single person on
Washington's team across the line of scrimmage - not one. Deke Cooper
and Randy Kinder were doing a great job on the wideout. They weren't a
factor.
"Even though the punts weren't long, we just let the punt
bounce. If we would catch the ball, and when we do catch it, such as we
did against Ohio State, I think that our punt return is excellent. I
feel very comfortable with that. Let us just field the darn ball. Now
if we have to take somebody who is not capable of going 91 yards with
it, but will make a good judgment of catching the ball. Our kickoff
return has been pretty good. What made it bad last week was our
inability to hang on to it, and fumbling it.
"Now we go look at the PAT.
We had a PAT blocked. There was no penetration, but you cannot kick
the ball this high, you know, I am sorry it wasn't blocked, I am sorry
it was blocked because it would have been interesting to see whether it
got over the cross bar or not. That would have been an interesting
thing to see. And we have talked about this in practice the preceding
week. He just doesn't get the ball up high and he has got to do that.
So it is not a case where although you have all kind of seepage -- one
time I got a little seepage.
"The one that was blocked was absolutely no
seepage. The area of concern that I have is our kickoff coverage. We
have not been very good, but that is the only area that I feel that we
are not executing well in the kicking game other than decision making if
you catch the ball seven yards in the end zone that you do not bring it
out - and being able to field the ball."
Q. I saw Deke Cooper returning kickoffs yesterday. Is that just an
experiment or how serious are you about that?"
COACH HOLTZ: "I don't know
how serious I am, but I can tell you how mad I was. I was mad. I also
had him running back punts. I don't know - once I am not mad anymore,
we will look at the situation and give you an honest evaluation. You
also didn't see Sanson kicking yesterday either. We will just see."
Q. In light of the success you had on offense Saturday and the way you
had it, is the so-called Blarney offense, as we know it, is that dying a
natural death?"
COACH HOLTZ: "What we did with that is -- when we first
started looking at it, we had Derrick Mayes you spread out there when
people went one-on-one such as Florida State did he got a couple of
touchdowns and was open some other times.
"If we can get the caliber of
receivers and the maturity to beat man-on-man coverage and our
quarterback can deliver the ball like I think Ron Powlus can, then I
think we can continue to do that because when you look at it on film,
and you say, gee, we ought to be able to do this and this. I mean,
there are some things that should open up the running game if you can go
out and force double coverage.
"But I do think we always have to keep a
semblance of power football and a semblance of option football in our
game package to discourage strict man-coverage. And discourage a lot of
the twist and the slants and other things that we were starting to see
on a regular basis. But I think based on what we have, talent rise
right now, we still have part of it in the offense, but we have tried to
simplify down what we can do and execute."
Q. Because Rosenthal had said after the game, he said we threw away the
old stuff and went back to the old stuff....?"
COACH HOLTZ: "That is not absolutely true. We put an accentuation on some things.
And we felt to really hone in on things we had never done. Here is the
other thing, and, you know, I don't particularly get excited talking
about theory publicly, but just let me say this: In the past when you
have limited number of selections, you get to those selections. We came
out of the Ohio State game we hardly ran anything more than once or
twice. We never really gave it a chance. Then they defend this and so
you jump to a different formation.
"What we have always done in the past
is we are in these couple of formations, if you do this, this is open;
you do this, but we can do that because we have had a lot of
repetitions on it and executed it and that is what I think when he said
went back to the way old stuff was just, hey, very, very much more
limited style offense. However, in the basis of the week with the
background we have, we can change our offense drastically from
week-to-week now."
Q. Also, can you comment on the improvement in Rick Kaczenski from last
year to now?"
COACH HOLTZ: "I have said this so many times. I think Rick
Kaczenski is probably as good a center as we have had here, except he
isn't real strong. But boy, I will tell you what, he is more mature.
He is a leader of the offensive line. I don't think there is any doubt
about that; whereas the year before Leahy and Dusty Zeigler were more in
line with that.
"He is a very smart football player. He is a great
competitor, very good technique - technician-type player; takes the game
very, very serious. He is great for the team and he loves the game. A
year ago when we had to play him, I didn't know if he would ever play
here. I really didn't because he just wasn't very strong, but, boy, you
get him in the game and he understands leverage and he is a very, very
good football player."
