NOKIA SUGAR BOWL: AUBURN v VIRGINIA TECH

January 3, 2005

Jason Campbell

Tommy Tuberville

JASON CAMPBELL: First of all, you know, I do want to thank Coach Tuberville for allowing me to play this game, to play here at Auburn, all the people, all the writers, I hope that y'all help push for us to have an opportunity for us to be national champs. People just don't understand how hard it is to go 13-0. It takes a lot of focus week in and week out. We beat four top-10 team teams all year long, beat four teams that has a record of 10 or better, maybe five or six with a record of 9 or better. Hopefully people understand, I just hope that y'all can help push the situation.

JASON CAMPBELL: I think it should be a plus one, but I'm not going to sit here and say we're No. 2 behind anybody. I feel like we're No. 1. You know, for anyone that call us No. 2, you have to play it on the field. I feel we deserve to be co-national champs. Same situation as last year. I think we deserve the same opportunity.

JASON CAMPBELL: Yeah, you know, just to go 13-0 itself, I think a lot of people respect Virginia Tech as a team. If you understand they were one of the hottest teams coming down the stretch. They could have easily been 12-0 coming to this game. They lost to North Carolina State, a close one. They lost to USC at the beginning of the game because of some penalties. You look at them, they're a team that could have been 12-0 right here in the same situation.

JASON CAMPBELL: You know, I think I've learned to accept it more. You know, I think -- it feels better, you know, to go out this way, you know, because everything that I've been through. As a player. I feel like, you know, going out at this kind of moment with my teammates and coach and stuff, you know, just having an opportunity to be the MVP of the game, I think just I want to give honor to God. I think it's a long trip through all the things I've been through.

JASON CAMPBELL: Well, you know, our defense played hard, you know, all night our offense played hard. If you look at Virginia Tech, I think they was giving up on 12 points, 12 points per game. You know, our defense was leading the nation and not giving up points. You look at it, you knew it was going to be a defensive battle coming into the game. We got down to the red zone, probably had an opportunity to get a couple scores. You have to take your hat off to their defense. They wasn't giving us anything easy. I feel like everything we got tonight on offense we had to earn it.

JASON CAMPBELL: Well, I don't know what the reason was for, but I will tell you this. As a matter of fact, I do know what's reason was. The reason was to push us to be national champs. When I was on the opposite side of the field, I saw everyone running, so I just followed the crowd. I think we was on TV just trying to push it. People just have to understand that we played hard all year. I think for us to be national champs, we got to kind of push ourselves up that way also.

COACH TUBERVILLE: I'm kind of lost at words. What a season. Great year, tremendous football team. Played a great team tonight. I knew it was going to be a defensive battle. Everybody has been picking at two, three, four points. That's just exactly what it was. We just made a few more plays than they did. Again, it's two great football teams. It was like a 15-round boxing match. And they had no quit in 'em. They're well-coached, well-prepared. I told the team, the team that rushed the ball more than the other would win the game. Just looking at the stats here, we had 110 to, what, their 76. It makes me feel good that, you know, our players understand that you have to run the football. But, you know, we're not going to get into all this national championship stuff. We're 13-0. We won the SEC. We are one of the best teams in the country. Somebody is going to pick us national champions. That's all we want. We want to be recognized as a good football team. They're playing a game tomorrow night that's probably going to be a good game. Neither team is better than us. We'll play them any time, anywhere. We look forward to taking the challenge. But I know a lot of people are not going to vote for us because they say we played an easy schedule. Somebody needs to come play in the SEC, come watch a few games in the SEC, see how tough it is. Take a look at the ACC. We beat the champion of the ACC tonight on a neutral field and I thought we made a statement.

COACH TUBERVILLE: No, we was just trying to win the game. All year long, we didn't worry about beating people 30 or 40 points. We just wanted to win by one. You know, that's all that counts. If you got to win by style points, we need to throw out all these systems and not worry about national champions because it's about winning a game. But we did get conservative. That was my call and it worked obviously. It worked all year long. I wouldn't change a thing. But I thought we had them on their heels. We made that fumble in the fourth quarter, about six minutes to go. That pretty much could have sealed it if we would have made that first down. But again, we seem to make things a little bit difficult, especially in tough games.

