Weis: These are my guys

Kansas head coach Charlie Weis talked about the seniors last game and much more in his weekly press conference.

On the group of KU seniors:

"And my last note before we get going, being that this is the last home game, I'd just like to tell you how much I've appreciated this group of seniors that are going out. A lot of these guys are on their third coach. I can't even imagine that. During their timeframe going from, Coach (Mark) Mangino, to Coach (Turner) Gill, to Coach (Charlie) Weis and the trials and tribulations they've been through. They've gutted it out and bought in (to all three coaching systems). And, you know, there's two different ways as a coach you can approach guys when you're a new coach. There are some coaches that are under the mentality, 'well wait until I get my guys in here.' Well, these are my guys, and I'll be there for them forever; whatever they need from me, within reason. I'll be there, I'll be there for them. I don't need to have recruited them and I don't need to have coached them (for very long) to respect them. And I hope that together with the coaches, the underclassmen and the fan base, I'm hoping we can provide enough inspiration and motivation to go ahead and knock off a touch Iowa State team and let them leave with a good taste in their mouths."

On when he first started to figure out the personality of his senior class:

"(It was) probably when we came back from summer vacation. When you're with them, you can keep your feet on them the whole time. Once I got in here, when recruiting was done, and you're around them all the time, it is a lot easier to monitor young men when you're around them all the time. It's totally different when you're not. So now it's the month of July and I'm vacationing and spending quality time with my family, I'm not really sure (what we have). Even though (strength and conditioning coach Scott) Holsopple's back at the ranch going through workouts, you really don't know what you're going to get when you come back. Every one of them (the seniors) looked better than they did when I left. Now, they're not very good looking to start off with, but they all looked better when I came back and that's usually the first major sign when you can see these guys want something good to happen."

On how difficult it was for them to adjust to a new coach:

"I've really never really had much confrontation, to be honest with you. In college or the pros, you'd be really surprised at the number of confrontations you have. There are very, very few. Usually, everyone wants the same thing and everyone has different approaches to how to do it, but there's very few times where players are confrontational."

On what he wants the seniors to remember about their experience at Kansas:

"First of all, their experience is not over yet. So I would like them to walk out of here with a good taste in their mouth. If all of a sudden, on Saturday night, all of those 900-game losing streaks and all that other stuff go by the boards, and you're partying on the field after the game, that's what they're going to remember. They're going to remember the camaraderie with their teammates. You don't focus on the bad things; you remember the good things; you focus on the good things. And there are still a couple of opportunities for some good memories yet to be created. Now philosophically, I think that they're leaving here well-rounded young men and I think when you go to school, the biggest thing that happens is you grow up. Growing up with just good things happening doesn't really prepare you for life. What prepares you for life is when you have to deal with good and bad and how you're going to persevere when things are bad and then how you handle it when things are going well. And they've certainly had more than their share of negative things that happened, but I think that (they will) walk out with their head high. I mean, you'll be a much better person down the road."

On his players' memories of playing at KU:

"One thing here that I think that I have to get ingrained throughout this system with players current, future and past is, this can't be about who you played for, this is what school you played for. You played for Kansas. You didn't play for (Coach) Weis and it's got to be about Kansas. It can't be about a coach. I think because there's been a number of coaches (here recently), it's been very eclectic and segregated, because it's always stereotype or grouped with a coach. I'd rather by the time I'm out of here have gotten that stigma out of the way and just have people glad that they went to Kansas to both matriculate and to play football."