“We are seven games in,” James said. “Manny is doing the things he needs to do to build a program for long term success. Some of it we will not see until after recruiting signing days. I will say I feel 100 percent as confident in the decision today as I did back when we made it in December. It is frustrating to lose games—I hate losing and I know Manny hates losing—they are going to do what they need to do to put themselves in position to win every game with the understanding that we are not going to win every game. That is part of football. The teams that we line up against are doing everything they can to win games as well. It is going to be a battle week in and week out. Manny has the full support of myself and our full institution.
“I think the reality is that we are 3-4 and we need to focus on the remaining five games and do everything we can to win each and every one of those,” James said. “It is a disappointing journey to this point. You can look at each one of our losses and I think you can realistically say that if this play went the way that it normally would, then we would end up in a different spot. While you could say that we could be 7-0 or 5-2 or whatever it is, the reality is that we are 3-4 and that is what we are moving forward from. We have five games ahead of us starting with Pittsburgh.”
“I think the reality is that we are 3-4 and we need to focus on the remaining five games and do everything we can to win each and every one of those,” James said. “It is a disappointing journey to this point. You can look at each one of our losses and I think you can realistically say that if this play went the way that it normally would, then we would end up in a different spot. While you could say that we could be 7-0 or 5-2 or whatever it is, the reality is that we are 3-4 and that is what we are moving forward from. We have five games ahead of us starting with Pittsburgh.”