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SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 22, 2008

Greg Robinson

COACH ROBINSON: Just a great day for our football team. Really a great day for our program, come into South Bend, to pull it off. It really isn't necessarily a surprise at all to our football team. They knew that somewhere along the line this team was going to do something special. This was an opportunity for them that they knew they had to make the most of. I give them a lot of credit. I give the coaches a lot of credit. Did a great job.
13-10 halftime, it could have been, Oh, boy. No, the team didn't act that way. The coaches didn't act that way. Just a lot of good things happened. A lot of people stepped up and made plays when they had to make plays.
Very proud of our football team.

Q. For those of us who don't cover you, where did Bailey come from?
COACH ROBINSON: He's not a surprise. He's played a little bit already this season. Had a 29-yard touchdown run against Louisville. He's a talented young football player, a true freshman, one that I think has got a great career ahead of him, on top of his 3.5 GPA and his 1190 SAT. I don't know why Notre Dame wasn't talking to him. St. John Baptist in D.C. No, I'm just playing (laughter).

Q. You really stuffed their run. They had under 50 yards rushing. Talk about how you accomplished that.
COACH ROBINSON: Really nothing special. We just went out and played. We really just played our game. We did very little blitzing or whatever until certain situations we did. We played. Our guys tackled well. I thought the hitting was outstanding because I think a couple of those guys are good-sized backs, tough runners. I thought we knocked 'em around pretty good.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about the last drive for the final touchdown, Cam's play.
COACH ROBINSON: I don't know about just Cam. You knew we were going to get there, you really did. Cam really I thought just hung tough the whole game, never got really rattled at all. The toughest thing getting down there at that end is the crowd noise. I thought our guys did a good job of dealing with it down there. Earlier in the game we didn't. Did a much better job. We went on a quick count there at the end so we didn't have to deal with a lot of noise.
But I just give them all credit. I thought that Cam did a good job, receivers stepped up, made a couple plays, and then Antwon doing his thing. But there were people blocking him, too. It was a heck of a drive.

Q. Is it still special in 2008 to come into South Bend and beat Notre Dame?
COACH ROBINSON: You know, it is to me because the first college football game I ever saw was in the L.A. Coliseum, and it was 1960, okay? It was Notre Dame versus USC. I'm telling you, I wasn't rooting for USC. So it was very special for me. That day, the coaches won, if I'm not mistaken.
Anyway, it's special for me, but it's real special for our program. Real special. You know, the thing is, I want it so badly for our team, to be able to show on a true national television audience what they're capable of doing, and they did.

Q. On the field after the game the players immediately started chanting, G-Rob, indicating they won the game for you or were playing for you. What did that mean to you?
COACH ROBINSON: That's a term. It's like texting, you know, whatever. It's a shortened version of Greg Robinson, okay?
But you know what, they're good guys. This is a heck of a football team. They know I have strong feelings for them, and I'd like to believe they have strong feelings for me. That has nothing to do with -- I'm not getting into the political world. I'm proud of them, and they make me feel good to do that.

Q. A wild week for you. Can you recap that with the highs and lows emotionally.
COACH ROBINSON: It really has not been any different than any other week. You guys think I'm crazy when I tell you that. It is for the few minutes that I talk to the media. I don't mean that in any sarcastic way at all. But as far as dealing with our football team, all we did was go to work. We planned and prepared for Notre Dame. We had a fine practice on Tuesday outside. It was a bitter cold day, all right? It was snowing on us. They worked right through that. Wednesday we went back outside. It was up to about 33. They worked their tails off. Then Thursday we went into the dome and had a real fine practice in there.
That's what it's been. It really has been just that and nothing else.

Q. Can you talk about the third quarter, I believe the blocked punt, then the fumble recovery.
COACH ROBINSON: The defense stood up big, made plays when they had to. I go back to training camp, okay? I told people in our media there in Syracuse, I said, You know, it's going to take a while for this defense, but they're gonna be a good defense, okay? You know, it sounds like I'm making excuses for them back then, but I wasn't. Knew we had issues. We were young. We had real inexperience in the back end. The secondary played very well today. Everybody did.
But they're a good defense right now. Last week, if you took two plays away, they did a great job a week ago against Connecticut. I see what they're doing. They're on the come. I'm proud of 'em because they've hung tough and they bought in. They've been rewarded with a great performance today.

Q. Cam's dad obviously is a basketball legend here. Did you expect more emotion out of him because of that?
COACH ROBINSON: I don't know. You'll have to ask him. I didn't sense that. I sensed the cool, calm Cam. Not a lot of highs and lows with Cam. He's pretty steady. I thought he played the game that way, too.
Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

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