Bret Bielema Comments from December 31 News Conference
December 31, 2007
Opening statement
“Our coaches, our players and our fans have had a great week in Tampa, just the way we’ve been treated since we arrived and where we are right now. Now it’s in our hands. Bowl reps can’t help us anymore, nobody in the bowl organization. It gets down to what we’ve done during the month of December, the way we’ve prepared. More importantly how we prepare down here. I think the kids have really been able to snap in the last couple days. We’ve remained totally healthy.”
On a playoff system
“I would never want to see the playoff system for one reason; I just enjoy the bowl system too much. I can understand the plus one possibility, but I would never want to go down that playoff road personally.”
On Zach Brown, who will get the start at tailback in the Outback Bowl
“The thing I love about Zach Brown as a true freshman is just the way he’s improved every week. I think he absorbs anything we give him from a teaching standpoint. He’s got an incredible ability to keep the ball alive; he has good balance, he has good ability to run through some tackles as well as bounce the ball wide.”
On the team’s New Year’s Eve plans
“I learned this one two years ago; I just basically told our team bed check is eleven o’clock tonight. You need to be in your room you’ll wake up tomorrow feeling 95 percent better than most of the people in the world. There are a lot of people that will go out and break curfew and not feel so good tomorrow. The disadvantage of being a good football team is you miss Christmas and miss New Year’s.”
On Badgers tight end Travis Beckum
“Sometimes in our state when you have a highly-recruited player they maybe get a little overblown. Travis was a decorated player coming out of Oak Creek High School and was put kind of on this pedestal to come in and be this dominating player from the get-go. He was rated as one of the best outside linebackers in the country. We originally played him at that position but as I was coaching him I realized that wasn’t going to be his natural fit. So we moved him to defensive end just to get some pass rush out of him and then I talked to him about moving to tight end.”
On the Tennessee Volunteers
“I see several match-up problems. I don’t really, as a coach, talk too much about match-up issues. We try to emphasize so much it’s 11 men working together on both sides of the ball that matters.”
