We're a young, inexperienced team, and we have to learn how to win games. We have six freshmen and five sophomores and a junior without a lot of experience. That's the tale of the tape right now.

This is a great opportunity for our program, ... Especially with all the young guys we have this year. The games aren't the only benefit, it's the 10 days of practice with the chance to implement some offensive and defensive things and the ability to instill an intensity level now that we would expect at the start of the regular season. We're really able to do more than just scratch the surface.

Last year, our goal was to win at least three games, because that's something no Division 1 team without a senior class had ever done before. We ended up 2-7, which didn't sit well with anybody around here. We have everybody returning from last year's team and a lot of them have game experience, which puts us in a unique situation this season.

There were some games that things weren't working very well, we weren't getting the protections, and we had to be a little bit more conservative. But there were times I felt we could have opened it up a little bit more.

I'm confident we'll be strong defensively after we get a few games under our belt.

In big games like this, you have to have someone to step up, and Trey pitched with a lot of heart and guts. We gave him the rock, and he pitched us a gem.