Two years ago at Michigan the crowd noise was pretty heavy there, obviously, with 110,000 that had to play a big factor. It was one of those situations where I think our team had to resort to silent counts. We adjusted pretty well with it at Tennessee last year, but not so well at Michigan two years ago.

When you look at those Xs and Os you're pretty confident in what they are able to do.

When you come back like that, you've got a lot of emotion and you feel pretty good about yourself. And then when you can't come through with the victory, I think there's the ability to be a big letdown.

They were a pretty good team - they hung with us for a while.

It's obviously a lot more comfortable when you're calling the plays down on the field. I can come up to [ Charlie Weis ] on the sidelines and talk to him face to face. You can see his emotions, what he's thinking, by the way he's talking to you. That's something that's help me, being able to have that face-to-face with him, being able to talk with him.

We feel as if we are by far the best team in the tournament. Last year the tournament was tainted, and this year we are going for blood.