Gary Pinkel Brad Quotations

Getting his 2,000 yards passing, 1,000 rushing, all that stuff?s great, ... but Brad will ultimately be judged by winning football games, and he understands that.

Brad felt he had a lot to prove, not only about this team but about himself. I don't think there was a young man out there more excited about the start of the college football season.

Brad's been waiting since January, and you can see it. There was no guy in our program more excited about the season getting here than Brad Smith. I think he wants to earn some respect back . . . He worked very, very hard.

That's Brad Smith. He's never thinking of himself. He's always thinking of everyone else. That should have been one of the happiest moments of his career, and instead he's trying to tell me about this incident.

His first couple of years he was really hesitant to say a whole lot because I think Brad is really hesitant to push his beliefs and opinions on anybody, ... He just tries to live his life and do the right things. Certainly, you'd like to have a little more vocal leadership, and I think he's doing that this year. He feels more comfortable.

Sometimes you have to go that low before you can decide what you want to be and what you want to do. The players just started making plays, they just started competing. ... It was neat to see Brad drive this team back.

We have 28 practices until our next game. The best guy's going to play. We took the same approach when Brad Smith was a freshman. We're not going to shut it down and declare anyone a starter.