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ROSE BOWL GAME: TEXAS v SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

December 31, 2005

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA

Q. For both defensive ends, obviously you guys with that zone read, Vince keys off of what you guys are doing. How do you prepare for something like that with a guy that can execute it as well as Vince does?
LAWRENCE JACKSON: It comes down to discipline and technique. If you do the right -- if you're doing the right thing at the right times, it should eliminate the read that he has. But I've seen him take the ball and use his athleticism to beat the defense around the corner off of the read. It's on us to eliminate the first read and be where we're supposed to be, but there's also ten other guys out there that's going to help us. So we're really worried about that first read, but I'm pretty sure he's going to break the container a few times because he's a great quarterback, but it's our job to eliminate that.
Q. Who gets the best grade of your three guys who are trying to simulate Vince? Do any of the three guys actually play like him?
FROSTEE RUCKER: I don't think anyone in America can play like Vince does, and that's why he was up for the Heisman. I think we have guys like Michael Coleman, he's been around a little bit to help out. He's a terrific player, too. We've been trying to simulate Vince the best we can. I mean, no one can, but Mike gives us the best look running around the corner as fast as he can and running some guys over. That's what we're going to have to deal with.
Vince is a big, strong guy. I sized him up the other day at Disneyland, and he was looking eye-to-eye with me, and he looked like he weighed just as much as I did, too. We're going to have our hands full.
SCOTT WARE: We have to put a running back in to really simulate his running style and then throw a quarterback in there to throw his deep balls for him. That made it a little easier in practice because we knew they were going to be running the tape play, we knew they were going to be throwing the ball. I think Michael Coleman did an excellent job of running hard and bringing it to us and really challenging us.
Q. This is for Scott and Lawrence. I know that Frostee wants to be a broadcaster after his football career, and I was wondering if he's ever offered you any play-by-play commentary on your performance during the game, maybe film reviews, that's caused you to think that maybe somebody is going to be watching you in the future?
SCOTT WARE: Not me. It might be Lawrence.
Q. Any funny comments on anything like that?
LAWRENCE JACKSON: Where do you want me to start out? Frostee always -- he's a senior, he has a lot of experience, and he's been through so many different situations and so many different opponents. As a younger player, you have no choice but to respect what he has to say. It's kind of like a bigger brother, smaller bigger brother relationship -- I don't want to say little brother. But he really does the best he can to guide me in the right way because I can't see everything that he can see and vice versa, and he just really helps keep me in line and keep me focused being that I'm such a young player and whatnot, but he also likes to pick on me and tell me something I did wrong that the coach doesn't see, so I can always count on that.
Q. Scott, Billy Pittman and Limas Sweed said they were essentially licking their chops to get at you in the secondary. Do you have any concerns about matching up with them? What's your primary motivation there facing those guys?
SCOTT WARE: Just watching them, they go after the ball very well. They're good receivers, pretty physical. I don't necessarily know what you're looking for with my answer. We don't have any secret to stopping them that nobody else had. Corners and safeties and linebackers will help once in a while and try and get physical with them and intimidate them a little bit.
Q. For Frostee and Lawrence, could you each give your thoughts on what you see from the Texas tackles, Jonathan Scott and also Justin Blalock, just give us your thoughts?
FROSTEE RUCKER: Both guys are very big and very well. Their whole line is. Those two guys are probably the key things because we have to go against them, and they're Big 12 players and things like that. We know what they have in store for us. But they have great punches, their pass reads, everything, their run reads, they're really sound. They have a great offensive line coach that keeps them on point with that.
We know it's going to be a tough physical game, and we've been getting ready for that. We're very confident in what we do over here at Southern Cal as well as I know they are over there at Texas. So I just can't wait for that match-up.
LAWRENCE JACKSON: They're athletic guys, they're tall, they have long arms, they really do very well what the coaches ask them to do out of the offense. The only thing that we can do to get prepared for it is prepare for them on a daily basis at practice and get extra workout after practice. Because they've been in the games, they're good offensive tackles, as well. Simulating them is going to be hard, but we have great competition that we go against every day. With film review and confidence and technique, we know we're going to go out there and we're going to execute what the coaches ask us to do. They're great players, we're just looking for a great match-up, me and Frostee.
