Quotes from ACC head coaches at their weekly press conferences

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Boston College head coach Steve Addazio

Steve Addazio Weekly News Conference Transcript: Oct. 29, 2018
ADDAZIO: It's a tall assignment, and we have a full week ahead of us to get prepared and to put together a good plan. Just really have a lot of respect for Virginia Tech, their program. Obviously Coach Fuente has done a fabulous job there, and he's put his stamp on that program, and you can see it everywhere. They're well-coached. Schematically put together very, very well. They're tough, they're physical. You know, and as I said earlier, on defense, Coach Foster has been there a long time, and the defense is always really, really tough.

Special teams, they've been outstanding, and then they have what I would call the 12th man crowd factor down there, which is big.

Our preparation this week, we've got to handle the crowd noise. We've got to be able to really establish a good run game. You go on the road, you've got to pack your run game, you've got to pack your defense, and you've got to be able to sustain and with stand the home team force. We need to have a really strong week of preparation. We need to get our team feeling good and healthy. We came out of a very physical football game last weekend, and then march on and get ready to get win No. 7.

That's our goal. That's what we're working on right now, looking forward to the week, and it seems like the season goes by so quick. Here we are going down the home stretch. We've got to be playing our best football. I think we are, so looking forward to another week of growth and development. Any questions?

Q. Bud Foster's approach, what makes him such a good football mind?
ADDAZIO: Well, I think he's a guy that has a plan in how to attack offenses. Been doing it for a long time. I think he's a guy that really takes a look at what you do formationally and tendency wise and really tries to go after that. But I think it starts with a toughness and a demeanor that he instills. Esprit de corps, if you will. It's been pretty remarkable over the years, the level of play they've sustained. And obviously great players. I mean, they've had some -- like anybody else, you've got really good players, and you've got a good scheme and you can put them together good, then you can have a unit that's pretty tough. They've been tough for a long time. I mean, I go all the way back into the early 90s when I was at Syracuse traveling down there, fully aware of it.

Q. What are some of the things that you can do to simulate the crowd noise and get the team ready for that because I know that's a pretty hostile environment?
ADDAZIO: Yeah, in our new indoor we have a sound system that's probably second to none in America. It's really incredible. We were in there last night, and we had that thing cranked up. It was giving me a headache it was so loud. It's louder than any stadium could possibly be. You know, it's tremendous for us to use that. I've got to pick my spots. We're playing outside, so I don't want to be inside all week, but we'll probably have to go inside because the sound system that we have outside won't do what this one will do. This thing is incredible. It's deafening.

Q. Just about coming off the Miami game and the way you guys were able to sustain drives and move the football, what are some of the things you guys succeeded in doing there?
ADDAZIO: Well, I thought we played pretty well in tempo. Our goal was to go in and play really fast, and we did. In the first half, we ran about 50 plays and had 300 yards of offense. We had drives of 12 and 16 and nine, and we were able to stay on the field, and I thought we did it with a mixture of run and pass and we had some trick plays in there, and we just kind of kept it really moving, and we did all those things at a really warp speed. So it really impacted their defense.

And that's our goal. That's what we want to do. That's how we're going to play the game. I thought we started with that early, and it didn't subside through the first half at all.

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney

Opening Statement:
“We’re excited to be back at home. We have three more opportunities to play here at Clemson, and this is something we look forward to all year…these seven opportunities. Hopefully we’ll have a great crowd this week. I know we have Fall Break next week, but hopefully our students will hang around and cut out after the game on Saturday, because this is a special time. We have an unbelievable group of seniors that cherish every single moment that they get to play here at home, so they’re excited about another opportunity, and we’re looking forward to another great day in the Valley.
 
“Louisville is 2-6, but they’re the best 2-6 team I’ve seen. I don’t know how else to say it. Their record is not indicative of the players that they have. Sometimes, you turn on a tape and look at a team, and it doesn’t take long [to react negatively], but these guys are physical, and they have as well-coordinated of an offensive scheme as we’ve gone against. They’ve done a great job schematically. They have a big, huge offensive line…probably the biggest offensive line we’ve played. They are massive up front…and they have probably as good of a group of receivers as we’ve played. I’d say the same thing about the receivers…big, huge, 6’4”. One of them is 6’6”, I think. These are big, big guys. They have a very effective tight end in [Micky] Crum. They have two good running backs…the freshman, [Hassan Hal], is impressive on tape. He’s come on as of late, and he’s a fast, explosive kid.
 
“The biggest thing is that they’re 127^th in the country in turnover margin. So, if you want to say, ‘what’s happened’…well, there’s 130 teams, and they’re 127^th in turnover margin. They’ve had some very tough breaks, and I’m sure that their coaches are frustrated with a lot of missed opportunities, because they’re very capable of playing with anybody. From a physicality standpoint, a schematic standpoint, and a skill standpoint…they have those things on this team. But when you turn the ball over at the rate that they’ve turned it over, you’re going to end up coming out on the short end of the deal, a lot. And that’s what’s happened for them. They had a 24-20 game into the fourth quarter with Boston College. They really, truly should have won the Florida State game. I’ve seen that one a few times over the last couple of weeks, and they just missed some opportunities against those guys. They’ve had some tough breaks, but again, this offensive line…the quarterback is a young guy. That’s the other thing…he’s a young guy that they’re committed to, and they’re bringing him along. He runs very well, and he’s big. He probably hasn’t been as consistent as they’ve wanted him to be, but then you put a little cut-up together, and bang…there’s eight big plays against Alabama. He’s a very streaky, capable guy. We expect a challenge and a big-time battle from a physical standpoint. We’re going to have to really play well defensively and have the right mindset to take on the type of scheme that they present…all the boots, crossers, down-and-arounds and g-schemes…they come right at you, and all the stuff that comes off of it is well-coordinated. [They take] a bunch of shots down the field…we have to win matchups, because with those big receivers, they’re going to put the ball up one-on-one.
 
“On the flipside of it, it’s the same thing. You look at their defensive line…they have a bunch of guys. Same thing…they have a good scheme on that side of the ball. They’re aggressive, and they’ve had some short fields that they’ve had to deal with along the way, but this is not a 2-6 football team. That’s what their record is, but that’s not indicative of the type of talent that they have on this team. For us, it’s about being locked in. They’re one of the better punt returners.
 
“Again, it’s just about being locked in and continuing to build momentum and confidence in what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to play our best game each and every week…kind of competing against ourselves to see if we can be consistent and put our best four quarters [together]…‘hey, last week was great, but can we be consistent? Can we clean up some of the mistakes from last week? Can we continue to win the turnover margin? Can we continue to make a difference in special teams? Can we finish the big plays when they present themselves? Can we cut out the couple of busts that we had last week?’ There are just so many things that we have to focus on, and we’re excited to have the opportunity to go out and play. We’re looking forward to practice today…getting back out there for a good, tough Tuesday practice. Today will be a tough practice, because again, with their style of play, you better have your mind right. If not, they can embarrass you pretty quick with their style.
 
“As far as our team goes, I like where we are. I think that we have a healthy team. We have a confident team. We have a team that has good momentum right now. But more importantly, we have great leadership, and we have a team that is very, very focused. That will serve us well as we enter into what we call our ‘Championship Phase’ of our journey for this year. We work all year. We started last January, and now here we are rolling into November, and we’re right where we want to be. We have a lot of opportunity [left]…we’ve only achieved one goal…we won the opener. This phase of our season presents a lot of opportunity for us, but you have to put your best foot forward every single week, every single play. High sense of urgency, attention to details, continuing to prepare with purpose every day…I’ve seen all of that in our guys. We’re excited about getting back to work today, and we’re looking forward to a great day in the Valley on Saturday.”
 
On the 400^th all-time Hill run being Saturday:
“That’s pretty cool. I saw that, last night, on the radio show…they had that in the notes. But that’s pretty amazing…it really is. You sit down and you think about that tradition and all of the players who have come through here and [have or will] tell their kids and their grandkids about that opportunity…to know that we get the chance to be a part of that 400^th one is pretty cool. It’s pretty cool.”
 
On the status of the redshirts:
“The only one right now that we’ve used all four games with is K.J. [Henry]. I think he’s the only one that I know we’re trying to hold, and that’s what he wants to do. And we’re in a position to do that right now, unless something changes. If we get down the road and have a change or two, then we might have to revisit that, but right now, he’s the only one that we’ve burned all four games [with]. Everyone else is still in a good spot, and I think we’ve gotten most all of them in at least one game. I know [Justin] Mascoll got in that last [home] game, and Jake [Venables] and Mike [Jones Jr.]. Of course, K.J. has gotten there, and [James] Skalski has played. [Jordan] McFadden has played…most of those guys have gotten in there a little bit, and we’ll se how it goes down the stretch and if we have more opportunity, but with four games left, I think we’re in a good place with all of those guys.”


On the play of Amari Rodgers against Florida State:
“He’s been consistent really all around, all year. He just hadn’t had that big, explosive play. Against Texas A&M, he had a big touchdown on a hitch-and-go, but [Florida State] was a huge game for him…he led our team in yards after the catch. He had two great plays. It was definitely one of those games that can give you a big boost as we’re going into game nine here. I was really happy for him…he had a great all-purpose day. He’s a good football player, man. He’s a well-rounded player that can do a lot of things for us.”
 
Duke head coach David Cutcliffe

Opening Statement …
“Everyone realizes Miami has suffered two tough ACC losses on the road. I think that says more about the ACC than it does about Miami. Miami is a really good football team, potentially a team without a weakness. Its defense is arguably one of the best in the country. They do a lot of things the best in the country there, but their linemen are terrific. They have pro-prospect type players. Their linebackers as a group are some of the best in the country. Their secondary can cover and tackle and are big and fast. Miami is a terrific defensive team.
 
“We’ll jump to the kicking team now. They have a great return team in the area of punts as well as kickoffs. They have an offense that has terrific backs and a big freshman tight end who is leading the team in receiving. There are so many different receivers. Both quarterbacks can run the ball.
 
“They are as talented as what you will find anywhere. What we have to do is minimize any errors and play at an extremely high level to have an opportunity in this ball game.”
 
On Getting the Team’s Mood Back Up Sunday …
“I got here Sunday pretty early. I watched film the night before and gave a lot of thought into what needed to be said. People, like myself, were still processing emotions. We were able to take a good team meeting. We talked about the many good things we did. But the simple fact was if you’re going to win, we have to get over the inconsistencies.
 
“We have to let it go because trying to explain it any other way is a waste of time and energy. That was the approach. It’s a great question because it was the most important thing we needed to address on Sunday.
 
“We did have a good, energized practice on Sunday and again this morning. We can’t have a hangover. That was the biggest thing we had to avoid.”
 
On Defensive Fundamentals …
“You can’t give up gaps. You have to be consistent in your steps and stances. We were short two of our top three line backers Saturday. The explanation for the game is we just didn’t get it done.
 
“There were a lot of corrections, but we did work those same fundamentals today. It was obvious to me at practice we have to continue that. We have people banged up and they can’t practice full speed. It has been difficult to get people going, particularly within the defensive line. Some people who are playing in games are missing practice time because of various injuries.”
 
On Injured Players Returning …
“Right now, we didn’t get much of that today. We’ll see where it goes because it is early in the week. We’ve had people who got minimal practice who didn’t play as well as you would’ve hoped Saturday. My focus right now is getting who will be there Saturday ready. People who are healthy and practicing are getting better. It’s overwhelming when you have that many first and second-year players who are across the board playing football while some of them are missing practice time.”
 
On Tackling …
“We did some scrimmage work today with our best against best. You cringe as a coach every time you do that. You can simulate and drill, but the minimal amount of football we play in the spring and August puts things in different perspective. It’s hard on Tuesday during a game week to see people scrimmaging, but I felt like we didn’t have a choice.”
 
On Football’s Learning Curve …
“We play with so many different people. College football is so different from high school with the speed of the game and strength of the players. The learning curve doesn’t stop. When you have fourth and fifth-year players, they are better but still learning. I’ve worked with many pro football players who are in year 14 and they’re still learning. It’s just part of football.”
 
On Forcing Turnovers …
“You fix forcing turnovers through emphasis. We have not tackled well recently. That will not force turnovers. We have struggled at times with coverage. It has to become important to everyone in the organization. You always get better at what you truly emphasize. When you hit a road block, you have to do more.
 
“Miami’s defense has 18 takeaways with 12 interceptions and six fumble recoveries. That’s a good number. They also lead the country in tackles for loss. When you do that, generally that is also an area where turnovers are created. When you create havoc plays, you’re generally going to win games.
 
“You have to compete on that practice field at a level you start feeling confident that that will happen.”
 
On Deon Jackson as a Receiver …
“Deon came in and went to our camp when he was in high school. I told him and his mother, ‘as long as I’ve been a coach, he has the best receiving skills from a running back I’ve ever seen.’ We’re just at the tip of the iceberg. Deon is a special player.”
 
On Noah Gray’s Performance Saturday …
“He’s another guy we had in camp. He has terrific talent. We have to get him bigger and stronger and get him to play every role. He was part of the matchup grouping Saturday. He’s a better receiver than he is a blocker. I want to see him reach a higher capacity at both because he can. He’s talented.”