Q. Couple of seasons ago you used to get asked why don't you throw the
tightend more. This season, through five games, I think he is either
leading with team interceptions or near the top. How has that kind of
evolved in terms of is it just because Ron is more comfortable throwing
to him or is it something in the offense and do you still get asked why
don't you throw the tight end more?"
COACH HOLTZ: "That is all everybody
asks, why don't you throw the tight end. At every luncheon - I don't
even bother to answer the question, but every luncheon, throw it to the
tightend, I am sure we will get that question. The tight end to some
teams that run strictly a passing game style offense, they will throw to
the tight end where they will have two tight ends, etcetera.
"The teams
that throw a lot to a tight end are ones that have two tight ends, but a
lot of football teams, they don't even have a tight end. And when they
do have a tight end, they don't use him much. It is hard to get the
ball to a tight end with only one in the game. But he also is
more experienced receiver.
"He is finding in the open area more. And we
are calling -- all our patterns are mirrored, in other words, we can run
the same pattern from one formation to another formation. But now we are
putting it in formation to accentuate the tight ends more often than
before it would be to accentuate a Derrick Mayes, a Lake Dawson, and
just recently we have gone to where it has accentuated the tight end."
Q. "The other thing is, on the punts you have talked off-season about
how Autry tended to let them bounce and that has become a problem.
Have you considered putting a short man - not a short man, but someone
10 yards, within 10 yards in front of him to catch the short punts and...?"
COACH HOLTZ: "It has always been my basic premise -- that is a very,
very good question -- to always put two people; not one - two - to put
two people here, one at 25 on the left; one at 20 on the right. Now the
reason you put the guy on the right at 20, so if the right-footer kicker
shanks it to the left, it isn't going to go that far. And anything that
they don't have to move back on, they fair catch it immediately. Then
you put your other punter back there at the depth whatever the punter is
averaging.
"The problem we had and the reason we can't do that is people
split out two wide guys. So those two guys that are normally back here
have had to go up and cover that. Well, you say, let's take two other
guys out there and still put the two back there, then you are
outnumbered up front if they wish to run a fake punt and snap the ball
to the fullback.
"So I have always believed -- one thing that I have
been adamant about is the ball bouncing. We lost 41 yards last week
alone on the ball bouncing. That is four first downs. And so that is
our basic premise, eight-man front with those two guys back there. But
we -- what we have done in practice this week is we have had Hunter
Smith and Palumbo and Wachtel with the ball.
"And our guys' normal
depth, and they all threw like they are going to kick it, but a
different guy kicks it. Hunter Smith may boom it - blocked or you may
have to run up quite a ways to get to get it. So just trying to get at
that, they get used to catching Hunter Smith and they think everything
is going to sail, but when the nose is up and it doesn't -- but it is
frustrating and I have no -- I think Autry Denson catches punts
exceptionally well, exceptionally well. But we have got to do something."
Q. "A lot of frustration after the Ohio State game and after this past
game seemed to be a lot of, I guess, confidence in your voice, the way
you address the fact that we went back and played note Notre Dame
football; you talked about the 12 passes that Ron Powlus threw was more
like the old style, that type of thing. You said before that when
players come in they will be us and we will be them and we are not going
to be them. Do you look back at situations -- there was another time, I
think in a Bowl Game where you changed the offense to the simple thing
-- against Florida in the Sugar Bowl? Are there times as a coach you
want to adapt your offense; you want to be a little bit more open to
maybe let Ron throw 25 places and maybe you regret maybe the adjustment
because it is not maybe more your style?
COACH HOLTZ: "No -- I think
that is a good question. I think hindsight you can always look and say
this and that, but I think there is a lot of things to take into
account, one is recruiting.
"We have some good young receivers because
of what we did. We have a quarterback, incoming freshman, that can
throw the ball pretty well; has good height. I think that you have to
look at your academic schedule, how much guys could throw; weather
conditions, etcetera, I do think we need to be more wide open. I think
we are in a better position to play it more wide open when we absolutely
have to, but I also that football is a game of toughness and execution,
etcetera.
"Nebraska has won a lot of football games doing what Notre Dame
has done over the past eleven years. There have been some other teams
and Ohio State is pretty much that way. I think you have got to be able
to run the football when you are in the midwest. I think with Penn
State, Michigan, Notre Dame, Nebraska, you know, the teams that have
been real good through the midwest because of weather, one, because of
the ability to throw and catch year-round, because of the wind, because
of a variety of different things it is hard to be a finesse passing team
completely in this area.
