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WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 14, 2015

Dave Clawson

South Bend, Indiana

Notre Dame - 28, Wake Forest - 7

DAVE CLAWSON: Obviously we're disappointed. We outplayed them, we outgamed them, we had the ball longer. But we beat ourselves. We had a pick six. We gave up a 98-yard touchdown run that we had two guys miss a tackle. We had the ball twice on the 1 yard line and came away without any points. You know, we had a personal foul in the end zone before the half, which takes at least three points off the board. You know, we catch a punt inside the 10-yard line, our first possession starts with us on the goal and the 5. Those are things that I'd say well-coached football teams don't do, and we didn't -- Notre Dame is a very good football team. They don't need our help, and we gave them a lot of help tonight.

Q. (Question regarding Notre Dame's offense.)
DAVE CLAWSON: Yeah, one of the very 1st downs, keep the clock, they've got a lot of explosive playmakers. We wanted to limit their possessions, and in a lot of ways, we did. I mean, you know, obviously a big part of our game plan was we did not want Fuller to beat us, and we were going to roll coverage to him and not let him get over our heads, and I think in a lot of ways we executed well. I think in the first half they had 174 yards of offense, and 98 of it was on one play. So a lot of things we wanted to do, we did. We executed, but again, we beat ourselves, and that is a theme with our football team this year.

Q. This has been kind of a theme of yours, taking a young team and rebuilding. What's their next step to start getting on that right track?
DAVE CLAWSON: I think from a year ago, we've elevated the talent level, and right now our two deep is the youngest two deep in America. We've got 31 freshmen and sophomores, and at times we play like a really young football team. So we're -- last year we were not very good, in a lot of ways not competitive. I think this year we're a lot more competitive in games, but against better football teams, we don't find ways to win, we find ways to lose.

Q. Playing a team of this caliber, what does that do for your team to point your guys in that direction?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, this is the level we aspire to get to. I believe we can get there, so this is a measuring stick game. Our guys were excited to play here, and again, I'll tell you what I told the team. I think when the team plays with that much energy, that much effort, that much enthusiasm and you execute 90 percent of what you want to get done, you know, we should actually be a happy locker room, but we beat ourselves, and we're a team that does that too much. We lose the turnover battle. We mishandle the ball on the 1-yard line, and those are things that good football teams don't do. They have the ball on the 1 and they get in the end zone. Right now there's a gap between us and the better teams in our conference not because we lack talent but because we don't execute as well as we need to at critical times.

Q. You had at least 14 snaps on defense where you held them to one yard or less. Talk about that.
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, we did a lot of blitzing and a lot of movement, and guys got off of blocks today up front for us, and again, we have great respect for Notre Dame. In our opinion that is certainly the best if not one of the top three offensive lines we've faced all year, and they're very well-coached. You know, we didn't feel we could sit still. We had to be very disruptive. We started a freshman tackle today and a sophomore tackle, and our defensive ends were two sophomores. If we sat still, we thought we'd be in trouble. They knew where we were, so we moved a lot and we pressured a lot, and we tried to get off of edges a little bit, and we had to be disruptive.

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