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Notre Dame Coach Tyrone Willingham

"I'm not sure if it was exactly USC's (adjustments) ...What you can say is that on offense we started to make mistakes, with things like penalties that don't keep drives going."

"We have great respect for them offensively, but I didn't anticipate that they could perform in that manner."

"We did not adjust well to their personnel moves ... and we didn't tackle."

"If we come back and play to the ability that we have, then it's not a step back."

"We're not anywhere near where I hoped or expected us to be."

"In the second half, we weren't able to drive the football or stop them. When you don't do those things, the game does get away from you."

Notre Dame Player Quotes

Senior RB Julius Jones

On the play of USC...
"They definitely came out and played harder today. The better team won today."

On the outcome of the game...
"It's definitely hard to take a loss like this, but we've got a big game against Boston College. We can't get down because of this."

Sophomore Center Bob Morton

On the game...
"We need to keep pumping. We have a big game next week and we know we need to go use this to prepare for it."

On the offense in the second half...
"Things didn't flow well in the second half. We have to get better and be prepared next week."

Junior FB Josh Schmidt

On USC's rush defense...
"I don't think we saw anything today that we didn't see in practice all week - penalties and things held us back."

Senior CB Vontez Duff

Getting Ready for BC...
"We've got to get focused and go back to the basics - fundamentals. It basically comes down to executing the defense."

On the game...
"They were on the right page. We got beat by a better team today. We didn't play as well as we know we can and we didn't make things happen."

USC Quotes

USC Head Coach Pete Carroll Quotes

On game...
"We're really proud of the way we played today. We didn't want to do anything special today; we wanted to come in and play like we're capable of playing and the situation proved that we could. We knew coming into halftime that this team plays really well in the second half and we did that today,"

On play of Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn...
"He's a very good quarterback and he's going to be great. We're going to have battles for years, I'm sure. He throws the ball really well, a big strong kid. But it's hard when you're this young. It's hard to be sharp the whole time and get your numbers up and be consistent."

On multi-dimensional play of freshman tailback Reggie Bush...
"Reggie had a great game for us today. I thought Coach [Norm] Chow had his game plan in order for using Reggie today and really exemplified that he can run in the open field and catch the ball down field. He's a terrific threat."

On tailback position...
"I love that we do have the different dimensions in our running backs. They are all good, they all could make things happen. They are not just single dimension guys; they can make things happen. It is really fun to mix them in. We can pound it with KenDale [White] and we can flash it with Hershel [Dennis]. Today it was Reggie [Bush]."

One early-season loss to California...
"It sickens me because our football team is so capable of being undefeated at this time but we played poorly one time. The three games after the loss have been terrific football games for us. We've been physical, tough on defense, and the quarterback has just played beautifully. It's no fluke, we're a pretty good football team. We can play good football and go into any setting to do that. I don't care about where we are in the polls, I just want to keep winning."

USC Player Quotes

#51 Melvin Simmons (LB) on Defensive Plan and Adjustments

"It takes time to get adjusted and for the most part we were trying to solidlify the edges and the coaches did a good job of keeping our scheme and making the proper adjustments."

#11 Matt Leinhart (QB)

"It was fun out there today. I thought we came out firing and got the job done. Everyone out there was doing their job and that made everything easy. I did what I had to do in leading the offense."

"Coach called a great game today and we had them mixed up and off balanced most of the day."

On Career Day ...

"It feels good to come here and have a career day at Notre Dame. It definitely pleases me a lot but we have to start preparing for next week."

#1 Mike Williams (WR)

"We ran the ball real well and I think that helped open everything up off play action. We just took what they gave us and kept attacking."

"We spread it out a lot because they liked to blitz and that allowed one-on-one match-ups on the outside and that gave Matt [Leinhart] easy reads."

#5 Reggie Bush (RB)

"The offense clicked on the same page all day. I believe that we just wanted it more than Notre Dame today. Coach gave me a chance today and I did what I could and we did a lot of different things out there and keep them off balanced."

	Days	Hours	Mins	Secs
	vs Connecticut