TOSTITOS FIESTA BOWL: OHIO STATE v MIAMI

December 29, 2002

Rob Chudzinski

Sherko Haji-Rasouli

Andre Johnson

Willis McGahee

ANDRE JOHNSON: I can't rely on last year's game going into this game. It's a different game. This is a different game so I have to come into this game, you know, and approach it just like any other game and just prepare like I would for any other game.

ROB CHUDZINSKI: Well, you know, I think the thing is Ohio State plays a lot of zone coverage. It's not going to be Andre and Gamble against each other. Obviously with us moving their corners and formations around. It's going to be -- a lot of times it's not going to be those two. It's not going to come down to one-on-one match-ups. It's going to be our team and their team their defense, our offense. Guys performing and doing their jobs. You look at Ohio State. They're a great defense because they're not just one player. We don't rely on one player as well. I don't see it as a match-up between two specific guys like that.

ROB CHUDZINSKI: He's a tremendous athlete. He's been able to play offense and defense as well. It's going to be a great challenge for Andre and I know he's going to be up for the challenge. I know Gamble will be as well.

WILLIS McGAHEE: It's been okay. We have been enjoying the sights, seeing a lot of mountains.

ROB CHUDZINSKI: I've seen him with a lot of Tostitos in his hands.

ANDRE JOHNSON: Pretty much the same. Me and Willis went to the mall yesterday. That was about it. Other than that, sitting in the game room.

SHERKO HAJI-RASOULI: We hung out for a little bit, see the town a little bit. There is a lot of nice people in this town, a lot of nice places to see. We have been doing a little bit of that.

ANDRE JOHNSON: It's an advantage for me so I have to use it because it's an advantage to me. So anything that's to my advantage, I will use it.

ANDRE JOHNSON: Sometimes he gambles believes on balls. Other than that, he's a great player. He goes out and makes plays.

ROB CHUDZINSKI: People asked me all the time if I was surprised at the year Willis had. The answer is no. I expected him to have a great season. He's always been a guy whose been patient and waiting for his time to come. He saw an opportunity in the spring with Clint Portis coming out earlier and Willis knew he needed to be the man for our team and really carry the load for us. He had a great summer. I don't think anybody has ever worked harder in the summertime than he has. He earned everything he's gotten this year.

ROB CHUDZINSKI: My family still calls and reminds me. Honestly, I had a lot more ticket requests than I could accommodate on. I know probably other than my immediate family, most are rooting for Ohio State. It's a great thrill. It's a great university, a great place, they're a great team. Like I said before, our guys are really excited about the challenge for us as an offense. This is a great challenge. This is the best defense in the country that we're facing. It will be a great challenge that we're going to have to bring our A game and I expect us to do that.

SHERKO HAJI-RASOULI: They're a very active defense. They remain active. They like to shed blocks quickly and we have to give a lot of effort to make sure we finish our blocks. It will be definitely a challenge for us in watching the films to be able to move the ball and stuff. So the main thing is we have to know the game plan and our opponents and work hard in preparation as we have been doing all year.

ROB CHUDZINSKI: I think you start out they've got great personnel. You look at their defensive front, their linebackers, their secondaries, there playmakers in all of those positions. They're well coached, fundamentally sound, they tackle well, physically they give great effort. Those are the things. They have all those things and you put them all together and you have a great defense. That's basically what they do.

SHERKO HAJI-RASOULI: You guys watch the game. We'll be in 3-and-long situations where we need that key third down and Andre seems to always be there and making the key plays for us. Be even the last game of play against Virginia Tech where there is a lot of situations where we needed to move the ball and Andre stepped up and made plays in those situations. He's been a consistent receiver for us. That always I guess softens up the defense for our offensive line to be able to move the ball better.

SHERKO HAJI-RASOULI: Yes, I did.

SHERKO HAJI-RASOULI: You always want to root for the guys on your team. You want them to win the trophies and win the awards and have that success. We were just watching it and then we kind of had it in the back of our mind that they might steal votes from one another but Willis and Ken Dorsey are very unselfish people and rooting for each other on the field. It was really weird to see how sincere they were supporting each other in winning the Heisman. The main goal was to go all the way. I think that was the main goal for those guys as well not winning the Heisman Trophy and not getting personal acknowledgments.