Q. I guess this goes more for the guys who are upper classmen. Have there been any moments in this season, since you've had an up-and-down season with injuries and turnovers, where you just got particularly frustrated, moments of maybe getting in guys' faces and saying, "Listen, we don't play this way"? Tempers ever boiled over? Was there a moment of we need to be better and this is how we need to get better?
FROSTEE RUCKER: Well, personally from my standpoint, I don't think we really dwelled on getting in guys' faces and things like that. We had to overcome a lot of things like the injuries. You know, there's nothing we can do about that. It's more about the experience that those guys are going to have and the guys' lack of it. That's why sometimes others made plays, because they just didn't have the experience to be in the game. As the season prevailed and as it went on, all these guys have matured so much. We started as freshman. We've had a lot of guys like Ryan and Brandon Ting, guys people would think would never play. But we needed them and they stepped up and they've done a great job for us.
I've proud of those guys for even doing the things they've done. They've hung in there. They've had a lot of guys in front of them. We've mixed guys around; Josh Pinkard have been mixing around and he's just doing an awesome job and he's really physical and really athletic, and it's helping out. We credit ourselves, we've got a great recruiting class, and all these guys are really happy that they can play different positions and it's working for us.
SCOTT WARE: I think the big thing is that it wasn't a lack of effort that was part of our struggles. We always knew we didn't have to get in their faces about that. It was young kids coming in not necessarily knowing everything. We knew it was going to take time for them to get comfortable with defense and all of that.
Q. You know what it was like when you had curfew when you played Michigan in the Rose Bowl two years ago. How weird is it you're not playing until January 4th but it's still a Rose Bowl?
LAWRENCE JACKSON: I don't even know what day it is today. The coaches have done a great job of really brainwashing us to believe that it's whatever day it is on a number of game week. Today is turnover Wednesday, so that's the only thing that I'm going by. Other than that, it really doesn't feel any different than any other game.
FROSTEE RUCKER: Being when you get to the Bowl time, you get your standard week and that's what we go by. It doesn't matter what day it falls on. The whole schedule of it is just our whole Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday schedule. Coach Carroll has us doing it great, so we're going to keep going with it.
To you, Scott.
SCOTT WARE: Yeah, they lied to us two days ago and told us it was Monday. We came out and passed and we had kickoff team, which we never have on a Monday. We had service team, which we never have on a Monday. Practice was about a half hour longer than any other Monday we've ever had. They tried to make it sound like a Monday, but it wasn't Monday. Then yesterday was competition Tuesday and today is turnover Wednesday, and I think we've got two or three Thursdays coming up (laughter). So we don't know what day it is at all.
Q. For all the guys, what's your strongest memory of the victory over Notre Dame?
SCOTT WARE: I grabbed the last kickoff that we had that kept pitching around. I held onto the ball for dear life and gave it to my sister after the game. That was a big memory.
The 4th down-play was a big memory. Everybody on the sidelines holding hands, praying, which doesn't usually happen. When their fans all rushed the field, kind of feeling disbelief like this isn't how it ends, this can't be the end of it, the game is not over, that sort of thing.
FROSTEE RUCKER: I think my biggest memory was losing and winning at the same time in the matter of a couple seconds. It was pretty tough. We pride ourselves in the streak that we have going and the amount of working hours we put into this. It's a lot of hard work, and when their fans rushed the field, it was like, you've got to be kidding me. This can't be; it's us, you know.
And then we had that one more play to get it done. We're just truly blessed that Matt and Reggie were on point with that, and they did their thing. That was the biggest memory, just winning and losing for me at the same time.
LAWRENCE JACKSON: My moment had to be the couple plays leading up to the 4th and 9 where they kept going to Reggie, and Reggie was doing his best to help the team out. And on the sideline I was just really looking at him and Matt go to work together with the offensive line blocking and them executing. As a defensive player, you really don't know the offense's plan, so you just are hoping that they have their best plays working in those crucial situations, and we got stopped a few times and then we faced almost an impossible 4th and 9, and on the sideline, it just had to be like -- you had to wonder, I hope they bring out their best 4th and 9 play that they have. You can never anticipate that it was going to be the perfect pass, the perfect catch and the perfect play that Matt Leinart did.
