Florida State tailback Leon Washington met with the press following Wednesday's practice. Here is a transcript of his interview:

That's what we're going to need to do. We're thinking about the future, we're not really thinking about the present right now. We're thinking about, you know, how can we help ourselves out down this road in big games when we're struggling with teams. We know we can run the ball, I mean that's pretty much a given with the backs we have; we know what we can do. So our job now is to get our passing game up there and once we get that, our defense is not going to give up more than 13 points a game. So if we can put up 21, 28 points even 35 points a game it's going to be a big key. If that means throwing the ball every down then let's do it, let's get it.

Oh yeah. Yeah that's common sense, anybody with football sense knows that.

Hopefully it gets pretty close because I'm ready to run the ball, I haven't run the ball in awhile, I don't think I've got 100 yards on the season yet, but as a competitor you want to run the ball; being a tailback me and Lorenzo want to run the ball. But we're doing a good job getting the ball out the backfield and when you catch them out the backfield you get 10, 12, 13 yards a pop; that's just as good running the ball. It's all positive energy, no guys are complaining about anything, we're positive about it, we won, we're 3-0 and that's the most important thing.

I don't know man. I tell ya, I was telling Lorenzo, I got a good knick for picking guys out when they first come out to the practice field, which guys are gonna be real good, and I sat there and told Lorenzo Booker and he'll come back and tell you the same thing: I said Tony Carter, watch what I tell you man, guy's a big time player. I said the same thing about Greg Carr and it came out true. Those guys work hard, they got a little attitude about it, and they're tough guys; you gotta have heart to play this game. You know a lot of guys are going to be physically talented, but if you don't have no heart you won't get anywhere in this game. Those guys are displaying heart and they're also displaying the ability to listen. Even though they're making big plays they're still listening and still trying to get better. Those guys keep that up and I tell you, Florida State has a big future with those guys with the way they're performing right now. We got a lot of other freshmen who haven't had a chance to touch the ball and they're doing the same thing so the future for Florida State is square.

From now on when we get inside the 25, teams are going to be going over the top with that safety for the fade route and we can pop a run in there. We're all setting it up, we're all setting it up, a lot of people are all like 'well why aren't you running the ball more'; it's all a setup. JB is doing a great job of doing it and we're not going to let anybody know what we're doing and hopefully they won't figure out what we're doing, but at the same time we're having fun, guys are out there energized, the freshmen guys are stepping up big time for us, so we're all satisfied with it.

I don't know. I said the same thing when I was at the ACC Virginia meeting; I was like man, people are going to be shocked when we go out and play. And it's almost like a storybook what's going to be written with all the stuff we went through in the off-season and all the guys we lost. We still were able to persevere and that shows a lot about our team, it shows great leadership, it shows a lot of character and it shows the ability of our team. We're enjoying it right now. The main thing we can do is not get content and not get satisfied; we still got to get better, we got a lot more to improve on. Even though we're playing so well, we're playing like semi-well right now with a lot more to improve on and as long as we keep making those steps from the first game until now every game and by the end of the season we can be pretty darn good, pretty darn good I'm telling you.

It's one of those deals where you feel disrespected, you feel like people are saying you're not going to win, or people are saying you're underdogs, and I've been through a couple of those. My thing is, me personally, I never feel like I'm an underdog; we always know our ability and what we can do on the field. So for a team to say they're picked ahead of us—that's the outsiders, that's in Las Vegas, that's all over there. But at the same time I kind of like it though. I kind of like being underdogs, it gives our team motivation just like BC gave coming out fired up and ready to play. So I kind of like it, so keep picking us (as) underdogs, I think we like it.

I think it was KHall (Kyler Hall), I think I saw him cutting the turf up. We didn't rip it up, that's kind of a different situation with that turf. KHall went in and cut if off and it felt good to go in there and do that and bury it into our cemetery. There's a lot of tradition behind that. But for the most part, I don't feel like I'm an underdog.

It's different. You got different types of athletes. Them guys up there are hard-nosed, you got some guys who are pretty good athletes, but everybody else is hard-nosed and physical. So it's a little bit physical playing teams from up north. I imagine it's going to be the same thing playing Syracuse. I've been watching film; the strong suit of their team is their defense this year. So it's going to be a hard fought game again but the best thing about it is we got them at Doak Campbell Stadium so we got the advantage from that point. But playing those guys it's kind of difficult because, you know, especially with our zone running scheme, their lineman that we're playing from up north they're not that fast so we tend to over-jump our zone and are not able to pick up the guys. We did a good job at Boston College but it's kind of different playing those guys, you've got to slow your tempo down a little bit.

This is our first year doing this and our linemen are kind of young with it and it's going to take some time to get that system really fully developed, but it's going to be harder and we expected that. But the best thing we're doing right now is our offense is still rolling, we're throwing the ball well, but I mean it's kind of different for those guys to read the zone at first. Outside zone is kind of difficult because when you play teams that like I said aren't that fast--- in the BC game somebody didn't move fast enough to get up to their man and I got hit in the backfield. Just some of those runs that we're not use to, but the inside runs you're more one on one blocking and you're able to get through the hole, but the inside zones are going pretty good, but the outside is not going good right now.

It'll get better as the season is going on and when the safeties aren't dropping down too much…I feel like I'm getting too much into it, everybody is going to know this. But it'll get better.