We continue to have trouble getting our offense going against a good man-to-man defense. Defensively we are playing fine and the kids are starting to understand our press. We continue to struggle on our rebounding. We need to block out better.

We played better in the second half. But I told the guys that you can't wait that long to play against Anthony's teams. They just whipped us in the first half.

The state did some re-leveling of standards so it was hard for us to know how we did compared to last year. That's the frustrating part. Instead we must compare how we did against the state; from that angle we are very pleased.

Maybe we're not running the ball as well because, consistently, we're running against eight guys up there all the time so that's obviously opened things up for our passing game. On game day, we'll see what happens. Do they want to stop the pass and see if we can run the ball to win? Or do they want to stop the run first and make us pass to win? We'll have to do whatever they give us.

The beauty is that Bill Clinton can frame the race better than anyone else. But against that, it makes the moral issue that much more important, and Al Gore wants to make this about economic issues.

What Willie has learned to do real well is recognize where the holes are going to be on a certain play against a certain defense. He's taken the 3- or 4-yard gain instead of trying to get 10, 15 or 50 all the time.