It was rough. When the shots went up, it was football out there. We just tried to dig down and get stops at the end.

We understand their situation coming here. We did a lot of stuff for Hurricane Katrina relief during football season. Our fans are classy. They will show their support. It will be a great atmosphere Thursday.

My dad really started to love football during my sophomore season, which meant a lot to me because he could see me playing a sport where I really excelled. I want to make my dad proud of me.

After that game, my dad suggested that I try football instead of soccer.

I can't really envision much more of a hostile environment, ... It's on national TV. Monday night football. Everybody's going to watch it. But you've got to put that aside. Bottom line is, it's still a game. It's still going to be 11 guys on offense, 11 guys on defense.

That's one thing we try to do. Obviously, every team wants to get easy baskets. We try to just build on every other teams mistakes and try to get easy baskets.