TOSTITOS FIESTA BOWL: NOTRE DAME v OREGON STATE

January 1, 2001

Dennis Erickson

Darnell Robinson

Jonathan Smith

COACH ERICKSON: Well, it was a tremendous football game for us. What can you say? We came out and played in all three phases about as well as we have all year. I look at our special teams, sometimes we forget about them, but Notre Dame is awfully good in special teams. I thought our special teams played extremely well. Offensively, of course, in the first half, we struggled some; didn't get it in the red zone when we needed to. It's 12-3 at halftime. We played very well defensively. I thought in the second half the football team hadn't turned it over all year, we got a lot of turnovers. Obviously, that was the difference in the football game. That's probably as well as we played all year. We turned it over only one time at the end of the game. We've been like -- that protected the ball well. We played well on both sides. Defensively I thought we totally dominated. Offensively we mixed it up real well. Just a great win for the program. Think where we were a couple years ago to now, all of a sudden, play in the Fiesta Bowl and become 11-1 is just kind of an unrealistic story, a real story. I mean, it's exciting. Our players deserve it, and coaches. They've done a tremendous job. I'll answer any questions that you might have.

COACH ERICKSON: I wasn't real happy by any means. We had opportunities. Could have been 21-3. We had an opportunity at the end of the half when it was 3rd and 31 to get the ball back. We get a dumb penalty. So offensively we didn't play as well as we should have. We didn't get in it. I've been in games like that where you blow opportunities. They come back to haunt you. Fortunately, they didn't come back to haunt us. Again, it shouldn't have been 12-3, but it was. Came in, talked to them: "Just keep playing." We did.

COACH ERICKSON: Again, we had some dumb penalties. I'm not going to have any excuses for that. I'm the one that's responsible for that. But also there were some penalties that should have or shouldn't have been called, too, in that thing. The bottom line is there's a fine line with aggression and how you play, about doing the right things. A couple times we didn't. We're a very aggressive football team. That's just how we play. That's just how we are.

COACH ERICKSON: We really felt we could move it down and score. No question about it. The great thing we were playing great on defense. We knew we were going to get that football back. When you're playing great on defense, it gives your offense a lot of opportunities. We knew eventually we were going to get the ball in the end zone.

COACH ERICKSON: Well, we're playing with a lot of confidence. I guess we don't play again next week (laughter). This team has played with confidence all year. The more games that we won, the more confidence we had. They have confidence in each other and they believe in each other. Good football teams have that. That changes, of course, every year. The real good teams have confidence in themselves and confidence in each other. We've had that pretty much all year.

COACH ERICKSON: I couldn't believe it. Our fans, when we came out to warm up, as we were coming in from the locker room, it was unbelievable. I don't know how many we had. I mean, there was a home-field advantage, there's no question about it. You could see it during the week, coming into town as they progressed. Last night we went to a separate hotel as a team. You could see Boosters out there, people in orange. You saw it again today coming into the stadium. I mean, we had an advantage. We had more fans than they did. They were very vocal.

COACH ERICKSON: Anytime you're in a bowl like this, you get national exposure, they're going to know your program. They're going to know that this program has the chance to be real good. Also there will be some young people out there that are playing high school football right now that will see that, too. It helps everything. It helps recruiting. It just helps everything. We just continue to build. Obviously, this is 2000 season, and we got next year. It's going to help us a heck of a lot.

COACH ERICKSON: Yeah. When Darnell hit him in the back, knocked that ball out, to me that was the turning point in the game. We got the ball, went right in and scored. That was a big play for us. There's no question about that. That was a big play. Then we returned the punt. You know things are going good, you return the punt, fumble, pick it up and go into the end zone. Jonathan, I told you to stop with those cigars (laughter).

JONATHAN SMITH: It was obviously exciting. I came out, had a good week of practice. I was coming in confident. I think my confidence grew when I got some wide receivers making plays for me. They were running wide open half the time. Some of the balls I could have thrown could have been better ones. We would have gone off and run with them. I played with TJ, Chad, Robert, all three of them great all year. Marty had some big-time catches in the first half. Again, I just try to put guys into position to make plays and they did tonight.

DARNELL ROBINSON: Well, he knows what kind of players he has. When he first came to the program, he broke into the system. He knew if he led us, we was going to follow. He gave us a lot of confidence and told us this year we had to win offense and defense, we couldn't be one-sided. I think that was the key to our success.

JONATHAN SMITH: I agree with Darnell. Coach Erickson said it and we followed. His leadership is beyond X's and O's. He's a great motivator. Anytime he says, "Jonathan, I think we can go 12-0," I believe him. I thought we could have.

DARNELL ROBINSON: When you step on the field, you respect Notre Dame. But you know when you on the field, it's not about tradition, it's about making plays. We wanted to go out and play our game, execute our scheme, run to the ball, play fast.

JONATHAN SMITH: Some of that I attributed to our field position. We were backed up a lot of time but were able to move it. Guys were wide open that I was able to hit. We came out with some confidence. I don't think nerves entered into it too much. We were more excited than nervous. We started clicking from the first drive.