Coaches Review The Battle.....

Lou Holtz

Notre Dame Head Coach Lou Holtz
"The Boston College players can really be proud of their effort and resolve. They played an excellent game for about 50 minutes. It was the type of game that I thought it would be. This is a tough place to play with the crowd noise. We gave them some help with our penalties and turnovers, but they protected the passer well and (Omari) Walker was outstanding on the ground."

"I really liked the way that we competed. We hung in there and did what we had to do. We ran the ball well and we didn't pass too much, but we got some continuity going. I thought that our backs did a good job of running both inside and outside."

"It was a costly victory because we lost Marc Edwards with the knee injury."

Boston College Head Coach Dan Henning
"As far as the game is concerned, I thought that at a point there when we got it to 21 and we had them backed up, that we had a shot. That long run kind of broke our back a little bit. Some of our better players did not play as well as they have in the past."

"I think the players that lined up out there tonight put together the best they could put together and during the course of the game on a couple of occasions, rose up and made plays and put themselves in a position where they thought they could win."

"I liked the way the team responded. I didn't like some of the things that happened in the game....What I told them in the dressing room after the game is that, 'Some of you played real well. Some of you made some big plays, but if you add up a couple of errors by you and a couple of errors by you, that's where it happens.' "

"One of the best plays of the night was Shalom Tollfree's tackle at the end of the first half to save the touchdown. That may be one of the best tackles I've ever seen. It's very rare that you just make a flat out seven-point tackle."

On the week
"I've faced some opponents that have been pretty tough. But the emotions that ran the gamut, the feelings for the players, both those that were on the field and those that weren't, watching the emotions, the up and down that the players went through during the week was difficult at best. So I would have to say this week was rather difficult."

"We went at it as quickly and as fast as we could get at it. I think that the right people were pulled into it to take care of it, to investigate it...I don't think that there's any school in the country that could, that would, stand up to the scrutiny that we've had to stand up to this week. That was the objective. That's what the players wanted. When we talked to the people in charge here that's what they wanted. That's what was done."

"Before the game I told the players that I thought they went through a tough week. They did something, they stepped up to the plate in my mind, and determined that they wanted to be either cleared or cleansed. Knowing what it was going to mean and maybe in later life, in times that come in the future they'll be able to say that. And maybe others will step up and do the same thing in all walks of life, maybe because of what they did.

"It wasn't easy. Those players knew that some of their friends would be there. But when it was determined what they thought, they wanted to be a team. They didn't want to have, or be thought of, the way people think of when you have wrongdoing on your team of the nature that we had. If you have a murder in your neighborhood you tell somebody about it. Don't you? The problem is we don't. It's happening in our city right now...These are young people, learning, I'm not sure that they really understood in the beginning everything that they we're going to have to deal with this week. One thing they did understand was what they wanted to do was right. And they stood up for what was right. I congratulated them for that."