"You go down south, it becomes more easier to
do that. But to be successful in the game of football you must be able
to run the football. We went back to more two-backs, not because we
didn't want to split people out but because we couldn't run the football
when they just outnumbered us with only one back. We only had one back
you can only basically run two plays, zone play and counter play and
that is it, occasionally a trap. And so with our inability to run the
football, you must be able to run the football to win.
"And even
Florida runs the football to win. And when Bobby Bowden, and God bless
his soul, he may disagree with this, but I am just going to tell you
what I observed, when Bobby Bowden is in a big game, Warrick Dunn
carries the. Ball when they play games with 45 points they throw it 60
times. That is my observations. Warrick Dunn, all he ever does is hand
the ball to him when we play him. Hands the ball to him when they play
Miami. I watched him one game and they won by 40 and Warrick Dunn
carried the ball twice, so you must be able to run the football to win
the ball games."
Q. You have got a lot of people on the defense with a lot of quickness
and agility whereas maybe a little bit more we had a little bit more
size. In games like this against Air Force and then Navy, does it make
it a little bit easier to adapt to the option knowing that you have got
people that are not only good size, but perhaps a little bit quicker?"
COACH HOLTZ: "I think it helps us to have people like Kory Minor and
Bert Berry on the ends that can run and Tatum and Cobbins inside that
can run, Renaldo and Dansby -- I wish our safeties ran a little bit
better because I think that is going to be important. But we run pretty
well everywhere except maybe at safety. We have pretty good team speed
there. And that helps. If we are going in the right direction, but if
we are running in the wrong direction, speed hurts."
Q. "In regards to the running game coming into this year you had Randy
Kinder leading the team last year and being right up there on the list
of Irish backs and he was injured early on and now you have Denson
established himself so well. What is the status of Kinder as of right
now? Where does he sit in your mind?"
COACH HOLTZ: "I think Kinder and
Farmer both have to make a major contribution every Saturday. Autry
Denson was the starter because he basically stayed healthy and he has
done a nice job and he catches the ball very, very well. Randy Kinder
missed all of spring practice, and of course, he missed much of
two-a-days and the first couple of games and that made it difficult.
"But as I said last week, I thought Randy Kinder and Farmer practiced
well as anybody and I thought they both ran very, very well and played
well on Saturday and I think that, you know, we played Jamie Spencer a
little bit more. You know, you need to have fresh backs in there and,
you know, we are fortunate that all three of them are healthy right now,
so I definitely think Randy Kinder has got to play a prominent role on
our team."
Q. "Coach, are you planning on starting Deke at free safety and can you
talk about have you saw some better things from Jarvis last week?"
COACH HOLTZ: "I thought Jarvis stepped in and play very, very well when he was
in the ballgame. I thought Jarvis showed great improvement. But Jarvis
has a knee that is bothering him right now and, you know, one of the
sad things as a football coach is an individual really wants to be on
the field and yet he gets these nagging injuries all the time and it
makes it seem like, well, he is missing a lot of practice time; whereas,
in essence, according to our trainer, he is trying to cover up some of
these things, you know, so I feel for Jarvis because I know he wants to
be there.
"But Deke Cooper stepped in and for a short period of time
really played awfully, awfully well, and, gee, he isn't very quick, and
yet we got him as our sprinter on the punt team, and he and Kinder, I
thought, did a tremendous job. Our punt team was very, very good. But,
yeah, Jarvis is anxious to get back and we are anxious to have him back.
He has a lot of experience; he has good size; good speed."
Q. "I believe you said Morgan is one guy you almost assign somebody to,
on defense, you know, the quarterback on the option, is that the way you
go about starting to stop the option is assigning someone to the
quarterback and going from there?"
COACH HOLTZ: "Yeah, you basically --
our basic philosophy is you assign everybody to the guy with the ball.
The problem is who has the ball. And where it gets to be a chess game
is if you assign a certain guy to Beau Morgan, they are going to assign
a guy or two to block that guy, and so, it comes down to execution.
"You
are just -- No. 1, you aren't going to stop Beau Morgan; you aren't
going to shut him off. Memorable words of Sports Center, you can't stop
him, you can only hope to slow him down. I never heard that before at
Sports Center, but that sort applies to Beau Morgan."
