I've told you that I'm really not worried about that. In my mind, we've got to go win the next one. It won't matter to speculate if we don't win the next one. What we're focused on is winning the next game. There's just no way, in my mind, that a team can go 13-0 and not be in a BCS game. There's just no way. That can't happen. Nor does it do me any good to worry about it. Because it's too hard to get to 13-0.

I could tell you that one of the great things about last week is it's a great teaching tool for us because those kids, they sensed that we were in jeopardy, big-time. Our focus is getting to step seven and not worrying about it. Like I told you last week, not being in there puts you under the radar. We have a good football team and we have great character on this football team. I believe in these kids. We'll just keep moving forward and see what happens.

THERE'S A LOT OF TEAMS, FROM BALL STATE AND UTAH AND BYU, THAT ARE TRYING TO GET INTO THE BCS BOWLS. DO YOU CATCH YOURSELF WATCHING SCORES?

I look at a lot of things preseason-wise and as things go along. Naturally, I look at scores because I'm a college football fan. A lot of those things take care of themselves. A lot of those teams play each other. Our schedule down the stretch, and the fact that we have a conference championship game, which will be a big plus for us ... it's just so hard. If you really think about it. There's only one team, since 1937, to go 14-0. That's Ohio State. For a team to go 13-0 is an unbelievable accomplishment and a big-time challenge. There's a reason why it hasn't happened a lot in history. You have to stay grounded and focused on what you're doing. You can't worry about what everyone else does. Do I look at their scores? Yes, I look at their scores. I also vote, so I also do have to look at their scores. I take that responsibility to heart. I want to do a good job with that, so I follow those guys. All of them have the same road to hoe that we do. If you're going to be a BCS Bowl and you're in a non-BCS conference, you have to go undefeated, and there's not any question in my mind that the thing that gives us a great advantage in Conference USA is the fact that we play a conference championship game, which means a team would have gone 13-0. We have a lot of tough teams to play to win to get there, but I believe in our kids to get there.

IT SEEMS LILKE A.J. Whitmore's ROLE HAS EXPANDED A BIT MORE AND, IF TRUE, HOW COME?

We had some guys go down in the last game and we had to step up his package a little bit. It really involves what people are giving us. A.J. is a winner and he's really stepped up big-time and is playing extremely well. We go into a game and it really just is what they give us, that's what we're going to do. We have a specific plan for both, whether it be run the ball or throw it.

WOULD YOU SAY HE CAME IN HERE AS A SMALLER GUY, IS HE LIKE MORE PHYSICALLY CAPABLE THIS YEAR?

(Shawn Griswald) has done a great job training our guys. Our guys are in the best physical condition that they've ever been in. Griz is one of the best in the business. I think he is. A.J. is bigger, stronger and faster. When we signed him, he had quite a few other Big 12 and SEC offers, even as a little guy, which tells you he was a great talent. He's really reached and met our expectations and then some. He's a winner. He's also got a great spirit about him and he really does a great job. He's one of the guys that kind of leads out there.

DID YOU SENSE A FEELING OF RELIEF AFTER SATURDAY'S GAME AND WAS THAT GOOD?

I think it was a good thing. You think about the other side of it and it would have been worse. I don't know if it was relief. I felt like the guys were naturally excited about the fact that we were able to overcome so much adversity. I think it was a wake-up call. There were a lot of positive comments coming out of the locker room. I think it was one of those things where you can tell them all that you want. You have to get ready every week - look at this upset here and that upset there and let's not let that happen to us. There's so much parity in college football now. On any Saturday, any team can beat anyone in college football.

It's all about that mental edge. You guys ask a lot of questions about that mental edge. We spent a lot of time as a staff talking about that mental edge. We spend a lot of time on the football field talking about character. It's about maturity. We have so many younger players playing now and when you have freshmen and sophomores playing ... you have to bring that mental edge with you. That's simply what it was. When I look at the film, we kind of messed around and uncharacteristically don't score touchdowns early. We were playing decent defense at first and get some sacks and then we don't do anything with it. Then all the sudden they hit a play and they start to play harder. Then, for a lot of the game, they were playing harder than we were. You can't, all the sudden on Saturday, say we're going to play hard. You have to get ready every single day of the week. I saw a big difference in our kids yesterday. They understand that it's a big-time wake-up call for us.

It's not going to be the last close call for us. There's going to be a whole bunch of close football games that we're going to have to win. Last year in Conference USA, the average margin of victory was five points in every game. UTEP is a very good football team and very talented. They've gotten better every single week. They're 3-0 in every single conference game and undefeated. They are doing great things. They have a great quarterback. It's going to be about the skill they have athletically. It's going to be a barnburner game.