For us, like Frostee said, the last moments, it was my first time as a player here feeling what it feels like to lose, and you just -- with their fans rushing on the field, you didn't know that the referee had made the call and Matt fumbled. So it was a sense of disappointment, and then they cleared everybody out and they ran their little sneak play and just brought a little bit of life back into me.
Q. Scott, does your sister still have the football?
SCOTT WARE: Yeah, she has it up on her mantle.
Q. What's her name?
SCOTT WARE: Sara.
LAWRENCE JACKSON: Your sister has a football?
SCOTT WARE: Yeah.
LAWRENCE JACKSON: I don't have a football.
Q. What's turnover Wednesday?
FROSTEE RUCKER: Turn over the ball, offense turns over a ball a lot and go out and get the ball. That's what it's all about, the competition that Coach Carroll has going. You've got to strive for the ball the whole practice, from the beginning and on through. It's all about getting the ball. Being a defensive lineman, when they are pass rushing, get to the ball. That's the whole thing, get to the ball. It's worked out. Turnover Wednesday.
SCOTT WARE: And they count up all the turnover attempts that we have all day and announce it to us the next day, who had the most attempts for each position group.
Q. Is there a record?
SCOTT WARE: No, I don't think we have any standing records.
LAWRENCE JACKSON: The defensive line got 100 attempts. What are you talking about?
FROSTEE RUCKER: He doesn't remember the records.
Q. When did you get 100 attempts?
LAWRENCE JACKSON: Oh, it was a joke. It's pretty hard for us to get attempts because most of the time --
SCOTT WARE: Because I run by you all the time (laughter).
LAWRENCE JACKSON: When we get to the quarterback, obviously we can't hit the quarterback and we have to stay out of a certain area that they have for him. But the linebackers and safeties get to the running backs a lot sooner than we can when we're playing, so we have to try to get the tail end of the stuff in the practice. But in the game I think that's when we really do our dirty work and get our attempts.
Q. Frostee, guys from USC who go in the NFL draft might go to teams that lose all the time and lose a lot. Is that going to be a weird experience, for SC players to go to a losing team?
FROSTEE RUCKER: Well, it couldn't hurt to help out the other guys that don't understand what winning is all about. You can't go in there being a rookie and be like, okay, guys, this is how we're going to win, listen to me. You can't say that. It helps going in there. You know you have a winning attitude and you know how to work. That's what it's all about. You don't just win; we really work out what we do, and I think it's pretty tough if you go in there and you get a couple losses and don't really understand what's going on.
I talked to Mike Williams, he was my roommate, and it's really tough for him because he was never used to this. When he started last year and helped out with this winning tradition that we've got going, it was just really tough for him, just battling through their coach getting fired and people getting hurt and quarterbacks and stuff, it was just very tough for him, to be out there on an island by himself in Detroit, it's pretty tough.
There you go.
Q. It might be turnover Wednesday to you guys, but to us it's New Year's Eve. Do you guys have any plans for tonight?
FROSTEE RUCKER: No plans.
Q. Coach Carroll is not in the room.
FROSTEE RUCKER: I think they've got something going on at the hotel. I mean, personally I'm not really into it right now. I'm really concentrating on watching a little bit more film and just getting my things down and getting ready for this game. I have a couple more New Years that I can celebrate, but right now get down to business and understand what we've got going.
Q. For all three of you, you guys have been a part of something truly extraordinary. I know it's ongoing right now, but after Wednesday a lot of people will be going their separate ways to the National Football League and other things. Because of the sense of camaraderie that you've achieved, is there a real sense, even though it's unspoken, that you really want to go out with a bang and that this is going to be something to remember this group by?
LAWRENCE JACKSON: Yeah, this is something special we're a part of, the opportunity to win a third National Championship, and the guys on the team, the guys that I've come in with, Reggie and LenDale and an opportunity to play with Matt and Frostee and Scott, you just know that it's a possibility that this could be your last game with some of these guys, just the battles that you've been through, the tough times, the character games that we all had where you really know who's tough and who isn't, and all the guys on the team have constantly proved that we're champions, we're fighters, and we're going to go down to the last bit, the last minute of the game, even the last second.
So just knowing that this can be the last time, we really want to go out with a bang and just relish the opportunity that we have to play with each other one more time and do something special that could go down in history. Obviously it's hard to understand everything that's behind this game with all the challenges that we have ahead of us, but knowing that we have a chance to go down in history and these are the guys that are going to be remembered for a long time, it's incredible, and we're just really trying to go out with a bang.