Florida State head coach Willie Taggart

WILLIE TAGGART: Thanks for being here. Good afternoon. First, let me briefly address some of my thoughts after the game. First, we played an outstanding team in Clemson. Coach Swinney has been on a remarkable run with his football team, and what they've been able to accomplish. A good football team that we lost all three phases of the game against, so I want to make sure we give credit where credit is due.

But like I said after the game, going home and watching the North Carolina State-Syracuse game and then watching our film from Clemson that night and watching it on Sunday, I felt there was a handful of players that didn't play up to our standards and didn't do the things that we expect out of them and what we want from them and how you play here at FSU.

We addressed it internally, and we're going to make sure that we continue to build a culture and a program the way that we want to, the way that I know how, and we're going to make sure we have individuals in here that are going to live up to those standards. That's going to be great teammates who are going to compete and guys that are going to put FSU first. It's going to always be that way, and we're not going to make any excuses about it. That's how it's going to be, and that's what we expect out of our guys every time they line up to play.

Like I said, we addressed those things and had a good practice yesterday, and we're looking forward to playing North Carolina State.

Q. I know you said your players quit; in what areas did they exactly quit in?
WILLIE TAGGART: Well, I just felt like we didn't compete like we were competing at the beginning of the game, and when things didn't go our way, we didn't compete and finish plays and finish the game like we're capable of. I think whenever you're out there on the football field, if you're not competing, then you're in the wrong spot, and you shouldn't be competing at a high level. That's every individual. We didn't get that out of a handful of guys.

Q. Coach, you mentioned that you dealt with it internally, but also along with players who quit and also players who got ejected for throwing punches, have you decided what the specific consequences would be?
WILLIE TAGGART: Yeah, I have. Some of those things are done internally, and the guys that threw punches, they won't be playing the first half of the next game.

Q. After looking at the film, was it what you thought it was when you watched it? More players, less players, about the same?
WILLIE TAGGART: Well, as I say, it was just a handful of players. The majority of our players competed and played the way that we want them to. Again, we got beat by a better team, but we made mistakes that you can't make against a team like Clemson. We made some of the same mistakes that we made early in the year, and that's frustrating, but when you play against a team like Clemson and make those mistakes, they're going to expose you.

And so we didn't do that, but like I said, we had the majority of our guys doing the things we want to. It was a handful of guys, and it only takes a handful that can mess up the whole thing that's going on. We've got to address those things and make sure those things don't continue to happen with this football team, as part of the change of the culture.

Q. Do you meet with those kids that you think did quit individually?
WILLIE TAGGART: I meet with them all, individually and as a team. Our entire football team needs to understand exactly what we mean about quitting, what we mean about competing and what the standard is here at Florida State when we go out there on the football field and play. It's going to be that way, no ifs, ands or buts about it, and we're going to hold everyone accountable, players and coaches, to live up to that standard.

Q. I guess when a game like that happens, later in the game, is it more understandable? Are there different shades of understanding when it comes to the level the guys are competing? It's 28-0 maybe something different than when it's 48-0?
WILLIE TAGGART: No, I don't. Again, I think you've got to have a standard in how you want to play and how you want to be. It doesn't matter what the situation is. One thing you do, you compete until the end of the game, and as we change our culture and how we want to be, we can't be that way. It can't be up and down. It can't be you understand a certain situation. You've got to understand the standard, and if you understand the standard, you won't put yourself in those situations so that we have to go through those things.

It shouldn't have been that way. We did it to ourselves. We know what we did, and we've got to correct those things. But again, it goes back to having a standard and what we want to be and how we want to be, and making sure that everybody is living up to that standard.

Q. Coach, Deondre [Francois] left the game with an injury. What's his status for NC State?
WILLIE TAGGART: Deondre, he's beat up. He took some hits in that game, and I'm sure understandably he's beat up after a physical ballgame. Again, he's day-to-day.

Q. Something that you've mentioned that you couldn't have was injuries on the offensive line, but even before that, did you anticipate the offense struggling like it is?
WILLIE TAGGART: No, I didn't. I actually thought we were going to roll. Coming in, I guess that's the positive attitude I had and just the way our guys worked. Our guys worked at practice and they're talented. I think the one thing I couldn't judge or none of us could is exactly how we're going to be in game action and how those things go, and you can't replicate that in practice and get those things. The thing you can't get is how your team is going to respond to adversity. You can't get that until you actually go into the games with your guys, and we're here, and you're seeing it now, and now it's just trying to get our guys over, dealing with things when it doesn't go our way. A lot of our issues is more mental than it is physical, and that's a huge part of the game of football and what you're doing is mental. We've got to be mentally tough, and we're not there yet. It's just a matter of getting our team to get that way.

Q. Besides a couple guys you mentioned that will be sitting out that first half. Do you anticipate any changes in terms of starters, major contributors, going into this game, and if so, can you share some of that with us?
WILLIE TAGGART: I prefer not to. But I'm sure after evaluating the film, we're going to, again, make sure we put the right guys on the field in the right position to help us win, and that's going to play to the standard that we need them to play in. And guys that are going to compete every single day in practice and being ready for the game, showing us that in practice. I don't know if I answered your question, but I tried.

Q. With Notre Dame and Florida Gators still ahead in the schedule --
WILLIE TAGGART: Nope, not going there. We've got North Carolina State.

Q. How does the team battle back from a loss like this going up against North Carolina State?
WILLIE TAGGART: Well, we go practice our tails off and we remember Saturday night and make sure we don't do those things that put us in that position and knowing that there's going to be a hungry football team after us, and we're going to their place, a tough place to play, and we've got to make sure we practice the way we want to play on Saturday, execute that way and make sure we stick together and play on Saturday to make sure that, again, we don't feel the way that. It's a big time game for us, important game for us, and we've got to focus on North Carolina State, a good football team.

Q. Not to belabor the point, but I guess that's what I do, when you did film study, did you show certain plays that you thought kids weren't trying to the rest of the team?
WILLIE TAGGART: I think that's always -- you've always got to do that, not just with the individuals. If you just do it with the individuals, somebody else might miss out on something that could have got corrected and they don't do it, but showing the entire team -- I think whenever we have losses and things like that, we try to address it as a team and not just individuals. You meet with those individuals and tell them, again, your thoughts and how we're going to respond to it, but more importantly, you've got to make sure you're educating your entire football team on things that we want to do and things that we're not going to accept.

Q. And can you sense in the room like maybe the players, the ones that were trying the whole game, getting upset? Is that what you're looking for? Can you sense that?
WILLIE TAGGART: I sense that on the field. We had guys that were upset and guys that wanted to do it right, and guys were saying the things that they needed to. You had guys encouraging other teammates. Again, you only need a few that can mess up everything else, and those things, it just can't happen. In the game, you've got to play. There's no way you can come back and beat anybody when you're down and out or you're arguing amongst each other. We've got to stay locked in and we've got to -- bottom line, we've got to deal with adversity a lot better. That's something we've been struggling with for a while, and that's an important part of what we're doing, an important part of what we've got to correct around here.

Q. After the game did you see the locker room holding itself accountable, players holding each other accountable, maybe more so than you have in the past?
WILLIE TAGGART: I did, and I saw it by guys I probably wanted it from earlier in the year, and you got it from some of those guys on Saturday night, and it needed to be said, and it needed to be said by some of the guys that said it, the things that they did. Now you just hope they continue to say it and guys react to it in a positive way like they need to. You saw -- like I say, the majority of our guys gave us what we wanted, and I applaud those guys for stepping up and saying what they did. That ultimately is how it's going to change, holding each other accountable and letting each other know when they're not living up to a standard.

Q. I presume that's a change in culture in the locker room?
WILLIE TAGGART: Absolutely. You've got to have it. Again, I wish it could happen just day one, but those things don't happen overnight. Changing the culture doesn't happen overnight. It's a process. But as long as there's progress within that, you'll get to where we want to go. And part of it is in recruiting, too. All of that is part of changing the culture, and we're not going to just get there today. That's going to come with time.

Q. With [Deondre] Francois being day-to-day, at what point during the week if he couldn't go in practice would you make the decision to go to James [Blackman]? Would he have to practice at a certain point to make that decision, or how does that work?
WILLIE TAGGART: Well, playing quarterback, you've got to practice. We're going to assess that throughout the week and see where he is, but you've got to get practice -- you've got to get the majority of the reps to be able to go play like we need for him to play. He's going to have to practice in order to play.

Q. I know there was a handful of guys that were banged up – Dontavious [Jackson], Levonta [Taylor], Stanford [Samuels III], Robert Cooper I think were the four I could remember. Any update on their statuses?
WILLIE TAGGART: Yeah, I know Cooper and [Naseir] Upshur, they'll be out this week, and then the other guys are day-to-day.

Q. Obviously it wasn't an overall great performance, but was there anything positive you can take away from it?
WILLIE TAGGART: No. That was embarrassing. You don't take positive from embarrassment. We've got to learn. We've got to teach as coaches. Like I say, everybody has got to step up and give FSU everything we have. FSU has been good to all of us, and we all owe it to our school, our fan base and all to be at our best every time we step out on the football field, and it's disappointing we weren’t that way on Saturday, and we've all got to see to it it's never that way again.

Q. I had a couple special teams questions. On the roughing the kicker, was that a kick block called or was Asante [Samuel] just trying to do too much?
WILLIE TAGGART: It was him doing a little too much, you know, and again, that's -- we've got to make sure we correct and make sure our guys understand, again, when to make a play and when not to make a play and just playing smart football, and in that case it wasn't smart at all.

Q. Also, you guys have had the issue for a lot of the season, guys trying to run back kicks that maybe are ill-advised. What's the rule or where -- I know Amir [Rasul] wasn't there so that probably didn't help, but kind of the decision making when to take kicks out or not?
WILLIE TAGGART: Well, yeah, you had the off returner who usually runs and stands in front of the returner and tells him to hold and stay in there so he can't run out so he doesn't make those decisions, and on a particular play you're probably talking about when [Anthony] Grant ran out. Tre’Shaun [Harrison] didn't necessarily get over in front of him. He was kind of on the side of him, telling me you've got two freshmen there that just made a mistake, making sure they come out, and a freshman wants to make a play and go out and run and made a bad decision there. Again, it's unfortunate that we're making those mistakes right now, and again, in a game like that. But those things we've got to correct. We've got to continue to teach and try to get our guys to do. That's the first time we ran that. That's something new. But again, it's another issue that we've got to correct. You hate it and I hate it especially when it's young guys, but they've got to get it right, too.

Q. One on Marvin [Wilson]: Late in the game he's still tackling guys behind the line, looks like he's playing really hard. Is that a guy moving forward that you can lean on and this program can lean on a little bit?
WILLIE TAGGART: Oh, absolutely. Marvin is everything that we look for. Marvin is -- when we say what we want an FSU player to be like, he is -- that's a spitting image. He's the definition of what we want a Florida State player to look like. I knew that from day one, that it was important to him, when he decided to come here, he let the whole entire team know that he's one of the guys to step up and say something when it's not right, and he's passionate about being one of the best that play here. You see it in his effort. For a guy like that and to play as many plays as he does, he'll give you 110 percent every time. That's what you're looking for, and those are competitors. Those are the guys we want to continue to bring in here.

Q. NC State’s Ryan Finley throws for a lot of yards and he doesn't get hit much. I know he gets rid of the ball quick and he's got a good offensive line. How do you get him off his spot and make it tough for them?
WILLIE TAGGART: Well, I think when they have protection that can help protect him in some ways, sometimes it just comes down to one-on-one. Sometimes guys got to win one-on-one battles, too. You can scheme and try to do some things, but a lot of times it comes down to winning some one-on-one battles. You need that in ballgames, and you need that when you have a guy that probably hasn't been sacked as much. Maybe some guys haven't been winning those, and we feel like we have a talented D-line that can win some of those battles, and we're going to have to in order to get to him. He's a really good quarterback, and they have a really good scheme to get the ball out into his guys' hands. We've got to do that, and then we've got to be better on the back end.

Q. NC State has allowed 41 and 51 in back-to-back weeks. What have you seen from that defense? What are they doing well and not doing well?
WILLIE TAGGART: Well, they're good at stopping the run. I think they've given up a lot of explosive plays in the passing game that probably hurt them a lot. I know in the Syracuse game you saw they had a lot of explosive plays in the passing game and in the Clemson game, that's a really good football team that they went against. And same thing in that game. But they're a good football team, and they're only giving up 25 points a game and about 100 yards rushing a game. We've got to come play our "A" game. Once again, another week.

Q. You mentioned Marvin [Wilson] as being someone who was giving consistent effort throughout the game. Who were other guys who were, I guess, building blocks, showing that even in a lot like the other day?
WILLIE TAGGART: I don't want to really get the names -- there's so many of them, it's hard to just name them all without forgetting somebody. There's enough guys. We had a majority of our guys doing it the right way how we wanted to. Once again, it was a handful of guys that were kind of like bad eggs, and it'll mess it up for everyone.

But we've got to make sure that those things don't happen anymore and our football team understands that that's not acceptable and will not happen again if they want to be on this football team.

