Being there, hearing all the fans – that was incredible. They brought so much energy to the game. The student section was chanting my name, which was pretty cool. Being in that atmosphere … I was away from it for two years, so it was good to be a part of it again.

However, things weren’t so smooth after that. As most of you probably saw, on my first play, I fumbled the ball, which led to a South Carolina touchdown. That one touchdown was all they needed as our offense fell flat and the Gamecocks won the game, 7-3.

That was definitely not how I wanted to start the season, to put it lightly.

My coach told me he was really impressed with how I handled the situation. Being out for two years due to injury and coming back to face adversity that quick off the bat, really bouncing back and finishing the game strong was huge for me. I’m glad I didn’t tank it after that first play.

Thankfully, after that, things settled down. My pass protection was good and all my reads were good. I feel like overall, besides that play, I did pretty well, especially for that being my first game back.

It was a hard fought game, like we thought it would be. We thought we would do a lot better on offense, but you have to give a lot of credit to their defense. They have probably one of the best defenses we’ll see all year.

But let’s focus on the positives. We did well in some areas and we know we have to get better in others. Everything we didn’t do well can be corrected.

Not much really happened behind the scenes. Everyone was so uptight before the game; the pressure was so intense. Hopefully everyone will relax a little bit against Murray State and have some fun.

As of Sunday, our focus was on Murray State. What we did this week was focus on the little things and try and get back on track with our offense. We feel like it’s really important that we come out and put up a pretty good performance on offense just to get into a rhythm. We’ve got to come out and attack those guys.

We started breaking down some tape Monday and we’re starting to get ready for them. I went to my room after study hall and started looking at them and getting ready for Saturday.

I’m pretty disappointed in the ACC after Saturday, with Duke and Virginia both going down to non-conference opponents. The division has got to pick it up as a whole, and we can do our part by taking out Murray State this weekend.

See you at the game.

-As told to Kate Shefte