FEDEX ORANGE BOWL: NEBRASKA v TENNESSEE

January 2, 1998

Phillip Fulmer

Jamal Lewis

Peyton Manning

COACH FULMER: First of all, I think it would be appropriate to say congratulations to Coach Osborne and Nebraska. They certainly did a great job. I've been asked probably 16 times between the field and here who I was going to vote for. I'll say it again, I will vote for Nebraska as the No. 1 team in America. They certainly showed us in the third quarter. I do think our team prepared well. We played with them for a half. We helped them a little bit in the first half with a couple of turnovers. But I was really proud of our defensive effort in the first half. Two good teams, I think, played and they especially won in the third quarter when they took the game over physically. They're as advertised from that standpoint. You hear that all over the country from Nebraska. We wanted to set the tempo the first five minutes of the second half. They set the tempo basically the entire third quarter. Questions?

COACH FULMER: I don't think so. I think they executed. They got a little bit of a beat on what we were doing defensively, I think. They got the ball pitched. We were basically trying to play as much as we could. There were some changeups, play on the option from inside out, hoping to be one down. We had great success with that in the first half. I don't think they changed a lot. I think they may have executed better. Also a couple of formation changes probably helped them some there.

COACH FULMER: I'm sorry?

COACH FULMER: Well, I mean, everything I said prior to the game. He's a great gentleman, I think. He wasn't being too kind there in the second half at times (laughter). But, you know, he's everything that college football should be about. I think he's fair and honest to the kids, and in recruiting. As I said earlier, he stands for the right things and speaks up for his faith. You like to see people have great things happen to them. He's had a great run as a coach. A lot of people would like to be like him, I guess, in this profession.

COACH FULMER: It really wasn't that surprising because of our approach on defense. We were basically in tune, trying to stop the run. A lot of people involved. If we covered a little bit better, they wouldn't have had so many yards passing, would have had a chance to make some plays. We knew that they could throw, but certainly the lesser of the two evils. If not for the turnovers, it should have been interesting, real interesting, in the first half.

COACH FULMER: The pass rush was especially good throughout the year. We had planned to throw the football down the field more than we did. I think as the game went on, obviously we didn't want Peyton hit a whole bunch. You hold the guys against those guys, the more likely you are to get hit and sacked. I think we gave up a couple anyway. Felt like the short passing game would be good for us.

COACH FULMER: I don't know if relieved is the right word. We were fortunate to only be down 11 points after the turnovers. I think our team felt really good about their chances to win the ball game, because physically they hadn't just dominated. They had hit some big plays, as the gentleman said, felt good about where we were. We could score, move the football.

COACH FULMER: Sure. You like to see your future play well. And Tee, you know, worked awful hard; had not had a lot of opportunities because mostly of the scores, games, as we played our season. Very tough season. This one loss is a real downer for us, but we did have a very good season. I don't want our teams, as I just told them, to lose sight of that, sight of the SEC Championship. We played a very fine football team this evening.

COACH FULMER: Well, as I think I said earlier, some folks outside, they handed us our butts physically in this third quarter. Basically the same plays, basically the same defenses, but physically we got mismatched, whipped.

COACH FULMER: No, I don't think they wanted it any more. I don't think that. You're getting at the National Championship thing and that sort of thing, that may -- you know, I told our team, I felt a little bit of the wind go out of our sails the other night as we were watching that together.

COACH FULMER: I thought our kids played hard, they played well in the first half. They certainly prepared well in Knoxville. They prepared well down here. We couldn't ask any more than that. We would sure like for the third quarter to have been different.

COACH FULMER: Right.

COACH FULMER: Both reasons.

COACH FULMER: Yeah, both reasons. They have disrupted so many people throughout the year. You say quick passing game. There's a lot of things that that's the second option. Maybe a down-the-field throw was a first option. They were doing a good job of covering that. So it's not necessarily just all quick passes called.

PEYTON MANNING: Well, they're a good defense. They didn't really do anything in particular that we haven't seen on film before. There's no question that they're a good defense. I thought we made some mistakes as an offense that kind of put ourselves in tough positions, penalties at the start of the game. Anytime you turn the ball over, it's tough to beat a team like Nebraska. That was a disappointing thing.

PEYTON MANNING: Well, we had plenty of plays called. All of our plays, usually somebody is going down the field. Depends on the read, our receivers have been good this year as far as catching the ball, making yards after catch. Did that some tonight. Nebraska tackled well for the most part, didn't give up the big play. Just the situation never really came about.

PEYTON MANNING: Felt fine. Never had any problems with it.

PEYTON MANNING: Well, we had a lot of respect for them coming in. We felt like playing in the SEC kind of prepares to play anybody in the country. There's no question, they're a physical defense and just a physical football team.

PEYTON MANNING: Disappointed, just for our whole team. It's always nice to win your Bowl Game as an underclassman, makes you feel a little better about yourself going into spring practice, work outs. As a senior, it's disappointing to sort of go out on this note. Like Coach Fulmer said, can't overshadow the great things we've done this year, the great careers some of our seniors have had. I remember the first year I got there, the team had just lost a Bowl Game. You could see the intensity in their eyes. I think this team will learn a lot for this. As long as these two guys right here are around Tennessee, it's going to be fine.

PEYTON MANNING: I don't know. I don't know.

PEYTON MANNING: I don't know.

COACH FULMER: That's not relevant right now.

PEYTON MANNING: I'll take just a number of things. So many memories, so many great friendships, whether it's Jamal Lewis, Coach Fulmer, the relationships I have with all of my senior teammates. So many memories. Tennessee has been so good to me. I can't pay them back enough the great things they've done for me. I'll always be a Tennessee volunteer for the rest of my life.

JAMAL LEWIS: We had to get a rhythm going at the beginning. They was kind of stopping us at the beginning, the turnover really did hurt us. I feel like our offensive line really got in a rhythm and started blocking pretty well up front. That kind of opened it up in the second half, going into the second half.