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT UTEP'S SWITCH TO THE 3-3-5 DEFENSE?

I think they've done a good job. The origin of what they do comes from New Mexico, with Coach (Rocky) Long and what he does. They put a lot of pressure on you and it's an attacking-style defense. It's something that's helped them. It probably hurt them early. Any time you change your scheme and system, you have growing pains, but they've came around. They're playing really good now. They've played extremely well the last three ball games.

Tarrion Adams IS NO. 2 ON THE ALL-TIME RUSHING LIST. CAN YOU TALK A LITTLE ABOUT HIM PLAYING ON FOUR BOWL TEAMS IN FOUR YEARS

He's been a warrior for us and a leader. He's been a hard-nosed, tough guy that's a guy that brings it every single week. He works extremely hard and is physical. He takes a lot of shots and runs through tackles. He's a guy that has good athleticism but is a punishing runner. He runs hard and delivers blows. Tarrion is a guy that has been instrumental in our success and one of the pillars in our success. I think back of the 2005 championship game and I think back to the game he had against Fresno. Obviously his role in the lat two years as a head coach has been unbelievable.

YOUR TEAM HAS 300-PLUS RUSHING YARDS FOR THREE STRAIGHT GAMES. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF THE RUN GAME VERSUS UTEP?

It just depends on what they do. When you put up the kind of numbers that we do and the potential that we have and the explosiveness that we have at wide receiver, then it makes people back up and play two-deep. When they play two deep and play soft, we'll run the football. I've got a lot of confidence in that. To be honest with you, that's what I'd rather them do. When we rush the ball for those type of yards, you're not going to lose that many games. It just depends on what they give us. I've really set those parameters with Gus (Malzahn) and Herb (Hand). We are going to take what the other team gives us. We aren't going to try to force things. I think they've done a great job with that and you can see that. It'll sway from one way to another. It depends on what they give us.

YOU DID WIN YOU'RE SIXTH GAME ON SATURDAY. IN THE PAST SIX WINS SEEMED LIKE A LONG WAYS OFF:

My wife told me that we're bowl-eligible and I didn't even think about that. I'm really proud of them. There's been a lot of people that helped turn this thing around and it's exciting to me. I take a great sense of pride in the expectations with where they are and where they were. It's great to see the former players, when they come back and how excited they are with what's going in with this program. It's a pretty neat deal. I can tell you our first year here we knew exactly when we were bowl eligible. We were excited to do that. I guess you should never take that for granted. It's not easy winning Division I-A football games. I'm really proud of our kids and where we're at. It's astonishing. I can remember where we've come. You can visually see the transformation around here as well. I can tell you we have a unique university and we have an incredible administration that, without that, we couldn't do the things that we're doing.

HOW IMPORTANT WAS DeAundre Brown's INTERCEPTION ON SATURDAY NIGHT?

It was big-time. He's our lone freshman on the back end and I work with those guys. He doesn't have the luxury of getting treated like a freshman and he gets strained quite a bit. He made some mistakes early in the game and I'd strained him pretty hard. I told him he owed me one. He went and said he was going to make a play. That was one of the biggest plays in the game. You look at the fourth-and-21 conversion, that interception and the kickoff cover that pinned them down there. Our kickoff team did a great job. Coach Blankenship, that's been a great decision there. Not many people have focused on that. Special teams is what he focuses on. Bill does help us on offense, but his No. 1 focus is on special teams and we've done a lot better on special teams. It's going to be important this week because UTEP has a great special teams scheme.

ARE STYLE POINTS AS IMPORTANT AS VICTORIES IN THE BCS RANKINGS?

You have to go out and play well. We do think about those things. One of the style points for us and what you can't overlook is we had the No. 1 offense in the country last year and are on pace to do the same thing this year. That's pretty attractive. That should be something that people should look at. When you put the numbers up and score the points that we've scored. I just think, when it comes to all that stuff, you just have to come out and play every week to the best of your ability. You have to think about those things and you do have to perform and be dominate if you can. I don't know if we could have been any more dominant in the first five games. We've had one game that we have not been completely dominant in. And we won that game. You look around the country and there's a lot of games that had a bad game and they have a loss on their record. We just have to continue to win and the key is how we finish. We're in the meat of the schedule. We have UTEP, Central Florida and UTEP in this stretch. Those are three very tough opponents. You have to keep getting better and you have to finish down the stretch. That's going to be the key for us.