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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 24, 2014Bobby PetrinoCOACH PETRINO: We're excited to be back home after two games on the road, looking forward to playing a Wake Forest team that we respect a lot. I think our guys are just going to be excited to be back at home. Hopefully we'll have a great crowd come out. Q. Bobby, wonder what the excitement is like for you going into your first ACC game here, going against a coach who is experiencing the exact same thing? COACH PETRINO: We're excited about it. Like I said, it's good to be back home. We have a little bit of history with Wake Forest, the fact we played them in the Orange Bowl. It's fun to go against those guys again, some players we're really familiar with. Q. I know you just released your statement late last night about Will. What is kind of the challenge that you face when you're not quite certain about whether or not a guy is going to play the week of a game? COACH PETRINO: Yeah, I think just like with every other position, when you have situations like that come up, you have to prepare the next guy, get him ready, then his backup ready. If Will is able to come back and play, that would certainly be a bonus for us. He did not practice yesterday. He did receive treatment, has improved a little bit. So it's just a situation where we'll wait and see how it goes here later on today. Q. Obviously we all asked you a lot of questions about Reggie throughout the course of camp and into September. How has he looked since he came back? Does he seem like he's kind of back fully focused in on you guys or is he still struggling with his dad? COACH PETRINO: I mean, he seems great. He's very motivated. He's excited. I think he had a very, very difficult week dealing with the tragedy of his father, all that goes with that. We were in constant contact with him that entire week. He hated not being able to go to the game last week because his teammates are a big part of his life. He was excited Sunday when he came back to meetings, practice. He's done a very, very good job. Q. Coach, a little bit deeper into Wake Forest, what you really believe those main challenges are going to be from what you've seen on film. COACH PETRINO: I think the challenge for us is going to be to work hard at moving the ball on a consistent basis, being successful on first down, getting to third‑and‑short, third‑and‑medium. They've done a very good job with their dime defense, stopping people on third downs. That's a huge challenge for us. Then I think for our defense, we just need to play fast and aggressive, really control the line of scrimmage. If we control the line of scrimmage, we'll have a chance. Q. As far as if you don't have Gardner ready to go, how confident are you in his backups, what they can bring to the table? COACH PETRINO: I think we're excited about having Reggie back. He was in a good contest throughout the fall with Will. He's played in the games. He's run a couple touchdowns in, threw the ball for a touchdown. We're excited that he's been back with the team after the death of his father. Q. If you have to turn to Reggie this week at quarterback, how much does that change the look of the offense, given this is an offense that's a work in progress? COACH PETRINO: One of the things we've always done a good job of, in order to get our quarterbacks to play well, getting the other 10 guys around them to perform well and play at a high level. We're working at it. We're not where we need to be yet. But certainly our players have done a nice job in practice in concentrating and focusing, putting in a lot of effort. We still have a ways to go. Reggie knows our offense. He understands the things we're trying to do with it. He's been in the games and experienced it. So hopefully if he's the guy, he'll come out and do a good job for us. Q. Bobby, talk about this game coming up against Wake Forest, what you see on film that might be a challenge on Saturday. COACH PETRINO: Again, like I said, they're a very good defensive ball club. They have a defensive front that's very active. They can rush the passer. Their linebackers run to the ball and tackle well. They have two really good corners that I think are there all‑time leading consecutive game players. So they have a tremendous amount of experience and play really well on defense. Offensively they have a young quarterback who showed his competitive spirit in the great comeback last week for them. Really we have to go in, try to stop their offense, get the ball back, try to get some consistency with our offense. Q. How is the development of your sophomore quarterback Will, his maturity, all that stuff? COACH PETRINO: I mean, he's been good. He's a great worker. He really studies the game. He understands it. He's had some really good moments. He's had some moments where we struggled with some decision making and accuracy. But basically it's been the entire offense, all 11 guys doing their job together, hasn't allowed us to be consistent yet. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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