*COLTS HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY *
CONFERENCE CALL
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 207
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(were you surprised by the positive reaction to your recent book?) "I was very surprised. I thought it would be a nice regional book in Indiana and possibly Tampa but the national scope of it and letters that I've gotten from people all over the country have been pretty gratifying but definitely something I didn't expect."
(what inspired you to write the book at this point in your life?) "It wasn't really something I had ever thought about doing and a couple of people had approached me for two or three years and a couple guys on my staff that I'm pretty close to said this is the time to do it. You have some things you want to say, just about the way I do things and why I do them and the coaches that I worked for and where I got my philosophy and my parents and those kinds of things, and that you're never going to have the platform you have after the Super Bowl. So that was kind of the ground work behind it and it's probably just a timing issue and playing off the Super Bowl more than anything."
(based on the reaction of your book, are you starting to realize that you've had more of an impact than you thought you had beyond football?) "I am, yes, and that has been gratifying and that's probably been the best thing to come out of it and that was the message out of the book really that you can't you're your work too seriously, you can't think it's the end of the world. You do the best you can but there are a lot of other things that are way more important than if you win it all or not. That was the message I wanted to get out and I think people wanted to hear it. They wanted to hear a positive message and we had so much negative coming out of the sports world this summer that I think that was the thing behind it being so popular."
(is your team better than a year ago?) "I think we're better in a lot of ways but I think we're going to have to be better to compete. Other teams have improved and we knew that we would have to but I think we're a more physical team on defense, I think we're a year wiser on offense although we lost some key people in a lot of spots, offensively and defensively. I think from an experience standpoint and from just maybe being fundamentally sound, we're a little bit better."
(how were you able to shift gears last year after playing the Jaguars here and then be so good against the run in the postseason? Was that a change that you've maintained?) "We obviously had to improve and be better. We thought there were some things that we could do to improve – cut down on what we did and play a little sharper. We got some people healthier and frankly we didn't play as good of backs in the postseason as we played down there. Those two guys (Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew) are exceptional backs and they still are, so I guess we'll find out how much we've improved when we come down there on Monday."
(you got an easy play against Larry Johnson) "Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew, those guys are exceptional. They make long runs. They make people miss. They're in an offense that really does what they do best and they're as tough a group as you're going to face."
(on David Garrard) "He's playing exceptionally well and I think they've done a great job as a coaching staff of tailoring the offense to do what running backs do best and what he does best and the combination of the run game and the play action, and he's throwing the ball accurately and he's not trying to do everything, it's just been very good. If you look at his numbers, the important numbers, yards per throw, touchdowns to interceptions and those kinds of things, he's got the same type of stats as all the big name guys that get all the publicity. So, I think he's playing exceptionally well for them and he's given them that sense that they can win every game and that's what the good quarterbacks do."
(in your game against the Jaguars last December, they rushed for 375 yards. Is that