Q. You've discussed a lot of these problems stem from culture issues here, but with The Chase and spring practices, preseason camp, the trip down to IMG, nine weeks of football season now, what parts of your culture do you think have taken hold of this program and are positive?
WILLIE TAGGART: Well, I think our guys are trying to give us what we want for the most part. Our guys are so much better in the classroom, what they're doing. Our guys have been pretty good in the community and doing the things they need to do from that standpoint. And from a football standpoint, both sides of the ball are learning something new from the standpoint that the part that we're missing, if you asked me, if anything, is just how we deal when things get tough with us, and that's one of the biggest challenges taking over a program and trying to change things is change ways and change people and things go wrong, sometimes human nature you just give up rather than fighting through it. That's adversity. Our guys learning to deal with it, and part of it is some guys are stuck that way, some get better with it, and a big part of it is you've got to recruit those guys and you've got to do a good job of recruiting and digging in deep and finding out what kind of players you're getting, who's going to fight when it's tough, who relishes those opportunities when it gets tough, to go out and to make something happen.

That's work, and we've got to work to continue to do that and get there, and we will. Again, I wish I could have got it all accomplished in the spring, you know, but again, like I say, with that adversity, we weren't going to know that until the season, and we know it now, we see it, and we've got to continue to work to try to make those things right.

I think with us and our football team, it's more mental than it is physical for our guys, and that's a big part of the game, and that's part of teaching and that's part of us, again, changing our culture, and it'll get there. It's just not going to get there overnight.

Q. With four regular season games left and the new redshirt rule, do you look forward to playing some of these freshmen, and are some of these capable and ready at this point of playing in these football games?
WILLIE TAGGART: Well, I think we're going to play the guys that we feel like are ready to play in the game. We've been doing that throughout the season now. But we're not going to play them just to play guys. They've got to be ready. We're trying to win ballgames, so we're going to -- we've got four games left, and that can make a huge difference in our season. We're going to make sure we're playing the right guys that are going to execute at a high level, going to compete at a high level and give us all something to be proud of.

Q. I know you mentioned the defensive line. Can you quickly just talk about [Brian] Burns and what type of game you expect for him to have this week?
WILLIE TAGGART: Well, Brian has been Mr. Consistent for us throughout the season. You know, he's been playing well and doing some good things for us, and you can see now teams are trying to -- they're game planning around him, and I expect for Brian Burns to continue what he's been doing for us. He's been a great leader for us. Hopefully they start making the plays they can make now because teams are trying to use extra guys to protect Burns, to block Burns.

Those things open up other opportunities for other guys, and we need those guys to take advantage of it.

Q. How difficult is it for you now after this adversity of the Clemson game, is this one of those times when you have to put your arm around these guys, or do you have to be more a little more stern than you would like to be at this point in the season?
WILLIE TAGGART: I think you're always going to be stern in everything you and demanding in everything you do. There's a time when guys need an arm around them and loving up, and there's another time when you need to lay the law down on them, you know. But I think for our standard and every single day holding our guys accountable to that standard, that's the only way we're going to get to where we want to go, and that's got to be an everyday thing, not a sometime thing. That's an everyday thing, and it's an everyday thing in everything we do, whether it's on the football field, in the classroom or socially. It's accountability and it's a standard that we've got to live to and we as coaches hold them to that, sports staff, academics and everyone, hold those guys to a standard, and that's the only way we're going to get to where we want to go. Again, it's not going to happen overnight, but it's going to happen within time. A lot of those things changed for us, but I think that one last thing we need to change is just dealing with it when it gets tough.

Adversity introduces a man to himself, and our guys got to understand that. It is what it is. But we've got to attack it. Don't run from it.

Georgia Tech head coach Paul Johnson

Opening Statement:
Looking forward to going up to Chapel Hill to play. It’s an important game for us, as I’m sure it is for them as well. The last time we were up there, we struggled and didn’t particularly play well. They got after us. So this is a chance to go back and maybe have a chance to redeem ourselves. They’re a much better team than their record would indicate when you watch them play. I think they’re very talented in the offensive skill positions – receiver and running back. Defensively, for the most part, for most of the games, they’ve kind of hung in there and kept them in the game. They’re starting to get all their players back from suspensions, so I don’t think they’ll have anybody – maybe one guy – out this week. I’m sure it will be a tough game.
On Georgia Tech’s slow starts on defense:
“They just haven’t played very well [to start the last two games]. The first series at Virginia Tech, the running play, we missed about three, four tackles. Then the quick slant, we missed a couple more tackles and a guy knocked another guy off. Bottom line is, we just didn’t play very well.”
On the transition to defensive coordinator Nate Woody’s defense at this point in the season:
“I think it’s still a process. There’s still a lot of young guys. I think it took a few games to kind of settle in on who was playing. At times, they’re better than at others, just like on offense. There’s games where we’ve played better than some other games. I think that overall, what we’re doing is sound, and I think it’s repetition. The more they do it, the better they’ll get at it.”
On whether QB Tobias Oliver’s performance vs. Virginia Tech changes Georgia Tech’s gameplan going forward:
“It doesn’t change the gameplan. Tobias has played well whenever he’s gone in. I think he’s played in every game and he’ll play Saturday at some point. We don’t really change a whole lot of what we do depending on who’s at quarterback.”
On whether there’s belief that the team will become more consistent:
“It’s why you play the games. If you go back and look, it’s not hard. When we don’t turn the ball over and don’t have penalties, we’re usually pretty successful. I was talking last night to Coach [Jeff] Monken at Army and he was reflecting on his team. Even when they weren’t very good, he said, ‘I don’t think we lost a game where we didn’t turn the ball over.’ And you can look at all kinds of stats but that’s as good as it gets. Probably the biggest one, if I had to guess, going back, this is my 11^th season [but] if you went back and looked – and I don’t know the answer to it – we probably haven’t lost too many when we haven’t turned the ball over either.”
On whether the offense will change with two QBs (TaQuon Marshall and Oliver) that have logged meaningful minutes:
“We’ll just go play the game and see. I don’t know that anything has changed. It’s like I just said, they’ve both played in every game when they were available to play. We’ll just play the game and see what happens.”
On what contributed to the lack of consistency and how the team works back from that:
“We just got off to such a horrible start. When you start off 1-3, you’ve got a big hole to dig yourself out of. It was frustrating because we let the second game, on the road against South Florida, get away from us. Anytime you let a team return two kicks for a touchdown – and I shouldn’t say we let them, give them some credit, they returned them – then we fought back to get ahead 10 points in the fourth quarter and we can’t finish for a myriad of reasons.
“We go up to Pittsburgh and lay an egg for a half. We didn’t play very good on defense in the first half either, really. But offensively, we were horrendous and you dig yourself a hole because you’re looking at 1-3. The last four games, you break the schedule down – I always break the schedule down kind of into thirds – the second third, we’ve been OK. We’re 3-1. We got bad Georgia Tech against Duke, where we turned the ball over on three-straight plays. I liked where we were in that game, although we weren’t playing well, I felt like we had the momentum and were driving down the field and then all of a sudden, boom! – it got away from us. Certainly the last four games are going to be tough games. They’re against good opponents. But I’ve said all along: outside of Clemson, everybody in our league is close.”
On whether there’s concern that North Carolina could be a “trap game:”
“You’ve got to motivate yourself. We’ve got a lot to play for. We’re still alive in the conference, we’re trying to get bowl eligible, there’s a ton to play for. And if you’re competitive, you just get another chance to play.”
On North Carolina quarterback Nathan Elliott:
“I think he’s really accurate, especially on short- and medium-range throws. Clearly he understands their system – he’s been in it a while. When you don’t get pressure on him and he gets the ball out, he can be very effective. He’s probably not the kind of runner they’ve had in the past, but they know that too. He’s been very effective at times.”
On the similarities and differences between Marshall and Oliver:
“They’re similar and there’s some things the other can do a little better than the other … Tobias is still a redshirt freshman. We forget he was third-string going into the season when Luke [Lucas Johnson] got hurt. To his credit, [Tobias] has gotten so much better from fall camp to right now, it’s not even close. But even just from an experience factor, identifying defenses, checks, coverages, all that kind of thing – the guy that has played the most is going to be more experienced. What Tobias can bring to the table is he’s gotten much better at that and he’s also really tough and he’s slippery and elusive and hard to tackle. And he can get north and south. So he’s got a lot of things going for him too.
It’s like I said, it’s not denigrating one over the other. They both can do some things that are positive. If you asked us before the season started, who’s your three or four most talented guys on the team, I don’t think anyone would’ve left TaQuon out, right? And Tobias has pushed himself up to the point where he’s playing really well too. It’s a good problem to have. You’ve got two really good players.”
On North Carolina’s defense:
“They’re experienced up front when they have all their guys. I think they’ve got a lot of good athletes who can run. They’ve had a lot of success putting pressure on the quarterbacks when you throw the ball. We’ve had a hard time getting on their linebackers in the last couple of years we’ve played. They’ve kept them pretty clean. Other than that, it’s pretty much let’s go play the game. I don’t think anybody is going to surprise anybody. The team that can execute the best and take care of the ball is probably going to win.”


Louisville head coach Bobby Petrino

Opening Statement
 
COACH PETRINO: “Watching the video yesterday, the defensive video is bad. As a staff, we have to do a better job of putting our players in position to make plays. As players, we have to execute the call, make sure we trust our teammates to do their job and I do my job. And then, everybody needs to run full-speed to the ball and we need to tackle better. We were out of position a number of times, probably our worst performance by our safeties that we’ve had all year. Those guys have done a good job for us most of the year. It’s really disappointing—something that I didn’t anticipate would happen in that game, and certainly, we’ve got to have a good week of practice and work hard at it.
 
Special teams-wise, I thought we did some really good things. (Redshirt sophomore punt returner) Rodjay (Burns) continues to give us a big boost with his punt returns. His effort and his ability to break tackles on that return, that was a really, really good return. We did a good job holding some guys up at the line of scrimmage that helped us. But, he had to beat two guys off the bat and break a tackle, and then, he just finished the run very physical. We also blocked a punt. Unfortunately, it went across the line of scrimmage, but it was a great effort. (Freshman linebacker) Yasir (Abdullah) continues to do a good job on special teams for us and show how, eventually, he is going to be a good football player for us. And then, (freshman running back) Hassan (Hall) had a really nice kickoff return. But, our other kickoff returns hurt us a couple times on our field position. I think we started once on the 11 and then got a penalty and started once inside the 10. The kickoff returns were something I thought we need to better at. It hurt us a lot. Our kickoff cover team did a good job going against a really good guy and a really good scheme. We got it where we were getting them inside the 20 and they decided to fair catch, and the guys that are playing on that team are giving us great effort. Rodjay made a great tackle on that, too. Some young guys are doing a great job. (Freshman running back) Trenell Troutman had a really good game on kickoff cover, which is good to see.
 
Offensively, I feel like we’ve made some improvements. We did a better job of running the football. We did a better job blocking the front to run the football, and our receivers got in good positions. Hassan and (redshirt junior running back) Trey (Smith), I thought, did a good job of breaking tackles and running with the ball. (Redshirt sophomore quarterback Jawon) Puma (Pass) delivered the ball, made good decisions. He’s doing a better job of seeing defenses. He has to understand where the pressure comes a couple plays. There’s a couple balls that look really poorly thrown, really airing-it-high balls, but a couple of those were he got pushed right into his face. So, we have to be more firm on the front, and our tackles have to not give up so much room, so he gets pushed right into his face. But, I did feel like he competed hard and did some really good things. We’re just not consistent enough to go score every time we have the ball, and that’s something—when you get in a game where you’re not able to stop them offensively, you’ve got to be able to match every series and we just aren’t consistent enough in being able to do that. And then, the one that really hurt us was the fumble return for a touchdown. Trying to make a big play and it looked like we had it there. You’ve got to take your hat off to their safety. He came through two blocks and made a great tackle. That really hurt, that really hurt the score and being able to get back in it and where we needed to be.
 
We play a really good football team this Saturday. We put the video on on Clemson. They’re as good of a defense as there is out there. Defensive front, linebackers are big and physical and fast. Lot of the same guys we’ve played against for the last couple of years, so we do know them well. And then, in the secondary, they’ve got good corners and they’re safeties that can both play the run and play man coverage, so that’s always a good challenge for you. Then, offensively, their quarterback is doing a really nice job for them. They’ve had some games where they’ve relied on the run and their offensive line was blocking the front. Their running backs are fast. And then, last week, they came out and threw the ball. He can really zip it. He can spin the ball. He’s got a really good wrist and can get the ball down the field to his targets, so it’s a great challenge for us. We’ve just got to get back on the practice field and work to get better.”
 
What’s Trey’s status? Is he okay?
 
“He has kind of a dinged-up shoulder that he’s been fighting over the entire year. It’s an old injury that flares up on him. He should be good by Saturday.”
 
Are you making the same mistakes or are they different mistakes? What’s happening with the defense?
 
“Like I said, sometimes we’re not putting them in good enough positions. So, we’ve got to do a better job as a staff doing that. And then, we’ve got to do our job first. Sometimes, you don’t do your job and you don’t trust that your teammates going to do his job, so you come out of what your responsibility is, and then, it makes it worse. It opens up the hole where you’re supposed to be, and that happened a number of times. Then, our safeties really have to understand that the run-pass, and when it’s run, fire and get downhill to their proper spot and make the tackle.”
 
