Sept. 30, 2003

Head coach Frank Tavani:

On the Princeton game:
"Certainly I was very pleased with the effort of our team on Saturday. Obviously we were anxious to get back to playing. We had to sit with that bitter taste in our mouth for two weeks and we were looking forward to taking that frustration out on someone. I think one of the best things that happened was that we lost the coin toss. We had intended to defer, lost the toss, they deferred and gave us the ball, and we marched 80 yards which looked like a surgical procedure. It was one of the better drives we've had in a while and certainly a confidence-builder. It also wore their defense down and our defense, as is characteristic of our defense, goes out there and forces a turnover immediately and forces their defense back on the field. We were able to punch another one in which was a great way for us to start."

On the offense in the second half against Princeton:
"At halftime we talked about taking a more conservative approach. I felt strongly, I told our staff, the only way we're going to get beat on that day is if we gave it to them, if we let them back in the game, by being too cute or too fancy and turning the ball over. You know sometimes coaches in this great game of ours outsmart themselves. We wanted to work on our running game and pound the football."

On the defense's performance last Saturday:
"Our defense just continues to be tremendously aggressive and shows a lot of team speed out there - they're just flying around like a bunch of crazy people, just the way you want a group of defensive players to play. They're excited to be out there and creating turnovers and making things happen with big hits. There are a lot of guys contributing. It was awfully warm out there and we used a lot of people."

On the special teams:
"Just as we want, we were able to have better field position. Larry (Johnson) had two great returns and that will continue to be a big weapon for us. He'll probably start to find the ball kicked here, there and everywhere but to him. Our special teams continue to do a great job. We played without our kicker, Rick Ziska, who's out with a pretty badly swollen and strained quad in his kicking leg. Once we can get him back into action that will take some heat off of Mike Davis who will continue to handle our kickoff duties, but not the field goal or extra point. I don't want to do anything that will foul up his punting because he's doing a tremendous job in the punting game for us and that's another major weapon that's worked for us."

On Georgetown:
"They are an improved team and they're much better. This is a very dangerous football team at this point in the season. They're 0-4 but very easily could be 3-1 right now. This is a resilient group and they're pumped up about coming up here to Lafayette and they fully believe they can come up here and knock us off."

On John Weyrauch's status:
"He's probable (for Georgetown). There's another situation where you want to do the intelligent thing. I don't want to be the one to tell him he's not playing. He's still pretty sick. They had a hard time determining because some of the symptoms of dehydration and the sickness he had give you the same symptoms as a concussion. It was a pretty tough situation for him. He hadn't slept at all, really was dehydrated before the game even started. I was really concerned. John's just a tough, tough kid and really, most kids wouldn't have even been out there playing in his condition."

Sophomore defensive back Larry Johnson:

On his kick returns against Princeton:
"Coach is going to look at the film and determine which return we do by the way they set up their kickoff. If we see something that is exposed, we're going to attack it. During the week we found something that we might be able to work against them and fortunately it did and I was able to have a couple pretty good returns."

Junior tailback Joe McCourt:

On his number of carries:
"I'll carry the ball 50 times if I have to. The next couple of games it's probably going to be humid like it was on Saturday, but hopefully it will cool down because that is when I think I pick it up."