"... guys that could take you to the house at anytime."

WCU Assistant Head Coach / Defensive Coordinator, Matt Pawlowski took a few questions at the weekly Southern Conference teleconference in regard to FSU:

On the match-up with Florida State:

"(Florida State) is traditionally one of the top programs in the country. You watch them on tape and they have a lot of guys that are NFL-type football players on both sides of the football. We told our kids this week, it's nice to be 1-0 and playing with some confidence - but we also understand this is a journey and we have a 12-game schedule. We have talked about this game not being about Florida State, but it being about us. We need to build upon some of the good things (from the Shorter game). We told our young men, the old coaching adage that you do your most improvement from your first and second game. That's what we are trying to work on - about ourselves, improving fundamentally and trying to improve in all phases in our football team, and to go down there and represent WCU well against Florida State."

On the challenges of playing Florida State:
"When we watch them on tape, first off, this is the opener for Florida State. And when you try to game plan here, the first question you have to ask is who's playing and who's not. And how do you game plan accordingly? Now, when we got their two-deep, there certainly were a lot of changes. They're playing a lot of young guys, especially up front, but they still have two quality quarterbacks - Weatherford and Ponder, the two upper class quarterbacks. They have major league arms and they've got a boatload of skill guys that can run down the field. So, we're trying to prepare for everything we saw on tape from last year but still, it's an unknown quantity going in with what they're going to try to do and what their mindset is and how they want to attack us. We know we're going to have our work cut out for us, but like I said earlier, it's not about Florida State, it's about Western Carolina and us improving and playing every down for 60 minutes."

On the need to limit FSU's big play ability:
"They have guys that could take you to the house at anytime. We've got to be able to play in space. We've got to be able to tackle well. And make them have to try and earn everything that they get."