I think the opening line was 37 points this weekend. I know you don't pay attention to that stuff, but do you recall feeling like—ever as a coach, you were in a position as tough as this week against Clemson on the road?
 
“I mean they're a good football team. They’ve been a good football team since we've been in the conference with them. But, I don't know anything about any lines, but I know when you put the video on and you watch them play, it's a great challenge.”
 
What message can you give your team to give them the belief that they can win on Saturday?
 
“Well, what you have to do is go out and practice hard. Do everything you can to get in the game and try to get it into the fourth quarter. That's what you have to be able to do is try to get it into the fourth quarter. There have been games in the past that teams have went in there and beat them, so you have to rely on the fact that we're going to just give our best effort and play as hard as we possibly can.”
 
Bobby, as you’ve watched film throughout the season, are you able to, I'm assuming, but are you able to pinpoint some of the reasons as to how this resulted in a 2-6 season with some of the losses that have been as large as they have?
 
“I mean, every game is a little bit different. We are very young. There was no question about that, and very inexperienced on defense. I think offensively it took us a little longer to get started than I thought it would. We just haven't been able to match people when they've scored, and we haven't been able to outscore them. The Boston College game, I felt like our defense played good for three quarters, and offensively, we struggled in that game, and physically, got beat up on the front. So, it's kind of been something that each week has been a little bit different. That's kind of what happens when you're not in a good football team. Right now, we're not a good football team.”
 
Are you confident that you're the one that can fix those issues?
 
“Yeah, I believe in myself. I believe in what I've been able to do as a coach. We’ll grow, and we’ll get better.”
 
At this point in the season, again with the defense, that seems to be the biggest problem right now. You’ve played eight games. What can you do from here?
 
“You try to get them in better position, just like I talked about. As a coaching staff, we’ve got to get our guys in better position, get them to work together, understand exactly what they're supposed to do. Tackle better and run full speed to the ball.”
 
Each week, your message has been “Got to get back on the practice field, got to get to work, got to get things fixed.” But, do you have a different message for the players as far as being able to deal with being stuck in a five-game losing streak at all?
 
“That's what you do, is you go on the practice field and work to get better. The biggest message that you have for your team is that you have to be able to stay together and stay positive and not let this affect you. Not let defeat affect you. And understand that you have to overcome obstacles in life. You have to overcome setbacks, and that there's no quick fixes. There's no magic wand that you can put out there. There's no one in that locker room that wants to be 2-6, I can tell you that. Unfortunately, we're not a good enough football team right now that we are where we thought we would be and what we want to do.”
 
Can you clarify when you found out about the allegation against (sophomore tight end) Kemari (Averett) last week?
 
“I think it was coming off the practice field when I came over and said, ‘Hey Jake, how you doing?’ And then, you said, ‘Hey, can I talk to you?’ And I said, ‘Today's not my day.’ And then, after that, I asked (Louisville football SID) Rocco (Gasparro), ‘What was that all about?’ And then, he told me. So, I wasn't doing a no comment. Remember, I'm the one that came over and said, ‘Hey Jake, how are you doing there, buddy?’ And then, I heard later that you said I refused to comment on it. I didn’t even know what you were talking about. I was actually just being friendly because you're usually not at that area when I leave the leave the practice field. So, that's the first time I knew about it.”
 
Would you have wanted to know about it sooner?
 
“I mean, yeah, I think we all would’ve wanted to know about it sooner. There's no question. One of the things that I truly believe is that we run a disciplined program, that we can keep our players accountable for what they're supposed to do on the field, in the classroom, off the field. Our record speaks for itself. We certainly don't want anything like that to ever go on, ever happen. But when it does, we're going to do the right thing. There's no question that that's what we've always done.”
 
With him, I know you suspended him after the first, after he was arrested. With him, I think he's been kicked off campus, have you thought about just making it official and kicking him off the team or what’s going on there?
 
“There are certain things that, as a football coach, that you don't get to do just what you want to do. You have to go through the chain of command. Even like that night, I had people calling me and saying, ‘Hey, this isn't right. You're not saying anything. People are taking shots at you.’ Well, I was told I could not say anything. I was told I could not comment on it. So, I just had to be coachable and not comment on it. That’s just how it is. That's the way it works. That's just the chain of command. I have bosses and they say, ‘Hey, you can't say anything,’ then, I can't say anything. They have their own reasons why. But you just say, ‘Yes, sir.’
 
By whom were you told not to comment?
 
“We don't need to get into that.”
 
Bobby, you’ve talked several times about not having really gone through a season like this before as a coach. Are there people, other coaches, that you lean on that you talk to in times like this?
 
“A lot of times you don't talk to anybody. I have not been very good when we've lost games about talking and calling people. I used to talk to my dad a lot about it. There no question about that and I miss that. Certainly, that's something that's no longer there. There's not a lot of people you reach out to when you're getting beat.”
 
What do you look for in practice among players to show that they’re still bought in?
 
“Attitude and effort, how they go out and work. Are they still trying to get better in the individual drills? Are they still putting the effort in when we do group and team drills? I feel like these guys have. I think it showed offensively certainly in the last four weeks, and the ability for Puma to overcome a setback, get back on the field and feel now like he’s starting to execute and do some things that he felt like he could do all along. When you see guys stepping up like Hassan, and (senior wide receiver) Jaylen Smith probably had his best game of the season. He got off to a really slow start. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to practice for a really long time, and he didn’t start like he wanted to. The good thing about Jaylen was he really worked hard at practice. It was killing him that he wasn’t getting the performance and the production that he’s used to getting. It was good to see (junior wide receiver) Seth (Dawkins) come back. Seth has been injured and not out on the field much, so he came back. I think he had five catches for us. (Freshman wide receiver) Tutu (Atwell) keeps getting better, and to see his production. You work hard on individuals, and are you improving as an individual? And then, you’ve got to do it with your position – the linebacker group, the O-line group. How do we get better as a group? Then, your side of the ball. I really do believe that our players understand it’s a team game, and that we do win and lose as a team. Like I said after the game though, you have to face it when one side of the three phases doesn’t hold up. So, that’s what we’re trying to do.”
 
Going back to an earlier question, you said you don’t talk to people.
 
“I talk to people. I just don’t go calling and saying, ‘Hey, you’ve got any advice for me?’ I don’t do that. I might look at the phone and say, ‘Nah, I don’t really feel like talking to you today.’ I do that sometimes, but I don’t just not talk to people. I know there’s a lot of answers out there, and there should be. That’s how this profession is. You understand that. I used to always feel good about it that you get to go out there and make the play call and knowing that everyone else in the stands had a better play that you should call. That’s how it works. That’s the name of the game. You have to be able to believe in yourself, believe in what you do, handle the criticism, understand there’s criticism. But we’ve done a lot of great things here too. We’ve done a lot of great things in our career. We’ve got three conference championships in three different conferences, if you guys recognize that we were 7-1 two years ago and co-champions with Clemson. We believe in what we do, we’re just not where we want to be this year.”
 
Did you have any fear or indication at all back in August when you watched this team get ready for the season that this kind of season could happen?
 
“I think what I did is, I really felt like, ‘Hey, the defense is really starting to get better because we’re making this more competitive in practice.’ In spring ball, I had some fears about the offense is going up and down the field on this defense, and they’re young and inexperienced, we’re making a lot of mistakes. As we got into camp I thought, ‘Well this defense has really improved. Maybe it wasn’t that the defense improved, but we just weren’t executing the way we needed to on offense.”
 
You mentioned that you have confidence that the players are still bought into the program and the coaches. Is it a better gauge in the individuals in practice, or is it a better gauge in the games and watching the film to see if the guys are fully bought in and competing at a high level throughout the game?
 
“It’s certainly both. There’s no question about that. It’s also in all athletics, private victories always succeed public victories. You have to be able to do things in practice and be successful in the one-on-one drill and do it there before you actually go out and do it in the game. But, certainly, you’ve got to gauge both of them, there’s no question about that. If you go out in practice and you don’t have the focus and the effort and the concentration that you need, then you’re never going to get it done in the game.”
 
Have you seen any signs of that being the case?
 
“No, this team has done a good job of working hard and working to get better. Like I said, I think that’s why you’ve seen the offense improve and get better. You’ve seen our special teams – particularly our punt return and our punt team and kick off cover team.  I’m not happy with where we’ve been on our kick-off return. We’ve got to execute better and get better blocks because we have a really special returner. We have to block better for him.”
 
Social media’s changed things so much in the last 10 years. Do you talk to your guys about staying off of that? How do you keep the noise out of the locker room?
 
“We bring people in to talk to them. It’s something that do every preseason. You bring somebody in. You always talk to them about criticism and how to handle it. It is part of society now. I can walk into the video room, we have a lot of student workers, we have our video workers and everybody else. There can be 10 people in that room, and not one of them is looking at each other or talking to each other. They’re all staring at their phone. It is what it is. I would agree with (Oklahoma State head coach) Mike Gundy. I heard what Mike Gundy did and I said, ‘Yeah, there we go.’”
 
What did he say?
 
“I don’t know, you’ll have to find out.”
 
If you were an administration with a tough decision to make, viewing what’s going on in the program this year. Would you retain you for another year?
 
“Yeah, I would. I think what you see is what our record has been, what we’ve done here, what we’ve built here, where we’ve been, and understand that we had a bad year.”

NC State head coach Dave Doeren

Opening Statement
“We’re excited for our Homecoming week at NC State. It’s a 3:30 p.m. kick with a sold-out crowd. We look forward to having a great crowd with our fans and our student section. We need the great support we can get. It’s good to be back at home after the road games. It’s nice for our guys after getting back at 3 a.m. to play in the stadium and play in front of our fans. We’re obviously disappointed in the outcome of the football game that had a lot of offense in it for both teams.
 
We dug a hole early in the game and I was proud of how our guys battled and fought ourselves out of it. We had the ball with a chance to win the game and didn’t get it done. I’m proud of the players’ grit and their resolve and the way they continued to fight and show heart. Because of that, I know we can win a lot of football games. That’s the one thing I’m proud of our guys for.

Germaine Pratt, Kelvin Harmon and Ryan Finley had big games. They made a lot of plays. We had two offenses with two senior quarterbacks that were on fire and two defenses that struggled. We didn’t get off the field on third down and we had some costly pass interference calls that put is in the position of playing catch up quite a bit in the second half. To get them in three third & 11+ situations and not get off the field was hard to overcome. We need to get more pressure and we need to continue to work hard on our pass fundamentals defensively and finish on third down, which we’ve been good on that down and distance defensively and offensively. We were not in that game.
 
Offensively, I thought we moved the ball well. I like how aggressive we were. I thought we made some explosive plays. We need to continue to stay aggressive and do our best to protect Ryan Finley. I thought there were a couple points in the game where we didn’t do that as well as we have and it hurt us. We need to continue to work hard at first and second down efficiency to create those third and medium/third and short opportunities.
 
We played without four starters in that game and we had some young guys get some serious reps in the football game. Teshaun Smith played the entire game against a team that throws the ball like that. He had the two penalties, which hurt us, but he’s going to get better. He’s a true freshman and that was his first college start. Tyrone Riley played his first full game with Justin Witt being out. Ricky Person and Stephen Louis didn’t play. We expect all those guys, except for Stephen Louis, to be back. I’m not sure when. I think Justin Witt and Nick McCloud will be back this week. We’re still waiting to say where Ricky Person is at as the week continues, but he is progressing and looks good.
 
Unfortunately, Stephen Louis will be out for the season. He’s going to have a small surgery to repair a high ankle sprain. I expect a full recovery from him. It’s the same thing James Smith-Williams had and he’s doing great now. It’s nothing that will limit him and his future but it will keep him out the next six weeks. He will remain with our team as a captain and a leader. I know he’ll do everything in his power to return to full strength.
 
We’re getting ready for Florida State. They’re a very, very athletic offense. When you look at their skill players, it’s what you would expect to see. Deondre Francois is a very good quarterback and has a great deep ball. The tailbacks are experienced guys. Cam Akers is a very good running back. I think the receiver, Tamorrion Terry, is a very good player and very explosive. He’s big and causes concerns. Their tight end, Tre’ McKitty, is doing a really good job. Their slot receiver, Nyqwan Murray, is a guy that makes a lot of plays after the catch with their screens and uptempo offense.
 
Defensively, they have without a doubt the best pass rushing defensive end in the league right now with his production. Brian Burns has 11.5 tackles for loss and nine sacks, so you have to know where he is. I think he’s a really good pass rusher. They have big guys inside. They rotate quite a few guys in the middle. They’re athletic in the secondary and they play a lot of man-to-man coverage and a lot of quarters coverage. They’re a disruptive front. They’ve forced 11 turnovers and they have 25 sacks, which is three per game. Like every week, you’re playing against a different type of defense, but a good defense for our offense to compete against.”
 
On NC State’s pass defense
“I think you have to look at all of it. Anytime you lose, you’re going to look at every single thing that happened. Then you look at the game and see if you get one more stop and don’t have the pass interference, we’re off the field on third & 11 and we win the game. The line of questioning and the line of thinking is different. I look at it and see there’s a lot of plays that we’ve got to make and why aren’t we making them, whether we win or lose.

