By Jason Beauchamp · November 12, 2008 · 3:16 AM

After a difficult week of practice, it paid off.

I think last Tuesday, our practice was one of the best, most physical practices we've had all year. A lot of it was just feeling like the leaders on the team - and guys who aren't even established as leaders - just stepped up huge in practice. Scout team played hard, and it was a practice of 'We have nothing to lose' and 'We owe it to ourselves and owe it to the coaches to play the best we can possibly play on Saturday.'

And hard work does pay off.

New Mexico, they had their weapons and I thought Rodney Ferguson, he was a good back. They're a solid team. They've been solid all year, but we knew as a defense we had to play big this week, knowing that Mike Clausen was going to be starting for the first time.

As a defense, and as a team, there hasn't been one game where we've played entirely our best game. I'm not saying that was our best game, but we left it out there. As I said earlier, there's no substitute for heart. I think all those little things had a lot to do with our success on Saturday.

As far as the offense goes, you saw Rodelin Anthony get the ball more, and I thought he stepped up and played huge on Saturday. His role wasn't that big, but he took what he had, and the offensive coaches have more and more confidence in him, and I think he'll be getting the ball more now. That's a big credit to him and a big credit to all the guys on offense.

I think that Mike Clausen, he's a really good quarterback. He still has his growing to do, but it's a lot saying that he had no turnovers. He didn't throw an interception. That's a huge credit to him, just being smart with the ball.

They say 80 perscent of the time a team with a blocked punt wins the game, so special teams did it for us this week, compared to the two weeks before, when special teams was what killed us. That's a huge advantage, whoever is winning that special teams battle, and we won it.

On Beau Bell being back in town for the weekend ...

It's huge for me. It's almost like your big brother patting you on the back. It's a guy who used to beat you up, make fun of you and stuff coming back to congratulate you. It's huge, and I think that Beau, he actually sees a little bit of himself in me. I'm just thankful that he has time to come down. I'm thankful that he hasn't forgotten where he's come from.

We all support him and look for him every Sunday. We know that he's going to be in on special teams. Much like when I was playing behind him, he's in that same position in the NFL now. He used to tell me when I wasn't playing much - because I was angry and got frustrated - he would tell me 'your time's coming, don't worry.' I'm telling him that now. He's like 'man, I can do this, I can play.' And I'm telling him how he's made it already, now it's just waiting your turn and putting in the work. It's just funny how things turn around. I'm just happy that I can step in and fill his shoes, because those are some big shoes to fill. I'm just trying my best to live up to it.

On to Wyoming ...

Moving on to our next game, Mike Clausen, he's stepping up and we trust him and we expect him to play a great game again against Wyoming.

They just beat Tennessee, so after a huge win like that from them, they'll come in here and be ready. They have the exact same record we have, and those guys, I think they're wide-eyed right now, and they see the light at the end of the tunnel. So we just have to make sure that we play sound football and that we don't take these guys lightly. We're so close to actually still just finishing out our goals and things we said we were gonna do, despite the criticisms and the losses this season that we should have turned into wins. Despite all of that, we still have a chance.

I know a lot of guys are really happy about that and aren't gonna take it for granted in these next couple of games.

Wyoming, I think they're somewhat like Air Force to me. They just have a lot of guys that play really hard. I promise you that you'll see that the Rebels want to win and that we'll do whatever it takes to win.

Signing off until next week, this is Jason Beuchamp.