That’s what he said: Jimmy Clausen

Jimmy Clausen met with the media as one of the team’s captains yesterday.

Here’s what he said:

On Robby Paris solidifying his job as the #3 receiver:

“Robby’s done a great job. Ever since I’ve been here he’s been a hard worker, a team player. Just a guy who wants to be on the field and help the team win. In the spring time, he was really the only receiver out there with a lot of guys being hurt and Golden playing baseball. He’s done a great job for us. He’s a playmaker, he catches the ball real well, and obviously runs with the ball real well. too.”

On Coach Weis’ expectations for him during his junior year:

I talked to Coach Weis a lot after last season. His expectations are high, but I think mine are higher than his are. We might battle back and forth about that, but my expectations for myself are really high, and especially for this whole team -- we have very high expectations, and we just need to go out and prove it Saturday.

On building on his Hawaii Bowl performance:

“That’s how I want to play every single game. Obviously it’s not going to happen, but you just have to strive to have the best game you can every single week.

“Coming off the Hawaii bowl, coming out of offseason work outs, that’s what we’ve striving to be, getting even better from that game. We played really well in that game.”

On the post season awards, and hearing people talk about the Heisman:

“You envision that being younger, but to be honest, I’m not worried about that at all. What I’m worried about is Nevada on Saturday. Going out today and practicing hard, getting better -- getting better than yesterday and the next day, taking it one game at a time, one day at a time.”

What do you look for when you look at a team like Nevada?

“You gotta kind of look at everything, starting with the defensive line. They’ve have two really good defensive ends. Those two guys are really explosive coming off the ball, rushing the passer. You look at the linebackers, safeties, corners, and just different techniques that they like to use on different downs.

“Then you’ve just got to look at the match-ups, how does Michael Floyd or Golden Tate match-up against this corner, how does Kyle Rudolph match up against this linebacker or safety. There’s a bunch of things you have to look at.”

On Mike Floyd and Golden being better students of the game.

“This Monday we all came in together and watched some film for about a half-hour, 45 minutes, just going over little stuff that they like to do, that we’re going to try to attack. So they get familiar with things that I’m looking at, and I get familiar with what they’re looking at. We’re going to do that every Monday, just come in and watch some tape together.”

On the pressure aimed at his head coach:

“We know being at the University of Notre Dame you’re going to have pressure. We always talk about the head coach and quarterback at Notre Dame getting too much praise when things go right and too much blame when things go wrong. That’s just the game that we’re in. To be honest, it’s not Coach Weis playing on Saturday it’s us, so if anyone should take blame for how we play on Saturday it should be us, not Coach Weis.”