Karl Dorrell Playing Quotations

There are so many things that we need to improve upon and continue the momentum that we're building in our program -- which is playing better and better week after week. We did that three weeks in a row and now have had a bye week. We don't want any hiccups, even though we'll probably have a few.

Playing your rival from the same city, No. 1 in the country with a tremendous win streak, this is a tremendous opportunity,

We ran into a buzz saw. We had a great week of preparation and felt good about ourselves. It was just a point in time in the season, probably, that things weren't going to click for us as well as in the past. We saw some things that were uncharacteristic of how we've been playing all season.

This year, coming back in great shape from the knee injury (at the end of 2004) and the competition he faced in training camp (from Ben Olson) has put him over the top. He's playing now at a level he visualized himself playing at over the summer.

We've been playing very, very well in the red zone offensively. We want the opportunity to put points on the board, and those are opportunities we've been taking advantage of.

His ankle is really sore. Playing on that surface probably made it more significant.

He's learned a lot. He's grown. He's matured, both physically and mentally, he's the best that he's ever been. Am I surprised that he's playing that way for us now? No. He's been visualizing this type of season for him. He's been visualizing having a great senior year and leading this football team and putting this offense into a position to do what it's doing.

That's really pretty easy given our lack of success against Washington State, particularly going up to Pullman and playing them. We haven't had a lot of success in this particular week, so our focus has been the best it has been all season.