SHERKO HAJI-RASOULI: You know it's just voting and I think it's a little bit of motivation for us to do better. I wish our guys can win it but it didn't turn out that way.

ROB CHUDZINSKI: No doubt about it. Any season it's tough to go undefeated. You start trying to talk about trying to string a couple together. I think the thing we've done this year as well as last year and game-to-game is we really focus on the game and task at hand and don't worry about thinking how many games we've won in a row and what we have been doing down the road; just focussing week to week. That's been our approach and our guys have really bought into that.

WILLIS McGAHEE: I really don't watch football. I really don't look at other running backs. I would say that both of us run hard. That's about it.

WILLIS McGAHEE: No.

ROB CHUDZINSKI: I don't know exactly last year what they were doing or not doing. Systematically they do some real good things to you. They mix in their blitzes with coverage as well. They get heat on the quarterback and get a good pass rush. Like I say, they blitz effectively and they do a good job of covering the guys. Gamble and the rest of the DBs, they do a good job of trying to understand what you're going to do on offense and anticipating your throws.

ROB CHUDZINSKI: I think if you look at their film and then do a good job in preparing for their opens and knowing what their opens are like, they will go into different games trying to stop different things. They do a good job focussing on that Ohio State and stopping the things as seeing their biggest tendencies.

ROB CHUDZINSKI: I don't see any chinks in the armor. I have been trying to find one in the last couple of weeks. They do a great job of trying to make you execute and offenses have a hard time doing that. They really make you be disciplined. They're going to be tough; not stay blocked, all the things I was talking about before. Effort, scheme, athletes all those things. You look at them we're going to have to be patient and play hard and hope the ball bounces our way a little bit as well.

ROB CHUDZINSKI: They do a great job at half time adjustments and shutting people down in the second half. They have a tough mentality so they're going to go think, hey, we'll get the game in the second half, whoever it was this season, that they would do that. They're going to win the game in the second half.

ROB CHUDZINSKI: I don't think that really factors in. Once you go more than a week I think it's a wash. If you're not -- I think it's an advantage if you just played last year and playing again this week. When you have a layoff more than a couple of weeks, I think it's a wash.

ROB CHUDZINSKI: The statement I think is that all of them do their jobs and do it well, and I think that's probably what he meant by that. They're just a dominant defense. Everybody's doing their job so you look and say "this guy's good," "this guy's good all the way across the board." They really are. They're that consistent. One play it's a guy being a playmaker here. The next play it's somebody else. That's kind of what you come out with and I guess that would mean there is no stars because they're all stars.

ROB CHUDZINSKI: Again, they were the best defense I've seen this season, whether on TV, on film, whenever you look. I don't know schemewise and style wise. I think they're a little bit different than -- they're a little unlike any team we've played this year.

SHERKO HAJI-RASOULI: Well, he was the offensive coordinator before. We all had a great relationship with him. We knew he was a great person and guy. We knew he was going to be a player's coach. The fact was we had to make a quick decision. Coach Davis also recommended that Coach Coker be the head coach. We didn't want the whole coaching staff to change. All the coaches that were already coaching, we wanted them to stay. We knew that would happen if Coker would stay. As a group, the players sat down and decided we should push for that. We wanted everything to basically stay the same. We knew we had an upside, potential to do better next year. We won the Sugar Bowl. We were hungry for a national championship, hungry to be back on top again. I think Coach Coker has been the man for the job.

ROB CHUDZINSKI: I don't remember that game honestly. I have been around a long time and a lot of people have asked me those kind of questions. I think that was a different time, era, situation, programs, different games. I think there is lessons to be learned from those things that you carry over, but you can't compare the situation then with the situation now. Again, I think our approach with these guys over the past few years has been, you know, we'll play one game at a time, and we're focussing and concentrating on that Ohio State, that's the task at hand. I think these guys have really embraced that. I think they're real excited about the challenge.

ANDRE JOHNSON: Well, we know that we're a fast team, so we feel like speed is one of our advantages as a team. When we go out in practice the coaches all tell us to play fast.

ANDRE JOHNSON: I don't know. I don't know how fast they are. They look like a fast defense. We'll find out when we play against them on Thursday.

WILLIS McGAHEE: Like what Andre said, we don't really know how fast they are. They swarm to the ball pretty good. That's what I like most about them. We will just have to wait until the 3rd like he said.