We had three freshmen in the secondary at one time in that game. That is a little bit of it. You’ve got true freshmen and Chris Ingram is a sophomore. You’re really young against a really good passing offense. That’s part of it.
 
The pass game fundamentals have to improve. That’s something we have to continue to work hard at with the guys. We’re in really good position on some plays. With some young players, instead of playing the ball, they get nervous, and they grab an arm of a receiver. That’s something you see a lot with young defensive backs. As they play more, they get more confidence and they start playing the ball better. We’ve got to keep working on those techniques and fundamentals. It wasn’t an issue of doing the wrong things. It was we need to do the things we’re doing, better. We need to mix things up and give them a little more help. We need to get more pressure. All that ties together. It all goes back to fundamentals.

We played two pretty good offenses, but that’s not an excuse. We need to play better and that’s something that our guys and coaches take personal. That’s what we’ll be gearing up for.”
 
On NC State’s run defense
“There’s a couple runs inside the five-yard line that we’ve let go in too easy. We were out of a gap in the last play of the game against Syracuse. In the game before at Clemson, we were out of our gaps a couple times. It’s guys trying to make a play at the goal line instead of just fitting it like they did out on the field. They weren’t anything magical. It wasn’t like they ran some special run play.
 
The numbers are good there. It’s not just that: scoring defense and turnover margin, those are things we really care about. We can’t be 14^th in pass defense. That’s something that we don’t want to see. We’ve got a lot of work left to do to improve that. That’s where the focus is right now.”
 
On defensive pressure
“What we’re trying to do, particularly with our dime package, is to give the quarterback different looks and not let them know who the rushers are all the time. It creates different one-on-one matchups for guys based on the protections we’re getting.
 
We’ve gotten some good pressure on some of that. You can’t always blitz. You have to be able to drop in coverage. Our drop-eight coverages have been good, but they weren’t on two of those third & 11s in that game.
 
We’ve just got to look at what is most successful and how we can help our guys to be in the best places they can be athletically to make plays.”
 
On offensive balance
“In our last two games, we were down by a bunch in the first quarter. Coach Drinkwitz did a good job of not getting into two-minute offense too early. We kept running our offense and moving the ball down the field with different schemes. We weren’t just all of a sudden in four-wides throwing it every snap.
 
To be a balanced football team, it’s hard when you’re down 21 and to be in that mode. Throwing the football 40-50 times isn’t ideal, but we had a chance to win that football game doing that because we were scoring points. A couple drives we settled for field goals. Those were drives that you look at, if we could’ve gotten a touchdown, it changes the outcome of the game.”
 
On Germaine Pratt
“I thought he was everywhere. He really had a great game.
 
It’s hard for me to say that when I don’t get to see the nation. I think in our league, he is no doubt one of the best linebackers. I don’t know what’s going on outside of our conference because I don’t get to watch it. Comparing him to who I’ve seen, there’s no question about it.”
 
On leadership
“The guys are good. This is a great group of guys. I told the guys that after the game and again when we met yesterday. They deserve to win. They’re such good guys. You love coaching these guys. They care so much about the school and this football team. It’s 1-0 and this is the first of five games that we have left. We can focus in on that mentality. How can we make a few more plays? What we can do to score a few more touchdowns? What can we do to get a little more pressure? What can we do to help in coverage?
 
As coaches, we take it as our job to help them. As players, it’s their job to execute the plan. That’s what we do. I think our guys understand it. They all understood that they battled themselves from a tough spot to a winning position and didn’t finish the game. All of them would have loved to have that comeback win, there’s no doubt. I don’t think there’s anything but leadership going on right now in our locker room.”
 
On Florida State’s season
“They’ve gotten better when you watch the film. I think early on it was hard for them with the new system. You do see them, particularly on defense, settling in. They’re playing really good on defense and their guys know the scheme. You can see how it’s evolved and how they’re trying a lot of things. They’re disruptive up front. They pressure 30% of the time. They play tight coverage.
 
Offensively, you see the skill. They’re fast. There’s been a lot of protection for them at times. Whether that continues or not, I know they’re working hard to get better on that side of the ball.
 
I think Coach Taggart has proven that he can build programs. He’s in his first year there. You see the process where it’s each week, just getting better.”
 
On past opponent success this season
“I told them the other day, I didn’t mention the Top 25, but I think we’ve beat two really good ACC teams and we’ve lost to two good ACC teams. Now we’ve got five games left and where we go from here is how we handle each week of the season. At the end of the year, you can look back and be proud of what you’ve accomplished or you can be disappointed. You don’t want regret. As a football player, the window to play, whether you’re a senior or a freshman, you’re one play away from not having this game. That’s what we talked about. I think they understand they’ve played some good football teams. We expect to win every game. That’s our mentality. We prepare to win and we practice the right way so that we have the opportunity to win. Then, we need to go out there and make the plays. That’s the approach and the guys have done a good job of being resilient.
 
That was a good environment. Syracuse had a lot of crowd noise and it was really loud on third down in that stadium. I thought their fans were really energetic and they made it hard. I thought our guys handled that noise better than the week before. That was good growth.”
 
On Stephen Louis
“We’ve called compliance about that. I don’t know if it’s real or not. We won’t for a while. What I told him was: ‘let’s get you healthy.’ He won’t play this year because his procedure will keep him out for the year. He’ll be 100% probably sometime in January or February. Whether we get a sixth year for him or not, I have no idea. We just found out today that he was having surgery. We’ll just have to see where that goes. He may not want that. He may be ready to move on. We haven’t had that discussion. I just wanted to make sure he was okay mentally and that he felt good about his plan.”


Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi

PAT NARDUZZI: It's good to be here on a Monday as scheduled. A little different Monday for us. It's really a Tuesday. We're kind of obviously one day ahead and got done with a Tuesday practice this morning. We just got off the field just a little bit ago.

Had a great team win Saturday. I think any time you can get a win, doesn't matter how it was, again, there's obviously a lot of good things when you watch the tape on Saturday night or Sunday morning. A lot of great things to take from it. There's a lot of things we need to get a lot better if we expect to continue to move on and win games in this league, win in the ACC.

Some of the things you look at when you watch the tape is some of the positives. We can always focus on the negatives. Our defense made some big stops at the end when they needed to. That big sack at the end with Chase Pine and Amir Watts getting it done. Stocker’s PBU. Great things there defensively that weren't so good in the first and second. Our kids stuck together, finished that off.

Offensively and special teams-wise, special teams with Kessman coming back, going three for three again, we know how special that is. I heard yesterday he's got three of the four longest field goals in college football right now for this season. I thought that was pretty special on his part.

I think he will continue to get stronger. He's got to go prove he can do it on the road. That's the challenge this week.

With five seconds to go, the biggest play of the game (the final kickoff), that's not easy. You guys have seen those games where the ball gets tossed all over the place. The way Coach Powell and the kickoff squad executed what we call that, I won't tell you what we call that, we've done that before against Clemson, had a lot of success at the end of a game. So just the details of what we did there.

They want to throw back, they can't throw back. So I think our guys have really taken to that, understand what we're doing.

Offensively, again, they're explosive as they've been all year. 17 explosive runs and passes, rushing for 480 yards, plus-one in the turnover ratio. Offensively we don't turn it over. We get one, make big plays when we need to make plays. I think that's really what you take from the game Saturday.

We move on really quick, as fast as you're going to move on to a 6-2 Virginia team that is playing really well. Put my first vote in for Bronco Mendenhall to be Coach of the Year in the ACC. Count me in. Number one, he's a great guy. He's a great coach. He's done a great job really turning that program around.

Bryce Perkins is a guy that makes things go on offense. I think he's rushed for 600 yards, thrown for 1600, 15 TDs. He gets it done. Zane Zandier, a local product, tough dude, physical football player, whether he starts at the Mike or they get their returner back, Jordan Mack, who has been out for a couple weeks.

They got Peace and Snowden on the edge. A 3-4 defense, so they create a lot of different problems with their different stuff. They're a top 20 defense. Our offense will have to be consistent with what they did last week, try to do it again, go back-to-back, back-to-back playing really good. Our defense has to make a step up, try to stop an explosive offense and a confident offense.

You guys got any questions after I gave you all that?

Q. A lot of the attention was about the running game Saturday. That two-minute drill, is that something that can build confidence going forward?
PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah, I think so. We work two-minute a lot during camp. It's hard to work it during the season because you're working on different stuff, trying to service each other. We'll do a two-minute tomorrow afternoon, try to build off of that with confidence, what we did there.

I think it builds everybody's confidence, builds everybody. Builds the offensive coordinator's confidence that you had success, we did it, we can do it again. I think it gives everybody confidence, not only in two-minute, but in other opportunities when we have to throw the ball on third down.

Q. You've played a lot of nickel against teams, Duke not till the third drive. What can you do better to stop the run in that formation?
PAT NARDUZZI: We get into it, we don't really stop the run. It's like, you know, here is what it is. We talked a lot today just about being consistent. We got a lot of players that are consistent. I told them after practice today, “Listen, come ask me if you want to know if you're consistent. I'll tell you if you're 100% consistent, 75% consistent. I know exactly. I know where every one of you are. I can tell you where you are in the practice, I can tell you where you are in the game.”

If you're inconsistent in practice, you're going to be inconsistent in the game. If you're consistent in practice -- I can go name them, I won't name them for you or for them. Won't tell you who they are.

So not one guy asked me. So they probably know where they are and I guess they didn’t need to know. It comes down to consistency. I don’t think it came down to “Oh, Nickel, we can't stop the run,” because we've proven we can stop the run in nickel or sub-personnel.

It's a matter of being consistent and doing your job, okay? When you watch the tape, look at the negative part of it, it's guys wanting to do somebody else's job. The quarterback takes a play, you can go back and watch it, quarterback takes a zone play, fakes a jet sweep, regardless of who is reading, he runs it inside zone, rushes for 15 yards in nickel, okay? But we got two guys, a middle linebacker and nose tackle, that want to stop the jet sweep. Well, Mike linebacker and nose tackle have no business stopping the run there.

We lined them up right over the football, you might want to take care over the football. When you have guys that want to make a play, they're hungry, God bless them, they want to make plays, but you have to do it within the framework of the defense. Run the same play next play, it's a gain of one. There's your consistency right there.

Whoever they are, it doesn't matter, it's just a matter of being consistent. If you're consistent, you have a chance. If you're not, you're going to be like this (up and down). Depends what you want to be.

It's not a matter of the defense, the structure. Sometimes it's structure. We had one bust in the back end where it's poor communication on a big screen pass, tailback down their sideline. It's a total flat miscommunication where 10 guys are doing the right thing, one guy makes the wrong call to a corner, you have a big play.

There's a lot of little things that need to be done better and consistently.

Q. How tough is it to make sure they stay within that framework?
PAT NARDUZZI: Some guys figure it out quicker than others. Some guys figure it out. The quicker they figure it out, the better it is. The guys who don't figure it out will see less time. The nature of the beast.

But unfortunately we need two deep. You'd like to be able to rotate guys and keep them fresh because then you end up being in the tired mode of, “Coach, I was gassed, I couldn't do it.” Then you have mental mistakes because of that.

Whatever it is, guys got to fix it. They can do it. It's called laser focus. We have to have laser focus.

Q. Carter was a huge part of your win over the weekend. How do you plan to use him this weekend?
PAT NARDUZZI: I don't know. We only get so many games with him. We got to pick and choose when it's important to use him. I'm not going to obviously reveal whether we're using him this weekend or not. We'll find out.

But it just depends on the matchups, what we feel like we have. They're a little different defense with the 3-4, Peace hanging off the edge doesn't make it easy to do much. It will be a matchup. Every week it will be a matchup as we go.

Q. Does Carter work with the wide receivers or running backs?
PAT NARDUZZI: He works with the wide receivers, sometimes the running backs, sometimes the DBs. Haven't put him at linebacker yet, but probably will put him there, too.

Q. Doing their own job, is that always a problem with college football players to focus like that?
PAT NARDUZZI: Focus is hard. These kids lose focus for whatever reason. Obviously Saturday was not an easy day to focus on football, I don't think, for a lot of people. When you get out there, who knows what they're thinking about before, all that stuff. Rough day, rough week. That's no excuse. One side has focus, one side doesn't.

But different guys want to make plays. They want [sportswriter] Jerry [DiPaola] to frickin' write about them in the newspaper. Twitter: Look what he did, look what he did. They want to go make plays. Like I said, it's a good thing they want to make plays.

You got to wait for your opportunity, do your job. I think that's why they're anxious to get more favorites on Twitter, liked more if they make a play. It's not always good. Coaches don't like them when they do that.

Un-follow a couple guys maybe (smiling).

Q. The new redshirt rule that allows you to play four games. How difficult is it to keep younger guys who aren't playing much, keep their head in the game and stay engaged even if they aren’t playing this time of year?
PAT NARDUZZI: It's not easy. It's not easy at all. I think it gets harder every year, to be honest with you. Everybody wants instant gratification. I think kids think they're entitled because of who they are to be able to be there and do that. They've never been that guy that hasn't played much, whoever it is, whether they're getting four games.