COACH TUBERVILLE: Just tremendous. And we knew that we could stop the run tonight. We felt like that we matched up pretty well against them other than Randall running the ball. So Gene Chizik and our coaches did a good job of stopping the run, forcing them to throw the football. You know, they're not a football team that is going to be consistently throwing the ball down the field. And we forced them to do it. They hit us on one big play right there at the end, we just made a major mistake. But then again, they made a good play.

COACH TUBERVILLE: They run an eight-man front. Means they play three deep in the secondary. What you try to do is try to widen the seams. Our first play of the game, we tried to go down the middle of the field and throw it to Ronnie. They were well-prepared, I tell you, well-coached. We knew that if we were going to get anything deep, we were going to have to make them may a major mistake. And they didn't make too many major mistakes tonight. Again, we were just trying to win the game, ball control, especially the second half, then going into the fourth quarter, we kind of let the air out of it and, again, it worked for us.

COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, it wasn't many people picking us to win this thing by very many points. Again, I thought that, you know, people watching the game, this is a Bowl game, is been a month since both teams played. Both teams were a little bit off offensively because there's two great defenses. You win championships with great defenses, not offenses. You know, you can look at our football team, it's well-rounded. We can run it, we can throw it, we can play pass defense, we can play run defense. Our special teams were great tonight. We're a well-rounded team that is 13-0. We can't do any more than what we did. So we'll accept some national championship from somebody, if anybody wants to give it to us.

COACH TUBERVILLE: It doesn't make -- I don't think we even get to vote, to be honest with you. I think the winner of the game tomorrow night automatically gets the trophy in the coach's poll. I think you can vote 2 through 25, but you can't vote for No. 1. That's how it's set. But if anybody's out there got an AP vote, we'd appreciate it (smiling).

COACH TUBERVILLE: I'm for one more game after the Bowls. I'm not for an eight- or 16-team playoff. It's just too long. There's not enough scholarship players. It's a survival contest. I've been in 1AA playoffs before. It's just not fair for the players. There's no reason we shouldn't play one more game after all the Bowl games and make millions of dollars and split it up, because that's basically what it's all about anyway.

COACH TUBERVILLE: I thought that was the key to the game, when we stopped them on the goal line stand and made them throw the ball from the one yard line. You know, that means that, you know, we had convinced them we could stop the run and we did a good job making him get out of the pocket and throw it. He threw it behind the receiver a little bit. Again, it all comes down to defense. You know, defense wins championships. I've been on three national championship teams, and every team plays great defense. You know, you can win consistently with defensive play. And we did that tonight.

COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, we were just trying to win the game. We felt like it was going to be somewhere between 14 and 20 points to win the game. That's what we felt like it would take for us to win. We were counting points up points as we were going along. We knew our defense would play well and consistently. But that's what that all was about. Again, we didn't do anything after the first drive of the third quarter on offense. It was my call. Told Al just run the clock. They needed three scores to win the game. All we were wanting to be is 13-0. We didn't care anything about scoring a bunch of points because it's about winning, it's not about point spreads. I keep hearing all these people talk, last year, take the margin of victory out. That's what you should do. Again, when people vote, they should look at how well-rounded this team is from top to bottom. That's what national champions are made of.

COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, you hope you can win it every year. But it's awfully difficult. I mean, it's real difficult. You know, this team is a special team. This is what college football's about. That group of players in that room in there is an ideal model for college football, the way they handle themselves on and off the field, in the classroom, how they play, the effort. You know, it's just an amazing football team. And for this team not to have any consideration in the AP poll for being No. 1, it would be a crying shame, because that's what it's about. It's not about anything but winning games and winning the right way. And that's how this team did. Hopefully the writers will give us the look of possibly having a split because how in the world can you keep a team that's 13-0 out of winning a national championship? I mean, it would be a crying shame.

COACH TUBERVILLE: Oh, no doubt. No doubt. Somebody will pick us. You know, I've got a subscription to Golf Digest. I'm going to call them and ask them if they'll vote us No. 1. It means as much as the other ones. I'm telling you right now, when you went 13-0, you should be national champion. There's no doubt about it. There's no reason not to because we've done all we could do. We beat more Top 10 teams than anybody. We've been at consistent as anybody. Let's just, you know, see what happens.