Nov. 22, 2000

Box Score

Gary Pinkel Post-Game Quotes

General Comments "Winning 10 football games is very, very difficult to do in the regular season. First of all, you have to have a special kind of coaching staff, which I do, and you have to have great players, which I am blessed to have. I am very proud of my football team."

"This was a difficult game, like it always is with Bowling Green. The start to tonight's game kind of seemed like the way we have been all year. When Mel Long caught that big pass, that play ignited our team. Once we get a big play like that, we seem to take off."

On all the elements of tonight's game (ESPN2, Coach Blackney's last game, last home game for the seniors, etc.) "I think all the scenarios helped in the focus of our team. Our team loved having ESPN2 and the Silicon Valley Bowl people here. There were so many things involved in tonight's game. It was great. Let me just say that I am very pleased with the community. On a very frigid night, they really came out and supported Toledo and my players. That meant a lot to me and the team. It was nice to see the community reward my players by coming out to the game, and I am very thankful for that."

On playing BG Coach Gary Blackney over the years "The ugliness of this business is what happened to Gary. He is a class act and a good man. You don't like seeing that happen to someone in this business. Gary won two championships and two MAC Coach of the Year honors, and I believe he has had a tremendous amount of injuries the last half of the last four or five seasons and a remarkably difficult schedule. The combination of those two things make this business very difficult, but he is a class act."