We have another guy come out this week, have another guy that might play that you haven't seen before. I guarantee you, they're going to see another guy that hasn't played this week, a little special. You haven't seen his jersey out there at all. You guys got to figure out who it is, like Waldo.

So it's not easy, really isn't. Like I said, it gets harder because they have people in their ears asking “How come [you aren’t playing]?” It ain’t easy. It’s a hard thing and you better have focus to get it done.

Q. With V’Lique Carter, how much of a priority is there for preserving the redshirt for him or is there a situation that if he keeps doing well on Saturday that just doesn't come?
PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah, I guess you maybe wait, not this week, but the week after, kind of see where you are, see what you're doing. Certainly when you watch him play, maybe could have played since game one, you'd like to preserve it if you could. I think we got other good players that can make plays happen.

Was he lucky? Is he good? I don't know. Maybe he just got lucky that day. I don't know. Maybe just set up perfectly for him. I think some other guys can do the same thing.

You'd like to preserve it because I think I'd like to see him play 12 or 13 or 14 games next year.

Q. Kenny Pickett ran more against Duke than he has in any game this year. Was that part of the game plan from the beginning or more of what Duke's defense was showing you? Will it still be a bigger part of the game plan going forward?
PAT NARDUZZI: I think as you get near the end of the season, you start to do some different things. Certainly ACC games are more important. Certainly you don't want to get your quarterback smashed. Bryce Perkins does a nice job. They've done a nice job coaching that guy, rushing for 600 yards.

As you watch him, he's going to get down. He doesn't take hits, which is really smart on their part. That's why they've been able to keep him healthy, keep him on the field, because they're a different team when he's on the field compared to when he wouldn't be on the field.

We obviously want Kenny in the game. As you get closer to the end, you start to maybe take a little more risks. Obviously he wants the ball. Sometimes it's what they're giving you, sometimes it's what we're going to take. Sometimes you read it, sometimes you don't.

It will be based on the situation, based on what they're playing defensively, what we want to do offensively.

Q. Did the absence of Keyshon Camp in the middle of your defense have a detrimental impact on your efforts to defend Duke?
PAT NARDUZZI: I'm glad you mentioned that. I was going to tell you anyway. Obviously Keyshon is out for the season. I meant to mention it to you. You guys ask all the questions. Thanks for bringing it up.

Keyshon suffered an injury against Notre Dame. We're hoping he'd come through, but he wasn't able to go. He'll probably be out for the season I'd imagine. That's usually the only time I'm telling you anything.

Jerry's eyes are so big like he got some juice (smiling).

That did affect it a lot. He's penetrator, he causes havoc in the backfield. That didn't help us at all. As a matter of fact, you might see two new guys [playing] this week. I said one, you might see two.

Q. Injury?
PAT NARDUZZI: Upper body deal.

Q. You mentioned Zandier. How much did you recruit him out of high school? Are you surprised all the success he's having?
PAT NARDUZZI: No, not really. Came down to really needs. We took two athletic guys like him that kind of committed before he did. We really liked him. We wanted to see him in camp.

He's a good football player. I mean, you really love his toughness. He's really smart. You can tell he's a smart football player. He'll play the weak side linebacker when Jordan went out. He moved to the Mike. He's obviously really intelligent, which is sometimes something you can't tell when you recruit them.

Bronco got a great player in him. Now we got to play against him for the next few years. But he's a good football player. We did recruit him pretty heavily, obviously with the connection over there.

Q. Virginia came in with a similar record last year.
PAT NARDUZZI: They did?

Q. 5-2 last year.
PAT NARDUZZI: I didn't know that.

Q. What would you say is the big difference between last year's Virginia team and this year's?
PAT NARDUZZI: They're able to run the football. The quarterback is a runner compared to last year, he was a thrower. Another year that Bronco has been able to develop him.

I believe they're a tough football team. You watch their offensive line, defensive line, they're tough. They're stopping the run, they're active, flying around, playing with a lot of confidence, and they're physical.

They're playing with a lot of emotion. We're going to have to match that emotion down in Charlottesville this weekend. They play with emotion. I think that's all a big, big part of it. You can't measure the emotion they've got.

Q. Is the emotion something that Bronco brought there?
PAT NARDUZZI: I think so. I've never coached with him, but I'm guessing it's something that he's brought to their football team. I think they're taking on that personality.

I don't know how emotional Bronco gets. I don't know that part of him. He doesn't jump up and down. Kind of a laid-back dude in meetings when you get to spend a lot of time with him. He likes to go surf. He's a good man.

Q. The weekly tradition of asking you a question you don't like. Three votes in the coach's poll this week. Coaching buddies who voted for you?
PAT NARDUZZI: No, I don't care.

Q. Was it you? Was it E.J.?
PAT NARDUZZI: No, I guarantee you that. First of all, I do it myself. Those will be all -- they get published later on, right? You'll never see that I voted for myself, guaranteed.

Q. Other coaches probably don't talk about it at all.
PAT NARDUZZI: To be honest with you, kids didn't say a word. I didn't know. Coaches didn't talk about it. E.J. didn't tell me. Thanks, E.J.

What does it matter, we got three points, congratulations? What does Alabama have, like 2,000? Doesn't matter. Just worry about what we can control: Virginia Friday night.

End like that? Somebody give me a good question before we leave.

Q. Does a dual threat quarterback stress the defense and change what you have to try to do?
PAT NARDUZZI: It changes a bunch. Even last week with Jones, him eating away at 5 yards, 10 yards... The one time we wanted to play the jet sweep, he's rushing for 10, 15. It's defending.

It's crazy. The officials did a nice job Saturday. We're on the sideline, “Hey, coach, can I do anything for you?” I won't mention his name.

I said, “Yeah, you can get me a stop here.”

He said, “Coach, nobody plays defense any more.”

Golly, that's the attitude. It's hard to play, defend 11. They got 11, you got 11. Used to like those big, stiff quarterbacks who used to line up under the center, drop back, that's all you got. A different deal. We can defend it a heck of a lot better than what we did. That's for sure.

Syracuse head coach Dino Babers

Opening statement:
"Really excited about how the football team competed last weekend. It was one heck of a contest. We’re excited about where we’re at right now. Our job’s not done. We’re 2-0 in the second part of our season. We have an opportunity to be better, and we’re looking forward to the game against Wake Forest. They’re a fine, fine football team, and they’re well-coached. We’ve had a lot of trouble against them in the past, and we understand that.”
 
On the fans and the Carrier Dome during the win over NC State:
“I thought the fans were awesome on Saturday. To have that many people there, I know on that interception, I can remember how loud it was. I know the way Alton [Robinson] came around that corner had to help us.”
 
On the game against NC State:
"It was a wonderful contest. If you look at the way the two quarterbacks played and how they were flawless until those last two minutes, it just goes to show you not only how good the other quarterback was, but how well Eric Dungey played in that football game. I’m really proud about that effort, but it’s time to move onto Wake Forest.”
 
On QB Eric Dungey’s performance against NC State:
“He was really on point. He threw a ball to Taj Harris early in the game. He drilled a BB to Taj Harris coming over on the other hash. That is as close to NFL-type stuff that it gets. He was really locked in and really focused. It really showed up in the throwing game.”
 
On being ranked for the first time since 2001:
"I can appreciate it, and I can also recognize that we need to consistently keep doing the things we're doing, or we're not going to be able to be proud about this moment. Yes, we're here, and it's fabulous. But now we need to get ready to play another game on Saturday. If we win, it'll get better, and if we don't, it won't, so we need to stay extremely focused. It’s a heck of an accomplishment."
 
“I think with the national exposure of the [game against NC State] and how we played in the game, there’s no doubt that helped us with the rankings that recently came out. I don’t think that necessarily is exactly where we’re going to end up being or exactly where we need to be. There’s room for improvement. The team understands that, the coaches understand that. We need to be desperately seeking improvement. I don’t think that anyone’s settled. There’s guys still working to get the job done because there’s still a lot of work to be done.”
 
On Wake Forest:
“You can’t talk about them without talking about Dave Clawson. I followed him at Bowling Green in the MAC, and I saw how he built his football teams. I understand the discipline that it takes to play for him. He went to Wake Forest and started that program over from nothing. They went bowling last year, and they beat a very good Texas A&M team in the bowl. They’ve had some troubles this year, but when you look at them and look at that offense, it's explosive, it's wide-open, it's very familiar and we're going to have our hands full with it. If you want to beat them, you've got to stop that offense. If you don't stop that offense, you're going to be in for a long day."


Virginia head coach Bronco Mendenhall

COACH MENDENHALL: I thought it was another thorough game from our team. I want to mention that I thought all three phases were in sync and performed in our word complementary, in terms of complementary football.

Time of possession ended up being a deciding factor, which is indicative of our ability to become a more effective running team, which has probably been something I've seen growth and progress in the past three weeks.

Plenty and tons of room still to grow, but our ability to rush the football and hold on to the football in terms of time of possession, get off the field on third down defensively, and then have our special teams change field position, that simple formula has I think carried us through the past number of weeks.

The turnover margin is still helpful in addition to that. Yeah, there is just tons of room to grow and learn and keep progressing, which is our focus. That's what I expect from our team.

Q. How much has all this been player-driven this season in terms of holding each other accountable? Is that what you look for as a coaching staff?
COACH MENDENHALL: I think it's become more player-driven, starting with Chris Peace kind of defining the new standard. I think it was the leadership on our team claiming the principles that were being presented as theirs and then owning them. I think really sincerely considering the standards that will help the program and believing in them, which then led to accountability. Not necessarily in a punishment way, but a standard that then was expected and embraced as this will work and this is what we will do.

If you're not the doing it, you're an outlier. So choose is kind of the message from our players to others that maybe took longer than what was expected to choose.

Q. Teams set goals before the season. Some shared, some not. Everybody says they want to win the championship. When guys after last game were saying we want the Coastal, just announcing it to the ACC this is what we want, is that a good thing? Is that something you're more comfortable with than a couple weeks ago?
COACH MENDENHALL: Yeah, I'm never really comfortable about promising things in advance, but I don't have a problem with establishing and framing goals. I think in that moment when they're saying, We want the Coastal, I think it was just simply some clarity on it is possible. We have a real chance. We're acknowledging that.

I don't think it was in any other way, shape, or form presented, other than maybe they just couldn't help but say it because it's new and exciting.

So in that context I think it was great. My job then is to say, Okay, if that's what you really want, let me help you understand what that's going to take. Then the focus goes right back into what we need to do.

Q. Being ranked, does that present another challenge for you guys? Is today's practice going to be until they drop like a couple weeks ago just to make sure their attention stays where it needs to be?
COACH MENDENHALL: It might be if it was a Saturday game. There is not time. I think that the rankings are a by-product and maybe outside acknowledgment, and I think that prior to week eight the rankings have zero bearing, other than possible intrigue to make players or fans feel better about themselves and maybe the intrigue of a television matchup.

Nobody can know until the beginning of week eight or the completion of week eight what does this really look like. I think it was indicative this week of the number of teams that lost. The number of teams added is just now starting to become relevant.

I would say it's just now starting to become relevant. It's just the beginning of now the home stretch of what will it really look like. Prior to the completion of week eight, I think the rankings are a complete waste of time. So I'm excited for our team that there is increased attention on the program, but we framed actually with Dave Koehn’s help.

He told me one of the things Tony, Coach Bennett talks about, and comparing kind of the accolades and those things to cotton candy. Where it takes a lot of time to eat it; you get all sticky it's not filling, and you usually feel worse when you're done.

So any acknowledging that stuff does nothing for us. It's addicting, right? Praise is addicting and feels really good. However, every second we spend dwelling there is taking us farther away from our objective. That's my job, is to make sure we're on point.

Q. It was mind boggling sitting there watching the Pittsburgh film watching them rushing for about 500 yards. With the success you've had against the run the last two weeks, how much emphasis is on it this week?
COACH MENDENHALL: Oh, it's huge because I believe Duke is a good defensive team. In college football, maybe in professional football, not having coached at that level, it just seems like sometimes there are just those games. Other times those games are caused by great preparation on one side and maybe an off day on the other.

Big plays led to all kinds the yardage on both sides of that game. I think that's atypical for that kind of game to happen, but it did, where both sides were having a significant number of big plays. Pitt is a unique challenge. If I were to speak about their offense for a moment, I think they're very physical. That comes from the past couple years that we've played and just learning about our ACC opponents a little bit better.

So I think they're a physical and a tough football team. So you have to be really sound in your fundamentals. Offensively, creativity, and miss direction and the type of run. So you have a physical nature that you have to certainly be prepared for in fundamentals and mindset, but then your eye control has to be very good because of the nature of the run game. There is lots and lots of miss direction.

That's a unique challenge. Defensively they certainly don't want the opponent to run the ball an inch. They're very aggressive. They're not afraid to take chances and rely a lot on players in space and their secondary to make plays. So I think when I look at the matchup, it's hard to acknowledge anything other than the ACC records. As I was looking at this, we're 4-1 and Pitt is 3-1. The games outside of that are certainly relevant for possible rankings or what your record looks like, but really this is 4-1 versus 3-1 the way I see it. It will probably be about that kind of matchup in terms of competitiveness as well.

