|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 17, 2014Steve AddazioCOACH ADDAZIO: Obviously we came off of a very emotional, very spirited game against USC last Saturday night. We were fortunate enough to come out on top. I thought our guys played extremely hard both sides of the football, special teams, played with energy, passion, played physically. We're taking on the Maine Blackbears this week at home. Maine has had a great tradition. Jack is their head coach who I've known for a long time. Tremendous coach, does a great job with their team. They're a fundamentally sound team, a physically tough team. They're coming in here ready to roll. It will be a tough, physical game. Our guys, we have to play with the same energy level and passion level that it takes week in and week out to compete at the level we're at. We've had a good week of practice. We're looking forward to the game. With that, any questions. Q. Steve, when you look at the run game and the offensive line, how you were able to kind of impose your will this past weekend, how much of that tone is set by Andy? COACH ADDAZIO: Andy is a veteran player. He's an outstanding player. We do a lot of things with center. He's the tip of the spear, so to speak. I think the apex of the offense is the center and the quarterback. So we have a lot of confidence in Andy. We're able to have a lot of multiples in our run game because of what he can do. Q. You've coached a good deal of guys who at that position have gone on to successful careers. Do you see similar potential with him in the pros? COACH ADDAZIO: I think there's no doubt that Andy will have a great opportunity in the NFL. He's certainly an NFL‑level player. All the guys I've been around have all been a little different, but Andy is one of the top guys I've coached in that position, for sure. He's athletic. He's good in pass protection. Good in run blocking. Can shotgun under center. He can pull. He can do all those things athletically. Q. After that big win Saturday, do you think you'll have any trouble getting your guys up to play against Maine? COACH ADDAZIO: I think we have a great example, the way we played the week before, from Pittsburgh, USC, the way it went down after USC played a big game and played us. This week we purposely went out in helmet and shoulder pads on Sunday, full pads yesterday, full pads today. Had two full practices to set the tone and message that we're out here to get better and go. That's what it's all about. One thing up here, these kids have respect and know that Maine is a good, physical, tough football team. No one here doesn't think that's the case. That's a good thing. I think we have their attention pretty good, and we need to because the name of the game each week is coming back and getting better and sustaining great effort and not being on a rollercoaster ride. Q. What do you see as the value of playing an FCS school like Maine? Are you reevaluating that going forward? COACH ADDAZIO: I think we play in a very competitive conference. Our goal here has always been, in addition to our conference, we're going to play the likes of USC, Notre Dame, a whole host of different teams. But I think it's nice to have the ability to play some geographically suited teams up in this area for the fan bases, whether it be Maine, UMass, whatever down the road, maybe a Rutgers or whatever. I think there's a good formula here. Unless something changes in the structure of the power five, it's hard to go out there and play the conference we play, then play teams like USC and Notre Dame when they rotate on your schedule all the time. That would be a tall order. I look around at some of the elite conferences right now, and they're not doing that. I think it's a good mix. Q. Steve, you mentioned last week getting back to old school at practice. It sounds like you're continuing with the physical practice this week. How much did this contribute to the way you played? Will you continue to do that every week now? COACH ADDAZIO: I think it helped us a lot last week. It was a pretty rough week. I think you can't be too stubborn. There's a fine line in there. We needed to do that last week. I believe we need to do it this week. We did. Where we're headed after that, we're not that deep, so I don't know that you can sustain that forever. I think it will catch up with you. It's like all you can do is make your decisions. But I worry about it and I think about it a lot. I felt right last week in doing it. I felt right this week. But as far as will we continue to do that every week, I can't answer that. I'd say probably not, just with the sheer duration of the season. But I think early on to me it's all about you're in a foot race to maximize your team, figure out your real identity. It's hard to do it when you're not practicing at a high level with collisions and pads. Sometimes you get lulled to sleep. Q. Regarding Tyler Murphy, I think he's the only quarterback in the league that's rushed for more yards than he's passed for. Can you talk about him and the way he played Saturday as opposed to the way he played in the first two games. COACH ADDAZIO: I thought he played great right along, to be honest with you. He's competed really hard in every game. He's been a dude. I mean, he's a guy that carries his team. He's a leader. He has a great look in his eye. It's whatever it takes to win. Kind of get on my back, so to speak. Whether it means he's going to run however many times he ran, or whether he's going to throw it a whole bunch. We don't practice more in the run game than the throw game. We practice even. Like today he had a great practice. Yesterday, he was just throwing the ball super well. So I think he's ready to compete on whatever he's asked to do. A lot of that has to do with how the game is going. Saturday night we had it going a little bit in the run game. We just kind of wanted to keep the foot on the pedal right there. Q. He's your leading rusher by a wide margin. I think it was Hilliman that really showed some stuff in that game. Are you expecting to get a more diversified running attack as the season goes on? COACH ADDAZIO: We're pretty diversified right now believe it or not. Tyler, some of his runs were such big hits. What happens sometimes is we're still a power run team. We're messing around a little bit with the young freshman, Jon Hilliman is a big back, Marcus Outlow is a big back. What happens is when you have to defend that so hard, sometimes some of the spread option game becomes very open off of that. So our hope is that defenses are going to say, Okay, we have to defend not only this, but this, this, this, and it will create more opportunity to even it out across the board. We have a diverse run game that will continue that way. We'll feature whatever we feel gives us the best advantage on a given week. Q. What did last week's game show you about your team going forward here? COACH ADDAZIO: The good news was when you watch the film, the film was reflective of what happened. We were very, very physical on both sides of the ball. In the fourth quarter, we were stronger than we were in the first. I think it spoke to our conditioning, the will of our team. I thought it was a good lesson for our team. We talked all week about we'll win it in the fourth quarter, and it happened. I'm not naïve. We're a young team. Our offensive line is veteran, but the rest of the team is young. With a young team, sometimes can come a rollercoaster ride. Our goal right now is to try to utilize that learning experience to help us mature as we develop, try to take out some of the peaks and valleys. I think what you learn from that game is what you're capable of, and the preparation that went into it, the way you played the game, what it takes to win at this level with any consistency. Q. What was your biggest improvement from the loss to Pitt to the win over Southern Cal? COACH ADDAZIO: It was really clear. First of all, on defense we tackled. We didn't tackle well against Pittsburgh. We just didn't flat tackle. I never saw so many missed tackles in my life. We tackled really well on Saturday night. That was one thing. On offense, we were coming off that ball as an offensive line as a unit. We lost our starting right guard in game one, lost that rhythm a little bit in game two, but we found it back. We had some personnel adjustments. I just think we took adversity. There was adversity in that game. There was some negative momentums for us in that game, but we rode through it. I think that's a valuable lesson that a young team has to learn, that you have to ride through that adversity, you got to grind through it. So there's a lot of those key things that happened that should help you. That's your hope, that you don't repeat those mistakes. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|