Q. "Coach, you are through kind of the murderous row on your schedule,
everybody looked at Texas, Ohio State and Washington as being a tough
part of your schedule. Now you have got some teams that you should
beat, the trip to Ireland coming up; next week is Boston College. What
do you do to guard against a let-down and make sure your football team
doesn't look past somebody and start thinking about Southern Cal all of
a sudden?"
COACH HOLTZ: "You know, I do what you all do. I get a
newspaper, football news or kickoff and I say, oh, geez, they are 9 and
2; oh, next team, they are 10 and 1. Then I look at us and, say, oh,
gee. I am sure people look at it and say, oh, yeah-- I am going to tell
you something, need I not remind you about all the upsets that occurred
during the course of a season and I have been upset enough to write
volumes.
"How many times I have been upset when people say what game do
you remember the most, God, I think two Stanford games; I think of
Tennessee; I think of BYU. I think of Boston College. I think of North
Western. You know, it just happens. Were there any upsets last week?
Ohio State didn't have any trouble with North Western; did they? North
Western didn't have seven calls to go against them? Texas got beat--
looked at that, there is no way.
"I mean, that is a win. Did they play
it? The point I trying to make and I am not trying to be facetious, but
I am like you, I look at (inaudible) Boy, you look at it from our end,
you look at what happens around you, I am scared to death every Saturday
and particularly against a wishbone and particularly when we are on the
road and particularly on astroturf. Those things all scare me.
Wishbone, on the road, astroturf."
Q. "My question is about your son Skip. I guess when he first got the
job three years ago a lot had been said about the fact that he is your
son and whether fairly or unfairly, but do you think in the three
seasons there he has kind of changed those perceptions; kind have been
able to stand out on his own?"
COACH HOLTZ: "I think that is a question
somebody else can answer. He is coming in this weekend to visit us. I
am looking forward to having him. All I can tell you is talking to the
people in Connecticut, they are delighted with the job he is doing, the
people there.
" ut I am very, very proud of him. I don't care if he
ever wins a football game. I don't care if he is in coaching. I don't
care what he does. I am proud of him as I am all my children because of
the person he is, the morals and the values and the way he treats
people. I could not -- no father could ever be more proud of his
children than I am of mine."
Q. "Do you see him as having a potential to move up in Major Division I
school before too long?"
COACH HOLTZ: "I think that -- all I can tell you
as an assistant coach that he was an outstanding assistant coach. He
was awfully good in the press box. He was good with players. He is good
at meetings. I think that he is what, 32, 33 years of age? I think he
is very mature for his age.
"I think his values are appropriate.
Whether he gets another opportunity, I don't even think he is looking
for one. He is very happy with Connecticut and the people there at
Connecticut, but that is -- he has got to lead his own life. I can only
lead one and that is mine, and let me philosophize here for a minute.
When we were getting ready to make a decision when the children were
young about whether to accept a job or not, I said to my wife, gee, I
don't want to move the children.
"And my wife said to me something that
is very, very apropos and I never even thought of. She said, you know
-- she said when they get to be old enough they can lead their lives but
they aren't going to lead their lives and our lives. We are going to
live our lives and then they can live their lives. And I thought if
that was fair enough when they were younger that we are going to live
our lives and they are going to live their lives, we are not going to
allow Skip and the rest of the children to live their lives and make the
choices that they want to, so whatever happens to Skip is going to be
his choice, but we will support him."
Q. "I was hoping you could step aside from the season for a moment tell
me why you think Notre Dame has experienced such broad national fan
interest over the years?"
COACH HOLTZ: "Oh, I think that
-- if you are ever on the campus or come -- just something about Notre
Dame and the dome. It is what other people have said about it. And you
know, the people come here. The people come here to a game or see this
campus, they talk about the beauty and they talk about the peace and the
tranquility and they talk about the Sacred Heart and the students and
everything else; then they pass it onto somebody else.
"I was never even
on this campus and I was a big Notre Dame fan. Why? Because of the
stories I heard about Notre Dame from the nuns, from the priests; from
my grandfather, from everybody else. It was just very, very special and
I got to say this, Notre Dame just has a magical ring, our lady, you
talk about -- I'd even see something, Notre Dame cathedral in France or
something like that, I don't know, it just has a special, special
meaning and I have shared that with other children.
"I have got a
grandson two and a half years. Where are you going to school? "Notre
Dame." It is ground into him already and his mother is a Florida State
grad. And I know Skip hadn't taught him to say anything. The kid just
speaks from his heart. He knows where he needs to go. It is just gets
past onto people. Thank you very much."
