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STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 3, 2015

David Shaw

Stanford, California

Arizona - 17
Stanford - 55

COACH SHAW: I can't say enough about our quarterback and the leadership that he's given us. He's playing the best of his career. He's seeing things, he's communicating great, and he's leading the team. The guys are responding to him and making plays for him.

The offensive line is playing extremely well, gelling together, giving holes to our backs and our backs are making plays. Christian McCaffrey, a lot of tough, physical runs today from a guy that's not the biggest guy. But you know what? He's tough and he runs hard. He hits the crease, he has a chance to make a big play.

Can't say enough about Barry J. Sanders. He continues to play, and we put him in there to make plays. He's got a special skill. I said it last week, you put the pressure on Barry, he's going to show it to us repeatedly, and he has. The more he shows us, the more opportunity he gets.

Remound Wright has a knack like very few guys in football. He can find the end zone inside the five-yard line. Those are hard runs with not a lot of space to find. He finds the creases, and Bryce Love also. We continue to mix and match him in there. As a unit, our running back unit, I give Coach Lance Taylor a lot of credit. He's got a lot of guys in that room, and they're tight, put together and cheering for each other. There is no jealousy. It's just a really, really good group of guys, good group of human beings and good football players.

Once again, the offensive line playing well, running game going well, quarterback playing well, receivers popped up made big plays. Produced early and made nice catches. Michael Rector, had two phenomenal plays that he made for us tonight. It's good. It's good.

Some people would say going like this you don't want to take a break. We need this bye. We need this bye. Our quarterback needs to heal. Our offensive line took a lot of shots, running backs, et cetera. Our defensive line is thin and banged up. We need this break.

Once again, a lot of credit to the defensive linemen. We have a lot of guys that played really, really hard against a good offense. It's tough to diagnose. Lance Anderson did a phenomenal job tonight game planning these guys. It's hard. It's hard. They put up a lot of yards on a lot of people. Our guys played great team defense and hard together. And Blake Martinez once again, all over the field. Brennan Scarlett making big plays for us. Thomas making plays. But as a unit, the biggest thing is as a unit, they were playing hard and playing well.

Q. You just mentioned that Hogan might not be a hundred percent, yet he's completed 90% of his passes. Given that, do you think this offense could still reach a higher ceiling after today?
COACH SHAW: Well, I think the biggest thing with Kevin right now is just his ability to affect the game as a runner. He's doing a great job in the pocket slides, pushing up in the pocket. If we can get that ankle healthy, he becomes a dual-threat that he's been most of his career. So hopefully this ten days off will help to heal.

It's better today than it was a week ago, and hopefully in ten days it's even better.

Q. What did you think of the play of the back-up quarterbacks, in particular the block by Keller Chryst on that running play?
COACH SHAW: Keller, both of our young quarterbacks are big, physical athletes. We saw Ryan Burns hit the ball and made a really nice short run and a tough, physical run. And Keller, you saw him on the scramble, he came back, and that block was phenomenal. He's a good football player. He's a tough kid and he loves plays like that. He's one of those guys that at some point we'll teach him how to slide. He doesn't want to slide. He's a big, physical athlete that loves the game and has a chance to be very good.

Q. With all the chaos that's been happening up and down the conference, it could still happen. It's not over in Boulder quite yet. The Cardinal have remained a constant so far in conference play. What's that say about this team to this point?
COACH SHAW: I talked to the guys earlier about we had our game. We had our one game early in the year where we did not play our best football. So we lost that leeway. We've got to play our best football from here on out. Everybody in our conference can be beaten everybody in our conference can beat anybody in our conference. That's just the Pac-12. We talked about it from the beginning of the year. Every game is going to be tough, and you've got to be ready for anything.

I wouldn't be surprised if Arizona came out and ran the table the rest of the year. That's just the way that we are and when you get the quarterback healthy and you never know what that team can accomplish. It's the wild west every single week, so you never know.

Q. Do you expect Arizona would have some limitations at quarterback today?
COACH SHAW: Well, I didn't know. I didn't know. Once again, there is the good and bad was that they've been up for so many games. We've been able to see their back-up quarterbacks play in games, but the bad is you don't really see them play the whole game plan just because they're kind of running out the clock. Two big wins and they've been behind a lot by UCLA, so we weren't sure what we were going to get.

They did, I tell you what, they missed some throws but they made some really nice throws. They took advantage of a couple things. Made some nice seam throws back outside. The big thing is trying to grind them as athletes and thankfully we played really good team defense.

Q. Alfieri was really good. He got buzzed but came back in. Scarlett was outstanding. Can you talk about the quickness of those two guys? And it seems like your front seven especially are extremely quick.
COACH SHAW: That's the thing. Going into this you've got a David Parry who is 310 pounds, 308 pounds, you've got Henry Anderson who is 6'6" and 290 pounds, big, physical, imposing guys, and we don't have that size. But we do have speed, we do have quickness, we do have athleticism. And once again, thankfully we have this bye. So those guys made those plays kind of gassed. Joey's been having to play with Kevin Anderson and play a lot more snaps than usual. But once Kevin gets back and we get back into our rotation, those guys can stay fresh. Hopefully in ten days Nate Lohn will be back and we'll keep our defensive line even more fresh.

But absolutely. Joey and I have no idea what his spark rating is, but coming out of high school he had one of the top spark ratings in the nation because he's so explosive, and because he's so athletic.

Brennan Scarlett, we saw him on film before he came here. Just repeatedly high plays. He ran down a really athletic quarterback from the back side which is really tough to do. And he has the athletic ability, but it's also just desire. He wants to get there. And hopefully we can get these guys rested and be better, hopefully, as the season progresses because we're going to need to be. Our guys know it. Every week the level has to rise. It either goes up or it goes down. You have to play better in ten days than we played today to have a chance to win.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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