quote:
Q: You mentioned some things, like the size and the chance to win. What were some things that over time you had decided you had to see in a program to want to be its head coach?
A: Winning is the biggest thing. I'm taking nothing away from any coaches out there, it's not an accident that coaches at Alabama, Ohio State, Florida and USC, those type of programs win. Not to say they're not great coaches, but those places are built to attract better players than most or all of the people they play, year in, year out. Not that it's a given that you're going to win at those places, but it's easier. It's easier to win at Alabama than it is at Iowa State."

quote:
Q: What is it like recruiting, particularly being located in that geographic area, compared to the recruiting you've done over the past six or seven years?
A: Every kid in the country wanted to come to Oregon. They saw how we played, they saw the facilities, they saw the uniforms, the winning. Everybody was interested in Oregon. I'm telling recruits down here they don't have to go 3,000 miles away to get that anymore, Oregon just came to them. It's hard in those places because we're just not in close proximity, Oregon wasn't and isn't in close proximity to the fertile recruiting ground. At the end of the day, recruits have to decide to leave southern California, or Georgia, or Florida, or Texas, where there's some other pretty good schools, and go all the way to Eugene. It's great being in a place where those kids that want to stay close can stay here, not to mention it's a lot easier to get kids to visit our campus unofficially, there's a lot more kids here to choose from. One of the things that drew me to the job is I knew I could run a version of our offense that was practically identical to Oregon's because we can recruit that type of player here. I don't think you could run Oregon's offense at Wisconsin; I don't know if you would get enough guys that can run well enough to do it. In Orlando, Florida, there's fast guys in high schools in every direction in close proximity that are already running systems in high school that are similar to this and should want to play in it."

Hmmmmmmmmm...