Someone told me that their offensive line is the most experienced group of offensive linemen that they've had in the history of the school. We've got a group that I believe has made major strides from the first day of spring practice, but it's a work in progress. We're still trying to put the thing together a little bit.

No question, this is our big game. Our rival game. I know how our fans react and their fans react. That's what college football all about.

No question, we've seen it all. There's nothing in there we won't have seen. But as a defensive coach, you can't worry about defending ghosts. You can talk all you want about a team and the way they do things, but it comes down to what gets done on the field,

Rashad, in all the scrimmages we had, was very consistent. He makes good reads. He can catch the ball. He protects the ball well.

I've always believed this: The game comes down to the players executing,

The run game struggled but I hope that's because our defensive line is playing better. We have a ways to go running the ball. We definitely have to get a lot better at that.

I've been involved in springs where, the last week, you're going backward -- you go out for the spring game and the quarterback throws three interceptions, the running backs fumble and the offense doesn't score a touchdown. Then you start making excuses. But we played well enough today and did enough good things.

There's no short cuts. There's no books you can read to solve this thing.

Do we have one guy that we say, 'Hey, you're the guy. You're going to carry the ball 25-30 times?' Maybe. We'll have to see how that plays out.

Being thrown into that situation is not easy, particularly when you don't expect it. You sign with a team as a freshman and expect to come in and have that buffer year. Then all of a sudden a month or a couple weeks before training camp, we say that one of you guys has to be ready to play against Notre Dame if something happens. I think they've handled it well.