Q. Sticking with that run game theme, what has worked so well run defense for you guys? What's been the key?
COACH MENDENHALL: I think that starting from the minute our game finished last year against Navy, just the sheer weaknesses that were exposed that we had kind of played around and through as much as possible through two years. But there had to be a completely recommitted effort to size, strength, fundamentals and just simply the mindset to continue to play in your gap over and over and over again and what that looks like and what that feels like and what mindset that requires.

So it's been a relentless pursuit of run fundamentals the minute the Navy game was over just knowing our program would not nor could not take another step forward until we got that added. It doesn't mean we have arrived yet. We have plenty of work to do, and this game will certainly be a unique test.

But that's when it started and it's ongoing. Nothing has changed, including today.

Q. Do you have an update on Jordan Mack and Malcolm Cook for us?
COACH MENDENHALL: I don't have an update on Malcolm Cook. Jordan Mack is a getting better every day. So it's great timing for us. We anticipate him becoming close to full strength, if not this Saturday, by the next one. Certainly well enough and close enough to play this week, so, yeah, that will really help.

In the meantime, Rob Snyder played really well in that last game. We know what Zane [Zandier] has been capable of doing and we've seen more of him. Maybe the hidden story in this is Rob is really doing a nice job.

Q. I was going to ask you about the top 25 but obviously you answered it. A little twist on that. It appears that your recruiting has gone better to this point than it has in your previous seasons. What changes have you made, or do you think the success on the field has been the major factor?
COACH MENDENHALL: I think two things are contributing. Certainly time has helped. So there was a strong kind of first class, meaning just because of the reputation of our staff and the previous successes, there were those saying, ‘Man, I want to be part of this; this could work’.

And then when we made it to postseason in our second year, that continued. At the finish of that year Carla [Williams] arrives. I had basically two years of experience here prior to our first meeting. After these two years I understood more clearly we were understaffed in terms of our personnel area. We were about half staffed in relation to what our competitors were, and so the coaches were having to do more work in terms of the legwork and finding, in addition to coaching; while some staffs had the leg work and finding happening while the coaches were coaching, and so we were late. We were still effective, but late frequently.

So after presenting that and then Carla assessing where we were in relation to our competitors, she created positions for us so we have more personnel or more people in our personnel area, as well as a new on-campus recruiting coordinator, which has really helped.

So that organization is just going round the clock now while the coaches are working round the clock with the football part. That is helping us be competitive and finding early, developing relationships early, evaluating effectively, matching our needs and then hosting appropriately which really helps. It helps especially when the games the kids come to or watch us play on we win.

So when you consider the fairly rapid turnaround that's happening -- not happened, but happening at UVA -- I don't know how you could not pay attention. That's not normal for it to happen in this amount of time, and it's certainly not normal when the deficit was so large.

So that story is becoming pretty compelling to those that have interest in our program.

Q. Joey Blount was just in here, and he's a good example of second-year guys you have all over the defense who are playing bigger and bigger roles. How significant of an impact is that class as a whole on defense and the way you've been able to integrate them?
COACH MENDENHALL: Yeah, it's great. We had one year with them we played I think 17 of those guys a year ago, which was our first class; now it's just year two. They're really, really close. They like each other a lot. They respect each other as players. That means they think each other are good players. They like the mindset that our coaches bring.

They came for a very specific reason, and to this point I think what they've received is exceeding expectations. So they're just happy and feel good about the decision they made and like the outcome. I think it's possibly we presented to them it's not if but when and they would control that, talking about that first class, and they've taken that to heart and they are controlling it.

Q. I don't know if he'll ever have the stats to get all ACC recognition, but Eli Hanback is a three-year starter on the line and integral part of your team and defense. What's his value to the line, to the defense, and to the program as a whole?
COACH MENDENHALL: Just you know every single day that he's going to be there and do his job and he's going to do it in the rain or the snow, if we're ahead, if we're behind, if it's first down, fourth down, and then he's going to show up at practice, the weight room. He requires zero maintenance and just does his job every single day at a level that is exemplary.

That simple steadiness with what we just mentioned, all the younger guys, he just is always doing what he's supposed to do, which is a great example.

Q. Speaking of Eli, and now that he's at the? Nose, you haven't had Jordan Redmond on the field I don't think at all the last few games. Is he still healthy? Does he play a bigger role now that you're going to play some obviously run-heavy teams here coming up soon?
COACH MENDENHALL: Depends on the team that we're playing. So Eli and Mandy [Alonoso], those two players, yeah, if we don't have to take them off the field we don't intend to. Basically their tongues are hanging out right now, but they're both capable of that. Aaron Faumui has moved into the third position right now, and then Jordan would be fourth.

So his current skillset, ability level, and his current, I would say the match for his -- for what he can bring to our defense is downhill and right at you. Once things start to go lateral and side to side, that's not currently a strength. He's working on that, and he's working really hard in practice. But it's nice to have, again, Eli setting the tone, Mandy learning from him, and then Aaron learning from him, and then Jordan coming along.

So we have just been able to staff our defense with more linebackers and, yeah, we've -- Coach [Nick] Howell and the defensive guys have done a really good job. It's exhausting working hard enough to find the right 11 defensive players with the right skillset to put on the field versus what we're seeing. That's why you see so many guys running in and out. We've dialed it in pretty well up to this point, but this next week is a challenge.

Q. You had a new look on kickoff return with No. 92 back there. What do you like about Perris Jones? Was that a one-time deal?
COACH MENDENHALL: No, he could be back there. He's earned it in practice. Again, our practices are very competitive. Yeah, I watch every play of every player every day. What he's been doing from fall camp all the way to now, it just became the point he was outperforming others in practice. That's a great way to get on the field.

I'm not happy currently -- I'm happy with our special teams collectively. Our kickoff return is underperforming in my mind. Pretty happy with the other three at this point and the progress and some of the steps we're making.

So, yeah, there is just another message being sent that if you do your job really well in practice and you can help our team in an area that I think needs improvement, then we're going to try you. That's what happened. He did a nice job, too.

Q. You have an update on Tim Harris?
COACH MENDENHALL: I don't. Nope. It's an accelerated week. Basically no one has talked to me other than you guys right now. I will have to fill you in maybe tomorrow.

Q. Building on Doug's question, you mentioned when you got here you were understaffed. Was the size of the staff different from what you had at BYU?
COACH MENDENHALL: No. At BYU, we actually had more resources in personnel than we had at BYU. What I also learned really quickly is it does no good to compare any other place to Brigham Young University. That school, institution, is magical and very unique; 98.5% of all the students that attend are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

There is a natural and immediate draw as soon as members of our faith have children and they're hoping they can play football, there is already a strong push to play at BYU.

So the finding component is filtered much differently than what we currently face in Power 5 football as one of the schools that many of these kids can choose from. Maybe not the school they've always grown up wanting to attend.

So those two simple reference points, didn't take long to figure that out and then reconsider how we best build this program.

Q. Were you coaches kind of playing double-duty there too?
COACH MENDENHALL: Um-hmm, but not nearly the volume, meaning that you might recruit an entire class of anywhere from 35 to 40 total players, players that were Division I football players, who also wanted to live the standards of the church, who also had a desire to, yeah, play at BYU and then have to fit a position of need.

So you can't have a more constraining set of filters than that. So the existing personnel staff and numbers, we knew where every single LDS player was not only in the United States, but in multiple countries. And then any additional work came to young men of strong Christian values that maybe wanted those standards that weren't members of the church but wanted a similar lifestyle.

So, again, it's not comparable, and I learned that quickly when I arrived here.

Q. Coach, I think BYU went independent in 2011. You haven't been in a title race as a coach in a while. One, are you having fun? Two, did you go back to old binders for title race time of year?
COACH MENDENHALL: No, haven't needed to go back to title race binders. It's refreshing to not have to travel all across the country to play games that not many people maybe are interested in later in the year. Early in the year as an independent there is strong interest because people are willing to play. Later in the year when conference races begin, folks don't line up to play BYU or travel to Provo.

So it's a neutral playing field. Every game matters. They all have significant influence and importance. I think that's just good for the players and mindset of the organization. Also it's just a more meaningful and rich college experience when you're part of a conference, and especially if you're performing well enough to be in the hunt going into November, December.

Q. You mentioned after the game that Bryce [Perkins] has exceeded expectations at quarterback. I think I mentioned before the season that it's kind of unusual to have a quarterback not be one of the captains. It sounds like from what the guys in here earlier said that he's kind of become a de facto captain, and one who has no history with last year when you guys got cocky after five wins, whatever. How much has that meant to, what your guys have been able to do?
COACH MENDENHALL: Yeah, so I think that it's mattered a lot simply through his performance. Yeah, captains are voted often at the end of fall camp based on the information that's in front of us through a winter and a spring and a summer. That's limited information. Much like a head coach and or leaders, my day is usually full of making decisions that are impactful with partial information given to me by someone that usually has a different agenda than what might be best for the entirety of the organization, and it's usually under a time frame.

In this case the players did their best to identify players that they absolutely knew and had history with that were trustworthy and could play. It hasn't taken long for Bryce to be considered as that without necessarily the title. I think everyone is great with that.

I've been asked in relation to the second part of your question, and I wouldn't say our team became arrogant or cocky. Our team just faced a brand new set of circumstances, meaning they were winning. They were winning and still qualified for postseason with still games to play, and that was quite a unique place to be.

So I think as we consider just the simple outcome of bowl eligibility after this last game, and you consider it to fans storming the field after Georgia Tech and -- a year ago -- and the way our fans reacted. The expectations have already moved.

So that's just part of the growth and progress, which, again, it's developing, not developed. We can already sense it and there are some indicators if you just take last week that kind of show just based on the reaction that, Okay, we expect that. Now what else?

That's more indicative of where this team currently is.

Q. Pittsburgh is 3-1 in the league. When you look at the standings and rankings, Syracuse gets in for the first time since 2001; BC gets in. Three teams join the poll kind of the tale of this week. What does is it say about the ACC that some of these programs that have been carrying the banner for so long are kind of almost taking a back seat to some these rising programs?
COACH MENDENHALL: I think it's a compliment to [Boston College] Coach [Steve] Addazio and Dino [Babers] at Syracuse and the consistency and work they do.

It's really easy to default every single year to picking ACC standings how they have been before. It's really easy to default to national rankings and list the top 10 just by, I don't know, monetary or history. It's easy. It takes more diligence to report, but also to support teams that, wait a second, could be something special happening here.

I just think it's timing. I think it's just nice for the teams that have earned their way in through eight weeks to be acknowledged. That really is the message that I see. Doesn't mean any of us will stay for one more week based on the outcome, but I think it's healthy and I think it's necessary to see possibly seven teams go out and 11 come in or 11 go out and seven come in as basically an indictment against the current rankings and to what are we doing and why does it even exist prior to this time of year?

I think the playoff ranking timing, they have it right. It no longer to me is relevant for anything before then. That's probably the greatest compliment to our team and the others you mentioned. At least to this point, yeah, nice job. Then that gets you at least until next Friday or Saturday.

Q. Are you a dramatically better improved football team than the one that went and lost to NC State?
COACH MENDENHALL: I think that just on that particular day there were three to five plays as always that, man, they made and we didn't. We had a couple scores that -- or a fourth down and a score at the end that might have made that a one-touchdown game. There were plenty of opportunities.

NC State played better on that day. That's what happens in the ACC, you have to make the plays necessary to win the game, and we have done that more since that game. They made more in that game and they deserved to win it.

How that would look now and if they came to Virginia in week nine, I don't know. I'm not saying that discounts that win because they played better, but, man, week to week it changes pretty rapidly. Man, there is a small handful of plays each week that really determine outcome, including our last one.

Q. Looking at Bryce's three touchdown passes in the game, two looked like really good throws, routes. The throw to Hasise [Dubois] wasn't great. Hasise made the play and turned it into something. Are you seeing his receivers making more plays, doing more for him as the season going on?
COACH MENDENHALL: You know, I think it's just been similar. I think Olamide [Zaccheaus] is always capable, and to this point has not been where there has been these mind boggling number games back-to-back. There has been one, a little less, and then one. It's kind of been an every other thing. Certainly attributed some to the way some of the defenses are playing him after a big week.

Bryce's delivery and where he's putting ball and how has been consistent. Hasise has been consistent. What was good to see, to answer the question, I think Olamide and Hasise have been a very consistent throughout. I think Bryce has been.

In this game, Joe Reed was down field making a nice play, which, man, that was a great thing for all of us.

And then Evan Butts was downfield. Normally he's just a chain mover. Really the story was Joe Reed down field and Evan Butts down field making significant plays. That's new and different than what has been happening in relation to the other group we were talking about.

Q. And [Tavares] Kelly, does he add something to that?
COACH MENDENHALL: Yeah, we worked hard to get him the ball. Didn't have the yield that I think I thought we would with the number of touches we work have to him get. However, I think certainly worth the investment. It's going to take just a little more time to get that role dialed in as tightly as we want it.

