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ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 2, 2015

Todd Graham

Tempe, Arizona

TODD GRAHAM: Questions?

Q. Obviously from an offensive standpoint a lot of positives to take away with 742 total yards. What did you see from the offense that was so different from weeks prior?
TODD GRAHAM: Well, I think, one, we got our tempo going. The biggest thing coming out of there, we went into the game wanting to take care of the football. Obviously we had a couple errors there. One of them wasn't really in our control. But you know, really just getting a rhythm, a tempo. I thought we played very physical, physically dominated the line of scrimmage and dominated the run game, and really proud of the effort. That was our best performance of the year, and you know, obviously putting it all together is a big thing.

After looking at the film, I couldn't be more proud of the effort that our guys gave. I think it was impeccable. Obviously some things really hurt us. The kickoff return was a big deal that hurt us. Special teams, you know, we didn't play our best special teams wise and we'd been playing really stellar there, and we gave up too many big plays defensively, and then -- but it was a heck of a football game. When I watched it, it was one heck of a game.

It's one of those that you look at and you get done with it, and there's about 20 plays I think that affected the outcome, but really proud of our guys' effort and how hard they played and I was very impressed. Our guys are playing hard. We've just got to eliminate the mistakes and put it together. That's the reality of it.

The reality of it is that we've lost two really close games, one to Utah and one to Oregon that we didn't -- and those are games that we won the year before. That's what it boils down to every year. You've got to win the close games. We've got to pick ourselves off the ground, go to work.

I was very impressed with Washington State against Stanford. Coach Leach has done a great job with those guys. They're a very good football team, and we've got to go up there and figure out a way to put it all together. We know what our potential is on offense. We know what our potential is on defense. We know what our potential is in the kicking game. We've got to put it all together.

Q. I just want to get your thoughts on trying to keep the emotions high and trying to end strong with these last four games.
TODD GRAHAM: Yeah, our guys -- I'll tell you this, we played harder last week -- each week -- I can't ever fault our team and their effort. Our guys never give up. They never quit. They play to the end of the whistle. They play to the last whistle. Our guys, this is a great group of seniors, and you know, as a team we haven't gotten it done, and really to be real honest with you, it's been two games, you know, Utah and Oregon, the two conference games. We played really poorly against USC and they played really well, and that's the only game we've really been -- that we really got beat.

But you've got to pick yourself up and go on, and that's what our guys will do. I mean, our guys have got great character. They're going to play hard, and obviously it's a different match-up with Washington State, but there's still a lot for these guys to play for. These guys have been a part of a pretty special time here, and these seniors are really important, so we've talked a lot about that and talked about, you know, we can control what we can control. But these guys will go and play. I don't have any doubt in how they'll go and play.

But it's Pac-12, man, every week. It doesn't matter what week you're playing, you just pull that film out and you go like, man, every week it's a challenge. It's not unique to us. You look around, you see USC, UCLA, you see every team in our conference -- even Oregon we just played, this has been a -- the Pac-12 is one that's very tough to navigate, and the margin for error, winning and losing is that thin.

You know, that's why you've got to bring it every week. But I don't worry about our guys' emotion.

Q. Did you get an explanation from Oregon's touchdown in the third quarter from the officiating crew, and have you heard back from the conference at all regarding that call?
TODD GRAHAM: I turned all those plays in, and you know, obviously I can't comment about the officiating. But I did send them in. I have not heard back.

Q. DJ said after the last game that he enjoyed going back to a little bit more of that older role, being in the backfield. How do you feel about his performance?
TODD GRAHAM: Again, I thought it was one of our best performances. His effort and his leadership has been critical for us. Again, I thought he played really well as well as most of the guys on the offensive side. I thought Demario, Kalen, their effort, how they finished runs, how our receivers finished yards after catch and yards after contact was phenomenal. I thought it was our best game offensively. But on that deal, I haven't heard anything back. So we'll see.

Q. How does Washington State look different this year than the previous years you guys have played them?
TODD GRAHAM: You know, I think obviously Coach's system is a really difficult system. And they've just got confidence. You know, same offensive line, same quarterback, a lot of the same players, just they're stronger, their faster, and they're confident. I think they were 3-9 last year and they're 5-3, and they just lost on the last play of the game or they could have been 6-2. It's just confidence and how hard they're playing. They're playing extremely hard. I was real impressed with them against Stanford.

Q. One of your players Deonte Reynolds was involved in some sort of incident over the weekend. What's his status with the team?
TODD GRAHAM: I mean, it was a deal where he was a victim, so, you know, he's just recovering right now.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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