FROSTEE RUCKER: Like Lawrence said, over and over again.
SCOTT WARE: For me it's been crazy coming from a junior college, you know, making the decision out of high school not to take a scholarship to one AA school and decide that I could play better football than that and waiting it out and then coming here and getting put right in my first year, getting hurt, end up going to a National Championship game, winning a National Championship and then coming back to my second one. I'd love to go out undefeated as a Trojan.
FROSTEE RUCKER: I think what they both said. Everyone coming from a different area and being able to contribute, to know that Coach Carroll has blocked it out of our mind the whole year about three-peat and everything that had to go on about it. We're finally here, and you can't help but to -- like I say, not block it out, but you can't help think about it. We have a tremendous opportunity to do something really wonderful and create history, you know, and for me it's just -- my time is winding down, like Lawrence said, being in the huddle with some of these guys and seeing the guys at Heritage Hall and the facilities and being a part of this Trojan thing we've got going, it's going to be tough for me; it's my final game and I won't be able to put on that Trojan helmet anymore. That so far in my life has been the best thing that's gone right for me, and it's helped me out so much in my structure of life, getting together my things. That's just the main thing I'm going to miss a lot.
Q. Your thoughts about going up against a Texas offense that's got really three running backs that all carry the ball quite a bit, just how does that change things for you defensively?
FROSTEE RUCKER: Time to go, play ball. It's a big man's game, and I think it starts up front. That's where we like it the best way.
We get to be a real key factor in the game, and anytime you get to do that, know you're going to be around the ball, that's the best thing. We know all those guys that are going to be able to touch the ball are just gifted athletes and gifted players and they've got their team here undefeated. As we know, it's very tough to do that with everyone targeting at you, and all the year it's "are they going to lose, this team should have beat them." You've got to deal with that stuff. It's tough for us being in LA, the media capital of the world. Things are flying at us all the time. I think to be focused and to win like we both have and to be undefeated to get on this stage is just huge.
Q. When Pete Carroll was in the NFL, one of the things you'd hear people say is he's not enough of a dictator, but you can't win 34 straight games without having a consistent approach. I wonder if all three of you could address why he works so well as a head coach.
FROSTEE RUCKER: I think one of the conversations I had with Coach Carroll when I came here, I was just like, so the NFL, how did it all work and things like that. He just said, there it's about money. It's a business. These guys get a lot of money and they act like I owe them something, and it's not about that. Some of the guys -- he didn't say any names or anything, but they forget about the level of the game.
When he got here, he got to be around a group of young men that we all wanted to win. We were all based from mainly Southern Cal and a couple guys from Northern Cal and a couple other places. But we all wanted to win. He's a great leader and a players' coach. At this young age we really need that. It's not about the money because we don't have that. It's about trying to put together what we've done now. He's helped out so much with his personality and him just being the great person that he is.
LAWRENCE JACKSON: For me it's the fact that he's a players' coach. He's somebody that you want to go out and practice for every day and play for in a game because the same effort that you're exerting, you can rely on the fact that he's going to put that same energy and effort in as well as his coaching staff. They work hard and they understand that there's a time to work and there's a time to play, and they do a lot of great things for us to keep us focused and not getting bored with the intensity of practice. He just does a great job of understanding all of our personalities as a whole and what it's going to take for us to stay focused. Different events, he'll bring a computer and say let's go to the movies, which he did before camp. Just stuff like that, it really breaks the barrier down between a player and a coach because you don't look at him as a coach; you look at him as a friend who has your best interests at heart, as well as a leader.
You can expect him to go out there and do the best thing that he can to put you in a position to win, and just that belief and that attitude has really allowed us to flourish as a team.
SCOTT WARE: I think he just has too much fun for the NFL. He likes to be around us kids having the best time of our lives in college and have complete control over all aspects of football and that sort of thing. He enjoys that aspect of it.

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ROSE BOWL GAME: TEXAS v SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

December 31, 2005

Lawrence Jackson

Frostee Rucker

Scott Ware