(Editor's note: Georgia Tech quarterback Joe Hamilton will share a weekly diary with ESPN.com throughout the season. For more on the Yellow Jackets, visit the FANSonly Georgia Tech team page. For more on the ACC, visit the conference's official site at theacc.com.)

Oct. 12, 1999

I think I have to be a team leader. Responsibilities come just by being a senior and by being a quarterback. Guys respond to me a little bit. Guys listen to me a little. And if I am telling them to do something, I make sure I am doing it, too. If I tell them to work hard in practice, I'm also working hard. If I tell them to go to class, I go to class.

	Hamilton passed for 2,166 yards in 1998, leading Tech to a 10-2 record.

I don't try to tell guys to do something that I'm not doing. I feel I'm a leader along with the other seniors on the team. I think it's a collective group that we need to lead this team to where we want it to go. I think of myself as a utility guy, wherever I can plug in and help this team, I'll do it.

The game has slowed down for me now. Back in 1996 and '97 things were kind of fast. I didn't understand why defenses would line up this way and then shift to something else, give you this look and try to disguise different things. Now I understand that they try and show you this look, but they have to be somewhere else. They can disguise all they want, but by the time you snap the ball, they have to get to the hash and end up showing you where they are going.

Now I understand that, and now I'm not rushed. I'm not panicked. I try to review film and study film hard enough to know that when you try to blitz me or you try to confuse me, I can confuse you also. I can hurry up and I can do things to try to get you off balance and burn you where you're not getting back into position.

So I think I'm more relaxed, less confused. I don't have a lot of things swimming around in my head when I get to the line of scrimmage. Sometimes they get the best of me, but that's the fun of the game. You have to be competitive. If you went out there and dominated everything that wouldn't be fun.

	THE FULL DOSE OF DIARIES
	USC's Travis Claridge: Shooting for four
	Miami's André King: Putting on a good show
	UCLA's Danny Farmer: Bowl-bound Bruins?
	Oregon State's Ken Simonton: All about execution
	Oregon's Reuben Droughns: Resting the ribs
	Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops: Busy bye week
	Ole Miss' Todd Wade: Ready for 'Bama
	Wyoming's Jarnagin, Demos: Bad loss in Laramie

So I think I have to keep working. Teams have been getting me a couple of times this season and coach Ralph Friedgen has been getting on me. That's good ... you want to keep working and keep getting better.

I want to be able to run and pass equally well. I want to be where defenses have to defend the option to where I can run the passing game. And that's hard to do. I'm not bragging about our offense or bragging on myself, but its hard to defend the option.

Whatever coach calls, I try to be a guy who can execute whatever the coaches want to call. I pride myself on working hard in the off season and at practice on doing that. You want to go out there with no real weaknesses, where the defenses can say this guy can't do this very well. You want to eliminate those. I try to work on weaknesses that I might see or that coach might see that we have as a team or as a player. And we work on getting rid of those.

Guys are always talking about how they have a small town, but it's probably not smaller than where I'm from (Alvin, S.C.). I think being from a small town means you have more love, means you have more opportunities to give back. You've got more opportunities to show people who helped you out along the way that they really meant something, and you can give them back what they gave you.

I don't think all the attention (Hamilton has been considered a Heisman candidate throughout the season) has been a distraction. I take it as it comes. Sometimes I'm a little embarrassed, but to me, it's fun. I see myself giving back. All my life you dream about trying to be the best and trying to do the good thing, trying to be a player and keep working hard, and now that some attention is coming to you, you want that. I take it as an accomplishment. Sometimes it can be tiring, but for me to say that I don't enjoy it would be lying.