Nov. 20, 2001
Baylor head football coach Kevin Steele spoke to the media at Tuesday's press luncheon. Below are excerpts from his comments.
Head Football Coach Kevin Steele:
On last week's game:
"The fact that we went out and produced 400 yards in back-to-back conference games, much less back-to-back games, for the first time in a long time... We'll build on that."
"The team, as usual, has bounced back... They're looking forward to this weekend. It's kind of nice to play football around Thanksgiving."
On this week's opponent, Southern Illinois:
"Southern Illinois is a team that runs the ball effectively... They, too have had a tough year. I told the team yesterday, I think this team will come in here... and view this as a kind of Super Bowl for them."
"We're hungry for a win... They want to improve on anything they can. For the older guys, they can go out winning their last game. For the young guys, they can go out and improve for next season."
On scheduling Southern Illinois as the make-up game:
"The fact is, it was a mad scramble to try and find an opponent. I thought we had one and then we didn't. We had some SEC teams and some Pac-10 teams we talked to, but there were issues with those teams about where to play and payout and return trips, and it just didn't work."
On the team's injury situation:
"We've got a lot of people injured: three corners, a safety, a defensive lineman, three offensive linemen that have played a good bit for us."
On the team's quarterbacks:
"Josh [Zachry] is back and will be the starter at this point in time, unless something happens in practice. I hope Davon [Vinson] gets some snaps, and I'd like to see Aaron [Karas] get some more snaps."
"Josh is the returning starter because of injury... Greg [Cicero] is second, Aaron is third, and Davon is our specialty guy we are trying to bring along."
On the upcoming offseason:
"We'll do some asssessment over the weekend and into next week. We'll also do some recruiting, full-bore. We've got 10 commitments. We have 19 scholarships, and there are some things like injuries that could end up increasing that number. We're very much into junior college recruiting right now... We could have a good crop of junior college players. We're still very small in our junior class/senior class-to-be... so we will approach that market pretty heavily -- nationally, not just in Texas."
"The response [from recruits] has been really good... Skill players in the state are intrigued with the opportunities to catch the ball, and quarterbacks are intrigued with the opportunity to throw the ball... Junior college-wise, it's the opportunity to play in the Big 12. Guys want the opportunity to come in and help quickly and play in a major conference."
