Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis: Plenty to gain against lowly Washington St.

On not getting young offensive linemen into the mix: "The games haven't dictated being able to do that, that's been part of the problem. Since Nevada, every game is right down to the last second of the game. At the offensive line position the last thing I want do is sit there and take a sophomore and say, 'OK, I want to put you in for a few plays and see how you do.' You risk the quarterback getting killed. We're going travel a bunch of offensive linemen to the game, and we'd like to have an opportunity to play a bunch of them. But the game has to present itself in such a way where you can do that."

On finding motivation to play well Saturday: "This is the first time we've gone to one of these neutral site games, and just intrigue about how this is going to play out is exciting in its own right. Number two, we have guys from the state of Texas that are pretty fired up about going back to Texas and getting an opportunity to play there. And, number three, we're at the stage of the year now where if we want to do something special in this year, we really need to get better all across the board. We need to get better on every single facet."

On the recruiting limitations in this game: "We appealed to the NCAA to try to get it like a true home game, and the concession is we can have recruits go to the game, we can give recruits tickets to the game, but we can't talk to them. So it isn't really for us like a true home game. We can get a whole bunch of recruits from the state of Texas, and we have a bunch coming, especially 2011's. We have a bunch coming to the game, but we can't talk to them."

On recruiting the state of Texas: "We spot recruit Texas. See (Texas coach Mack Brown) has that deal going, that junior recruiting day, where he locks down about half the state in about the third week of February. Where he brings in those 25 guys and says, 'You take it now or you're done,' and they all grow up wanting to go to UT and you know most of them are going...Let's face it, if you like a kid and he wanted to go (to Texas) and you weren't heavily involved with him long before then, you already have no chance."

On the punting competition between freshman Ben Turk and veteran Eric Maust: "You worry about the psyche of a young guy, but the bottom line is you have to worry about the team first more than the psyche of the young guy. Obviously, you will have perfect conditions this week because you are punting indoors. So you take the weather factor out of the game where you don't have to worry about playing on a perfect surface and it's not going to be slippery and those things, but still this week they'll both have an opportunity to punt and whoever punts the bests that who will punt."

On getting tight end Kyle Rudolph more open this week: "Last week wasn't so much game planning was just we weren't hitting on a lot of combinations between (Rudolph and quarterback Jimmy Clausen). One of the things we're going work on today, we're going work a couple routes. I'm going to go over and one of the individual (periods) today and just we'll work with the quarterbacks and tight ends, work on nuances and routes. When it's one-on-one I would think Kyle should get open every time, I would think, but that hasn't been happening, so we'll be working on that today."

On Duval Kamara's progress: "Being back from the knee (surgery) and being ready to go and being at the top of your game like you never had a knee (surgery) are two different things. I think he battled back nicely and quickly and got himself involved in the mix. Was he disappointed at the end of the USC? You bet. But you could see it didn't affect at all his performance in the next game. And I thought that he not only caught the ball well but he got some extra yards for us when he did catch the ball and was very productive for us."

On getting back into the rankings: "If we want put to ourselves in the picture to play in a top-flight bowl game at the end of the year we have to slowly but surely, week by week take care of business. In the loss to USC, you know, a loss never helps you, but fortunately for us because of how the game played out, it didn't really hurt us drastically by vanishing from the picture. So then last week we beat Boston College to sneak back in there and now we got Washington State. We're not going to jump ahead of 10 teams in a week. You want to get ahead of a couple of teams. Each week you want to get ahead of a couple more."

On player curfew this weekend in San Antonio: "There will be curfew, and they won't be on the Riverwalk. Our fans will be on the Riverwalk, but our players, if they're on the Riverwalk after 10 p.m., you know we have a problem."

On the grill on the deck outside his office: "Believe it or not that grill does get used. Usually it's kind of a little celebration for my staff -- it's nice day in the springtime where at the 7 (p.m.) staff meeting I'll say we're having a barbecue at noon. One time I had a barbecue and they came a little late and I said OK, fellas, I guess you don't want this anymore. They haven't been late ever since. These guys get a free meal, they're usually there."