A SEASON WORTH SAVORING
son.)
In general, the returning play- ers had the proverbial "chip on their shoulder" after losing to TCU in the Rose Bowl. That was powerful moti- vation during the off-season. "Going through all the emotions of that loss (in Pasadena) and knowing we had a lot of those guys back," said senior safety Aaron Henry, "we knew that we could become a tremendous football team.
"Going through all the emotions of that loss (in the Rose Bowl) and know- ing we had a lot of those guys back," said senior safety Aaron Henry, "we knew that we could become a tre- mendous football team."
"We really didn't know who was going to be
the quarterback. We knew Jon Budmayr had a great chance to be the starter. Once he went down and Russell came in, it was a great fit." Wilson raised the bar immediately. "At the first team meeting, I told the guys, 'I want to be a part of something special,"' Wilson said. "Everybody fed into that, and believed in that.
"I believed in that. "I knew in training camp that we were going to
have the opportunity to be great." So did offensive lineman Travis Frederick, who was coming off a redshirt year. "You could see the chemistry growing through-
out camp," he said, "and that let me know that this team was going to be something special. Toon saw many of the same things during two-a-days in August.
"One of the things that allowed us to have so
much success last year was the way we worked together as a team and the chemistry," Toon said.
"The people are different so obviously the per- 23
