COACH GARY PINKEL "First of all, I'm just very proud of my team, my staff.... We'll be ranked somewhere in the top 10 in the nation. This just kind of overwhelmed me.... I'm just so proud of all my seniors, what they've done. You know, we had to make some adjustments during the game. " I thought defensively we played an exceptional game. [Defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus ]... came up with a great plan. We had players that went out and executed. Did more in this game than we generally do. Did a few extra things. Dropped safeties down, moved our front around. I think it was a real plus for us. " On the offensive side, we made adjustments. I think what happens is when you look at our offense, you look at our numbers, you have a tendency to say, OK, look at the quarterback. Look at the perimeter, receivers and tight ends. What happens is they had seven DBs at a time. They did make some adjustments. We tried to counteradjust. Certainly I thought the offensive staff, leaning on the run, doing some right things in the running game, obviously was a huge, huge advantage for us.

More of an in-game kind of reaction to what Arkansas was doing more than something you saw during the week that made you think you could run the ball that well ?

" I think, first of all, Arkansas is a real good football team, OK ? I'm going to say that, No. 1. I don't want to get into this where we outsmarted them type thing. I don't think it comes down to that. I think we outexecuted them. I think our players played well and made the plays necessary to win.

" When people get in the 30 front with us, a three-man front, they put a lot of defensive action in, which I thought that was a great plan. They stifled our passing game. They were dropping everybody. Rushing one or two people at times. It caused some problems for us. I think you give them credit. They probably said, and you have to ask them but, you know, 'let them beat us running the football, not throwing the football.'

" Fortunately we got our running game going.

" I think we had the patience to stick with it. Great thing about our receivers and tight ends, as you well know, a very talented group, quarterback, is that this is about winning the football game and doing what's right, OK ? What was right this time was to lean on the running game, and we did that." Coach, you were snubbed from the BCS by two teams that you beat. Was there a collective chip ?

"Well, I'm not going to answer for the players. I think the Cotton Bowl, we're so excited about having the Cotton Bowl. I think anybody knows naturally if you end up sixth in the BCS and you're not invited to a BCS game, that affected all my players.

" The great thing they did is they found out what a great bowl the Cotton Bowl was, and we embraced that. Also, they listed all the things why this Cotton Bowl was so important, to get a victory here. Our position groups did. We brought it together, got about the top nine reasons why this Cotton Bowl was so hugely important for us. By the way, we just had a phenomenal day, phenomenal week, and it's second to none." Before the game you told a reporter on the sideline that you expected McFadden to maybe break off a couple of long runs. That didn't happen. Talk about the scheme specifically, what you were doing to scheme to keep him corralled or the defensive guys.

"What I talked about, I said you better have great leverage and contain.

" Those are defensive principles, fundamental principles of not letting a great back like that break out in space. He got away a few times. " That's everybody doing their job. It's their responsibility to do. We did some different things. I'm not sure callwise how many times Matt used this, but we really got our safeties involved in the running game. We also did some shifts, different things up front. Matt and I talked about it yesterday afternoon. My big thing was just making sure, I thought we were doing a good job in practice.... We won because our players played hard and we had great fundamentals. Some of the little things they did do I think was a real plus for us. " The big thing is, can you get them executed ? In the heat of the battle can you execute them ? " Obviously I thought our defense did a phenomenal job."

QUARTERBACK CHASE DANIEL Chase, you've talked about Tony Temple as being the catalyst for this offense. Can you talk about what you think he did for the offense today. " Well, he obviously did an outstanding job. I mean, everyone was talking about Darren McFadden, Felix Jones, Peyton Hillis. No disrespect to those guys, but I wouldn't trade my back for anything. " Tony's done an excellent job all year long. He hasn't got as many carries this year because we've been throwing the heck out of the football. We took what they gave us this game.... I said, 'Coach, let's just keep feeding Tony the ball.' What a courageous effort by this guy coming into his last game, because it's been a hard year for him and it really paid off for him today.