I'm very excited about it for several reasons. It's great to be part of the game again and to get a chance to line up a football team. It will be great to get back into the routine of playing games.

It will be important for us to run the ball well. We need to make sure that what we're doing offensively matches who we are, and that means, to a degree, running the football.

It's important to communicate with the big, big donors, but also with the average fan who doesn't have the ability to donate heavily. They're going to be e-mailing that athletic director, too, and probably the head coach. There are a lot of expectations, but that's the name of the game.

That's about as bad a start as you're going to get. You've got people in the seats, the players are really excited. To have someone return the opening kickoff kind of takes all the wind out of you.

It's tough to come out of non-conference play with any confidence. We need to be a little realistic about what we're attempting to accomplish in these games. You want to create exposure, but winning will also do that. It's tough to win when you're coming in as 20- or 30-point underdogs each week.

They're physical inside. We tried trapping them inside, but that didn't work. A power game to run right at them isn't going to hold up throughout the course of the game. Plus, they're good in the secondary. They have a very good, complete defense.

You don't want to get into a scoring match with them. They put points on the board very easily. If you try and match them big play for big play it gets very difficult.

They had their whole package against us. They ran the ball well; they threw the ball well; they got out of third-and-longs, and that makes it fairly tough on you.

You may slow them down, and you need to if you want to have a chance to win. You need to control the clock, and the important thing is at the end of that, put points on the board. You can't control the clock and come away without putting points on the board, or that plan falls apart too.

That one was tough on us. Once that pitch gets executed, you hope to have the chance for a big play. But it didn't and it got us in a big hole.