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O'BRIEN CONTINUED FROM 14 guys must think it's not as good as I do. I think that the offensive line has played well all year. They've played tough. They've done everything that we've asked them to do and they've been fun to coach. You don't like dealing with hypotheticals, but if you're able to win on Saturday, you'd clinch a winning season. How important would that be to do that at home? Oh, yeah. Anytime you can have a winning season, I think that's important to help you going into the off‑season and things like that. No question about it. But I think the goal on Saturday is not about clinching a winning season, it's about going out there and doing everything we can, against a really tough, good Nebraska team to help our seniors go out as winners. That's the big deal to me. One of the new NCAA recruiting rules is a dead period from Dec. 16 N O V E M B E R to Jan. 15. Does that rule help you guys, and what are your thoughts on it overall? I think it definitely helps. I'm in favor of more dead periods. I think that one helps. I think you're able to get more guys out on the road if you're not able to go to a bowl and things like that, which that is one of your major jobs here: to be able to recruit. So getting guys out on the road is a good thing and getting more guys out is a good thing. In my opinion, there should also be a dead period in July and August. July is the time when coaches take some vacation and things like that. Then August is the time that we're trying to get our teams prepared for the season with training camp. So I'm of the opinion that there should be a dead period in July and August, too, and I think this one's good, too. Alex Kenney is from State College and is another one of the guys who has given up that last year of eligibility. Can you evaluate his senior season? 2 0 , 2 0 1 3 16 He's shown up to practice every week, he's played hard, practiced hard and done everything we've asked him to do. He's a great kid. Just a really good kid in our program and a local guy. It hasn't probably worked out for him on the field as much as he would have liked it to. But he's done everything we've asked him to do. Can't say enough good things about Alex. Can you talk about Glenn Carson's importance to this team as he gets ready for his last home game of his career? He's just been a big part of our program. He's an emotional leader. He's done a great job of talking to this team during the year. He's played hard, he's brought passion to the practice field, passion to the game field. He's a guy that you're going to miss. You could have said the same thing about [Michael] Mauti last year. Glenn Carson just loves the game. He'll have a chance to play pro football, so I don't think his career is over. But he's a guy who's meant a lot to our football program. B LUE W HI T E ON L I N E . COM

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