I just talked to him while he was on the recruiting trail for Texas Tech, and obviously there were no signs of anything that would go wrong. We just lost a really good friend. He's got a great family in Rhonda, Sterling and Aaron. Rhonda is a very strong woman, and I can imagine she is handling this very well. Whatever well would mean in this case, but I know she is a strong woman.

I'm totally numb. It really is a shock. I talked to him while he was on the recruiting trail with Texas Tech, and there were no obvious (physical) signs of anything going wrong.

It was just a matter that we had a pro team and how fantastic it was. We didn't have to put a lot of wins on the board for people to get excited.

There were some years, in the dark ages here, when there was nothing going on. Now, to have this turnaround, and be solid with it. I mean there's not a guy in here that doesn't think we've earned it and that's a tremendous feeling.

So, we used smoke and mirrors to get us some scores.

We tried to do a deal in 1997 where we brought a player or two with us on the plane for a weekend with the Seahawks. We don't do that anymore, but still you can see there's a positive effect on the players involved, especially the Ring of Honor guys.

Year in and year out he just continues to get better. This wasn't a dramatic improvement year, though it was his best from a media standpoint. They finally noticed how well he played. But he inches toward greatness all the time and he's played very well this year.

When it started here, we wanted to create a tradition. We had a bunch of enthusiastic athletes, but we never quite built a sustained thing. We had some success in the 1980s, but it went sour again. For the last few years we've had a team that was expected to win.

Matt has come a long way. He came in here as the starter and got knocked to the background. That was very unexpected in his life.

(Knox) was frustrated with me anyway, throughout the early game, and that kind of iced it for him. I looked to the sidelines, and I saw him, first of all, throw his play sheet. Then he took off his hat - it was a double - and threw his hat down. I just remember walking off to the furthest side of the field, to not go by him.