Our defense is playing very well, ... They haven't given up the big play.

The ability of a defense to dominate and stop the run forces you into a one-dimensional game. You come out wanting to play ball control, field position, but by the second quarter, you're down by 17 and you're forced to throw.

It shows that we can play defense. It's not just all about Alyssa. It means we can play even on a night when Alyssa doesn't score 22 points. I think we can play with anybody.

I have to admit, I sometimes wonder how much more successful I would have been as a coach had it not been for my spending summers on the golf course. I could have watched more film, that's for sure. One advantage Joe Paterno had over me was that he didn't play golf.

In football, it's the job of the player to play, the coach to coach, the official to officiate. Each guy is charged with upholding his end, nothing more. In golf, the player, coach and official are rolled into one, and they overlap completely. Golf really is the best microcosm of life - or at least the way life should be.

If you made me the national commissioner of football, I'd tell you one thing that I would mandate. The second Saturday in September, we're going to have conference day. Everybody from the SEC plays a Big 12 team. Everybody from the Big Ten is going to play the ACC. Everybody from the Big East is going to play the Pac-10.