TOSTITOS FIESTA BOWL: TENNESSEE v NEBRASKA

January 2, 2000

Phillip Fulmer

Tee Martin

Donte' Stallworth

COACH FULMER: First of all, I sure don't feel as good sitting here as I did last year about this time. Have to congratulate Nebraska. They're a very, very fine football team. It's hard to spot a very, very fine football team 14 points and win. We made enough mistakes tonight on both sides of the ball to, you know, lose the football game, lose two football games. Even at that, if a team can take you 99 and 96 yards on you when you're close to 17, 14, obviously they're something special. We had a lot of opportunities, particularly field position in both halves actually, but first half. Didn't take advantage of that. I was proud of our kids. I don't think we quit. I felt they fought right to the end. Went for those fourth downs, those kinds of things, to try to stay in the football game. We ran into a good team. Obviously, Tee did well, Donte' Stallworth and other kids. Just wasn't to be.

COACH FULMER: Not that I can remember, no. I'm sure somebody has taken it 99 yards, but maybe not quite like that. Very impressive drive, both of them were. You know, we had them -- on one of them we had them third and I think 13 and something like that, they converted it.

COACH FULMER: We're certainly going to miss him. I've talked about it a hundred times, you know. Tee's athletic ability and ability to throw the ball and manage a game, be a quarterback, is obvious. His numbers of wins, statistically, you know, you can just watch him play and you know he's a great player. The thing that's special about Tee Martin is Tee Martin the person, how he goes about his business to lead by example. He's a good person. We have a favorite saying, You can tell a lot more about a person on what he does when the coach isn't around. Tee is one of those guys. You know he's always going to be doing the right things whether the coach is around or his parents are around, anybody is around, he's going to do the right thing. He's a great young man. He's been a great leader for us, and we're going to miss him a lot.

TEE MARTIN: I knew it was big in their game plan to keep me in the pocket, not allow me to get outside of the pocket. It was good on their part for a game plan. It didn't happen that way a few times. I was about to scramble, get out of the pocket. I got tripped a couple times, grabbed a couple more times. Their guys just play hard, crawling, scratching, whatever they have to do to get to the quarterback. This is a game of inches. Coach Fulmer always says it's a game of inches. Inch here and inch there, it would have been a different football game. It was unfortunate.

TEE MARTIN: That's just the game, you know. Take the bitter with the sweet. Last year, threw the same type balls and they were caught, and we were national champions. I was up here with a different feeling last season. This year, different. Different outcome of the football game. You have to take your ups and your downs with the same attitude. As a quarterback, I can't show my frustration. Obviously you want guys to catch the ball. Sometimes I don't get the ball the way it's supposed to be. I'm sure they feel the same way, too. I'm not complaining, saying I'm frustrated about that.

TEE MARTIN: Right. It's a bad feeling, you know, to actually lose the last football game. Lost two games this season. Obviously we bounced back from football games. Felt like we played our best two football games at the end of our season and came into this game with a good attitude and good feeling for it. We lost. It's the last football game, the last few minutes I'm going to be in this uniform. You know, I'm just recollecting on all my career, the guys I've met, the great experiences I've had here. It's going to be hard to say good-bye.

COACH FULMER: We did. I think we took the approach at the beginning of the year that we could repeat. We really felt like we could. Our kids worked that way, I think in the summer, the off-season. We've had an X on our back for a while, not with just last year, but it got big and red this year, magnified. After the disappointing loss at Florida, basically the 15 penalties in the ballgame, we still had a chance with three or four minutes left to win that one, our kids I think were real disappointed. But they showed the character to be the right type of team to fight back. We had a great run. We moved as high as two in the BCS, then got upset at Arkansas. All of a sudden, the National Championship was out, the SEC Championship was out. I think a lot of people thought this team would just kind of cruise, try to cruise through, maybe get beat. Actually what Tee said is true. We played our two best ballgames at the end of the year, and really had good preparation for this ballgame. It's disappointing, I guess, when you look at the overall picture. But it's hard to be disappointed in these kids and what they've done, how they've fought, all that they've overcome. Two years ago, we took the lessons from Nebraska, came back and had an awful fine year the following year. Maybe we can do the same thing. There's always a positive in most negatives if you have the right type of character. I believe we have the right type character in this program.

COACH FULMER: It was a concern. We talked about it as a team from the time we started. We knew they were going to make some plays and we were going to make some plays. I really felt like we would run the ball a little bit better than we did. I knew we could make some plays in the passing game. Although I didn't know we'd be throwing it as much as we ended up doing. We wanted to run 80 plays, then run 60. I don't even know if we got 60 in this ballgame. I haven't seen any statistics. That's the thing that they do, and they do it well. I will say this: We've been on that side, too. We've had people on their heels, they couldn't get up, couldn't recover. We've kept it. You know, now we know what it feels like.

COACH FULMER: No. I'd say we got another good lesson tonight, you know. I think you guys said that mostly. I think the fact that we have been a better running football team since then, tonight is not a very good example of that.

COACH FULMER: Probably should have run it a long time ago, I guess, if it was going to work like that. We've worked on it, I don't know, since mid-season, I guess. Needed something to happen. They executed it well.

DONTE' STALLWORTH: Cedrick played quarterback in high school. All the coaches knew he could play quarterback and throw the ball well. Nebraska seen the (inaudible) pass three or four times in the game. They weren't worried about the game. Cedrick made a great throw. I just ran under it and made a catch.

DONTE' STALLWORTH: Tee is a great guy, great leader. He's out there making everybody do their jobs a little harder. It's going to be different. He's moving on, so we'll have to move on also. I love him. He's my cousin. I'm going to talk to him, keep in touch with him. He's going to move on, and we're going to have to move on without him.