Q. Very early on the other day you praised Lester [Coleman], and his numbers aren't what they were last year. Hasn't had a lot of 60 yard punts. Seems like he's gone to the rugby kick. Why did you make that move?
COACH MENDENHALL: I think Lester is performing really, really well. In fact, the average return against us right now is I think under three yards. So there are no returns against us. Where Lester is putting the ball is exactly where we want it. Really what's hurt our net or Lester's statistics more, and we have worked hard on this recently, early in the year we were not downing the pooch punts nearly as effectively as we did a year ago. There were three to five of them that were mind boggling that we weren't downing the football effectively, and so with increased emphasis. But that's hurt some of his numbers. But I think he's performing every bit as well, maybe better than a year ago, in terms of consistency, ball placement and helping our team.

We just haven't supported him in some of the pooch situations of downing the football effectively. About three or four weeks ago we started addressing that with a different vigor than before.

Virginia Tech head coach Justin Fuente

Opening statement
“We got back on the field yesterday for a little bit more extended work because of the weekend. On Boston College, we have a tremendous challenge ahead of us. Boston College is coming off of a fantastic performance against Miami. They played really well in all three phases of the game. They’re a veteran football team, very physical and do a very good job in the return game. Offensively, they have running back A.J. Dillon, who has, obviously, been a pretty prolific player his first couple years of collegiate play, mixed in with the quarterback playing at a high level. They have a physical defense that is tough at the line of scrimmage and is pretty darn good at the back end as well. It will be a tremendous challenge for us. We got about a half-a-days work in yesterday, in terms of practice time on the field. The kids are off today and will be back at it.”

On from a defensive standpoint, what he gets from Georgia Tech film that translates to the next week:
“Not much to be honest with you. You can watch technique, the effort, execution and those sorts of things, but to put it in perspective, I don’t know of any offense in the league when they are playing any other ACC team breaks down Georgia Tech film because it’s just so different. The defenses line up just so different, so there’s no correlation because the defenses are just so different schematically. It’s a one-time game that you’ve got to get lined up and go play in a different manner. So now, we’ll get back to playing a normal style this week.”

On the three muffed punts this year and what he is seeing in the punt return game:
“Well, we keep shuffling guys back there because we’ve not been good. There’s no reason to sugarcoat it. We haven’t been comfortable with whoever has been back there has handled it. Losing CJ [Carroll] hurts us, obviously, but there’s nothing we can do about that. We need to continue to find somebody back there that can be consistent enough to field the football. That’s what we talked about at the start of the year, can we communicate to the other people on the field that are blocking for us and can we take care of the football. We’ve been fortunate up until last week that it hadn’t hurt us, and then it finally did. We will continue to move guys through that spot.”

After looking at the film, what he learned about why the offense wasn’t executing as well after the first three possessions against Georgia Tech:
“Sure, you can go back and pinpoint the plays. The one thing that I said after the game and I think it’s still true is I don’t think it’s just one position group. We’re not talented enough to overcome those types of execution errors. You look at a dropped pass, a missed block, a dropped snap, a poor conversion on third down and the next thing you know the game’s over. You look at the first three possessions and those things did not happen. It’s got to be a huge point of emphasis for us to continue to maintain that discipline and focus to give ourselves a chance to execute time in and time out. And the other team is going to make plays, it’s not like they’re not being coached or don’t have athletes too, you got to do everything you can to put yourself in a position to execute more consistently.”

On if there are any injury updates on LB Dylan Rivers and DL Jerrod Hewitt:
“I think it will all be day-by-day with those two guys. I don’ have any real update, we’ll have a meeting today at 5 o’clock to get the latest on those guys. If I was filling out a report, I would say it’s day-to-day right now.”

On history of being part of teams with ups and downs throughout season:
“I’ve certainly been on teams or a part of teams that were very, very good, that won all their games and I’ve been part of teams that have struggled. This team is unique, as they all are. Certainly, you can draw from experiences of when you have been a part of squads that haven’t been as productive as you want them to be, or maybe are being as productive as they can be. You know, what the ceiling is for any individual team is really hard to figure out, but it’s up to us, as coaches, to continue to get the guys in positions to have success and encourage them to continue to move forward. That’s happening and I’m happy about that. I guess in short, you can always draw back on past experiences with each team being fairly unique. Handling the ups and downs, when you struggle with a young group, you try to get them to pop back up and be ready to go the next week. There’s still a lot of football to be played and we’ve got some tremendous challenges in front of us.”


On reflecting on the result of the game from a preparation standpoint:
“Well, I think it’s an ongoing process of learning how to prepare. I mean, we certainly weren’t lifeless at practice, I just think it’s an ongoing lesson, you know. It’s easy to say we didn’t practice well if you lose, but that’s disingenuous and the players understand that too, they can see through that. The key is immediate feedback as you’re going through the week to give yourself an opportunity to have success. It does not mean you’re going to have success, we do all of this without the guarantee of success. We try to put all this work in, to me that’s what a true competitor will do. A true competitor will spend the time and have the discipline to prepare to give themselves the best chance and knowing that it doesn’t guarantee it. If we don’t do those things then we have no chance. I mean we’re not giving ourselves an opportunity. Over the last year, I’ve seen this team make huge strides. I’m talking about when we came back from winter break and it was (laughing), we had a long way to go, and we still do but I think staying the course and continuing to understand and try to get those points across is what we have to do.”
 
On utilizing homefield advantage to its highest potential:
“Well, I hope that the location of the game does not affect our performance. We have at times at least this year played on the road, maybe have been more productive at times. It has been something we’ve talked about. I can tell you that much, it’s not a factor that we haven’t acknowledged. Maybe there are a few more distractions playing at home, with family and tickets and all those sorts of things. I know this, our kids do desperately want to play well here and they do want to perform well at home and we do understand how unique and how honored we are to play at a such a cool venue. It’s something that we have, in the last couple of years, played well at home and it’s something we want to get back to. I think I answered that with a, ‘Yes, a maybe and a no,’ all in one answer, but it’s something we’ve talked about a little bit. Trying to get that back and handle it and play a little bit better.”
 
On competitiveness of the ACC this year compared to previous years:
“I would say it’s similarly competitive as it’s been in my short time here. The names may have changed, maybe some other teams are having better seasons than they have had the last couple years and maybe there’s a couple teams that are not having as good of years as they have had the last couple of years. It’s going to be competitive every single year. There’s probably, I think everyone one would agree, one team that is probably head and shoulders above everyone in the league. Everybody else is fighting, scratching and clawing to squeeze out a win every week. There are fantastic athletes in this league, there are great coaches. There’s been a commitment to football over the last several years, before I got here, in the ACC, in my opinion, to elevate the level of play. That commitment by administrators and coaching staffs.”
 
Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson

Wake Forest Football Press Conference – October 30, 2018 (Week 9 – Syracuse)
Head Coach Dave Clawson
Opening Statement...
“Wrapping up Louisville, it was a good team win. We needed it. Every year, you have goals, and one of the things you want to do it is have something to play for in November. You want to have goals alive. If you don’t have any goals alive, November becomes really challenging for both the players and the coaches. That was a shot in the arm that we needed. Our practice was good and we played well. Offensively, it was probably the best game of the year for Sam Hartman, not just in terms of stats, but in terms of his efficiency and decision making. I thought our offensive line played really well. When you rush for as many yards as we did, it starts up front. After coming off maybe our worst performance of the O-line at Florida State, we probably rebounded our best game at Louisville. Greg did Greg Dortch things. Matt Colburn had another really good game and it was nice to see Scotty Washington out there making plays. On offense, we are probably the healthiest we have been all year. The healthiest we have been on the O-Line, the healthiest at receiver and all three backs are ready to go. You don’t think you will be the healthiest in late October and early November, but we are. That has me excited as we head into November. Defensively, we were inconsistent. Every week, we have less M.A.s (missed assignments). Some of our M.A.s are really costly, twice we gave up contain. Our special teams really didn’t help us. We had three disaster plays. We had a punt blocked, which led to a touchdown. We gave up a long punt return, which led to a touchdown. The last kickoff return, we missed two tackles, gave up contain and then we late-hit the guy and gave them the ball at the 40-yard line, and that resulted in a touchdown. That was three short fields due to special teams miscues. Our inability to get off the field on third down was frustrating. But getting a fourth quarter shutout and getting our guys to play hard for 60 minutes was encouraging. There is progress on defense. It isn’t where we need to be, but it is better than a month ago. As we enter the last month, we are playing four teams that put up a boatload of points.

“In my opinion, this is the best Syracuse team we have played in my five years here. Dino has done a great job. They are an older team, a veteran team. It begins with their quarterback, Dungey. He is really an incredible player. Maybe one of the most underrated quarterbacks in the ACC. This kid has been a gutsy competitor for four years there. He is fearless and knows their offense really well. We have been lucky. Two years ago, we had the big storm with 30 or 40 mile per hour winds for half the game and rain. Last year, he didn’t play against us. We have never really gotten him healthy, at his best, since he got there. When he is on, he is really good. He can make every throw. He frustrates you. You could have everyone covered and he will tuck it and run. If he gets near the end zone or first down marker, he has no regard for his body. I really admire him as a football player. They are better on the O-Line. They run the ball more efficiently. They are doing a great job of turnover margin. It is hard not to win when you are +9 in turnover margin. They are getting an extra possession a game and they are an offense that is second in the ACC at 43 points a game.

“They have always been good on offense, but on defense they have really improved. They can rush the passer. They have lots of guys back in the secondary, who are improved. The thing that concerns us as much as anything is the special teams. This is the best coached special teams we face every year. They are top two or three in the ACC in every category. They don’t give their returns away. They are creative. Some teams give you the same thing every single week, but these guys change it up and keep you guessing. They are winning turnover battles, getting positive field position on special teams and have a high-scoring offense led by a senior quarterback. That is why they are nationally ranked. They very easily could be undefeated. They lost to Clemson in the last 30 seconds and they lost in overtime to Pitt. This could easily be an 8-0 team right now. They have done a great job. It will be a great challenge. We are excited to be back at home. We have a little bounce in our step as well. That was a good win for us last week. Our guys are excited and had a good practice today. We look forward to the challenge in the week ahead.”

On if the “backs against the wall” mentality will carry into the final four games of the regular season…
“I never like to use the term must-win; nobody was going to die. Every football team has its own life. It ends hopefully at the bowl game and it goes to the next year. And for this football team, that was a game we had to get it, we really did. And I told the players that. If we want to accomplish our goals, guys, any of our goals, if we don’t take care of business this week and play the way we are capable of and prepared the way need to, it’s going to get tough. That’s the reality of it. You issue a challenge like that hoping they are going to respond. If they don’t, it’s probably going to be a tough November. Fortunately, our football team did and the reason you issue that challenge is because you have confidence they will. So that was a really important game for us and now it’s the next one, and the next one is a really good one.”
On Syracuse’s offense being the style of offense that has given Wake Forest trouble…
“Every offense has given our team fits this season (laughs). What offense hasn’t because I’ll go back and watch that film. Our nemesis all year has been giving up big plays. We gave up one run last week of more than 15 or 20 yards. That was the first series of the game, the fourth and one. That was the only long run we gave up the whole game. Now we gave up some long passes on third downs, but we didn’t give up any other 50 or 70-yard touchdowns like we have been doing and that’s the key with Syracuse. They’re an offense that makes big plays. But where Syracuse has really improved is I always felt for the last two years that Syracuse was always going to throw the ball, they had big receivers and they were going to challenge you down the field. There was almost that feeling that they were going to stick a run in there now and then to keep you honest, but they really wanted to throw it. They are now committed to running the football and they run it really well. The run game, I don’t want to say it’s changed, I just think they truly look committed to running the football now and they are the best they have ever been up front. As a result of that, it sets up opportunities for big plays because you can no longer say that you’re going to defend Syracuse and lighten the box and dare them to run the ball and play short-handed. If you do that now, both (Dontae) Strickland and Moe Neal can go. Those backs are both good backs. They start three fifth-year seniors on the offensive line. One of them played against us last year in the Belk Bowl. He’s a transfer from Texas A&M and he’s also Dino’s son-in-law so his starting job is probably pretty safe. Those guys are good players and they are physical. They are just so improved, they are willing to run it and are good at running it. Because of that now, you got to cheat the box a bit but now you have these really good receivers out there that are really good in their own right. They are as good as they have ever been on the perimeter and now they are good inside and they can run it. So, we can’t give up big plays but on the other hand, they are willing to run the football now and they run it really well. So, it’s truly a little bit of pick your poison. All joking aside, yes, the teams that spread it out have probably given us more problems than the teams that don’t. Part of it is who we play. I mean, Clemson spreads it out and score 50 against everybody. Boston College is scoring points and they don’t spread it out but we didn’t defend them well either, so it’ll be a challenge.”
On the potential of each team running over 100 plays…
“They’re not quite as fast as they’ve been. To me, they had the goal before of running 110 plays and they use tempo, but not all the time. They use it selectively and they use it very smart. They’ll get up there and go fast and if you’re not lined up, the ball is going to come out fast. But if you’re lined up and they see what you’re in, they’ll back off and slow it down and get themselves in a good football play. It’s smart because they are able to go fast, they kind of force you to show your hand, and if what they want isn’t wide open then they back off and get into a really good play. I’m so impressed with them on offense. Just a lot more detail and really well thought out and they have created some new dilemmas that they presented before but the way they do it now it a little bit different when you watch the film.”