	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 28, 2015

David Shaw

Stanford, California

Stanford - 38, Notre Dame - 36

COACH SHAW: Heck of a college football game. Outstanding. Two really good football teams. Two teams with a lot of really good football players.

Big plays on both sides. Resilience on both sides. Our big thing we talked about earlier today was belief. Just belief in the work that we put in, belief in our preparation, belief in our struggles. Belief that our struggles helped us to be a better team.

And at some point in this game it was going to come down to making a play to win the game. Didn't know if it was going to be offense, defense or special teams. But we kept our minds in it, we got up, we didn't change, we got down, we didn't change. And we knew it was going to come down to somebody making a play.

They scored late at the end. Great. But we had time. I challenge anybody to find a better two-minute quarterback in the nation than what Kevin has done this year. At the end of halves and at the end of the game. It's been outstanding.

We were going to use our timeouts at the end if they didn't score there to preserve as much time as possible. But we didn't need to, because they did score. So now with decent field position and three timeouts, with a veteran quarterback, that's one of the best quarterbacks in the nation, hey, we put it in his hand. He made some nice plays. Got a face mask penalty and then we're back to Devon Cajuste, who was big all game. Made big plays all game. He got the ball down there and just tried to center the ball and use a little bit more clock, get a few feet shorter and gave Conrad Ukropina the opportunity to win the football game. Just like he did all summer. We had those pressure kicks all summer. Guys yelling and screaming and calling him names, even nudging a him a little bit, messing with him. And he was a hundred percent over the summer.

So, all the talk on the sidelines when he lined up, the guys were already jumping up-and-down. I wasn't ready to celebrate just yet, personally. But the confidence that they have in him and what they have seen him do, you're talking about a walk-on kicker that came in as a young guy, earned his stripes, learned, grew, earned a scholarship and he's our guy now. And he's done a phenomenal job and he's become one of the best kickers in the nation.

Q. On the 27-yard pass to Cajuste to set up the field goal, what was the play? What was the plan? Can you kind of take us through the thinking there?
COACH SHAW: Well we, of course, always look at what they do in the two minute -- there were a couple different options. We tried a few shots early on. They did a really good job defending it.

But we thought it was some lanes inside. So, we weren't trying to score a touchdown, we were just trying to get in field goal range. So we went back to when Devon, who is just under 6'4", fast and big and a big target. If we didn't hit him, we had Michael Rector coming underneath. We'll take the shot take another timeout and try to get another chunk. But Kevin did a great job, looking off the safety coming back and threw a bullet. Dev caught it, got positive yards after the catch. Took the timeout, moved the ball a little bit closer, took the timeout, kicked it.

Q. How fitting was it for Kevin to go out on senior day, final game here and have a game like that to sort of sum up the way he's played his whole career?
COACH SHAW: Yeah, that is -- the toughest part for me, I'm past, which was giving Kevin the game ball and knowing that what he's been through over the last year plus, and he's come out, he's so mature, he's so confident, he's such a great leader. Such a great football player.

But knowing that he had to keep his emotions in check. His father passed away as Notre Dame grad and was always fired up for the Notre Dame games. A lot of his family went to Notre Dame. So Kevin did a great job of keeping all that at bay and just playing football.

But I knew at the end of the day, he was going to be emotional. I was emotional. He didn't play his best game against these guys last year, and he played one of his best games tonight. And I can't say how proud I am of him. We exchanged pleasantries there, but only the head coach and the quarterback can. And he's our guy. And in true Kevin Hogan fashion, he said, thanks, coach, we got to play USC next week.

Q. Did you have a target yard line you wanted to get to for Ukropina, number one. And number two, this one, do you feel like you're kind of carrying the PAC-12 on your back in terms of representing the conference on the national scene?
COACH SHAW: So first question is, you know, he's hit from 55. So we would like to get closer than that if we can. 55 or in or we were going to try to get as close as we can. Feel the most confidence if we can get the ball itself to the 30 or inside the 30. But he's, once again, he's hit from 55, so that's it.

Second part of it, no. We represent Stanford. We're not carrying anybody. We don't worry about the other teams in our conference. We don't worry about what people say about us nationally. We go out and play the best football we can. We're 10-2 with a really tough schedule. No 1-AA teams on there. We're 8-1 in the deepest conference in America. We have nothing to prove to anybody.

We're in the PAC-12 championship game and we got to go play a great game against a team that's going to be fired up to play us. And that's where our head is. And once again, what the national chatter is, that's not up to me. That ain't up to us. All we know is we got another football game next week and we're going to try and play our best.

Q. Cajuste, five catches, 125 yards, a touchdown, just comment on his performance and bouncing back from that injury that slowed him for much of the year.
COACH SHAW: So, really, funny, Devon came back to me, kind of starting last week, and said, you know what -- he's been 100 percent healthy -- and he said, gosh, coach, I feel fast again. I feel like me again. I feel like I'm really, really back now. And it showed in practice. He's been running fast. I'll say this about Devon Cajuste, Michael Rector, about Rollins Stallworth, about Francis, those four guys, in particular, even Trenton Irwin, we have had a lot of leads this year to where we stopped throwing the football and these guys, these receivers that want the ball, that run routes and catch the ball, they have been blocking their backsides off. They have been blocking extremely well. They want Christian to do well, they want the running backs to do well. And they know when called upon, they're going to go make plays.

And the team's feeling on this team right now is phenomenal right now. We've got guys going out there, Michael Rector catches one ball last week and made some great blocks. Devon Cajuste hasn't really had a breakout game all year. He's had a lot in his career. Hasn't really had a breakout game all year and he's had probably his best year of blocking. He's blocking extremely well. And today was the day. The coverage dictated it. The right plays were there, the quarterback saw it and hit him and he made them.

And I can't say how proud I am of him also because, once again, you're talking about guys play the receiver's position because they like touching the ball. And they haven't had a lot of opportunity, but we have been talking for the last month, you don't know when it's going to come. Just be ready when it comes and it came tonight.

Q. Tonight, I'm sure Stanford was hoping being on national TV it would be a showcase for Christian McCaffrey. How do you think his performance held up tonight with his Heisman hopes?
COACH SHAW: I have no idea. I know he played well. I know he ran hard. Every run seems to get four to five more yards than it should.

Heisman? Whatever those awards, they're all great. No one can tell me that there's a more dynamic player in college football. No one can tell me there's a guy doing more for his team than Christian is doing for us in college football.

Talking about a USC guy, you know, for me the benchmark for running back in this conference has been Reggie Bush. And to see that Christian passed his yardage total last week in one less game says a lot. On our web site, we have got the measurements and he, basically, passed all of the Heisman winners, except for Barry Sanders, Sr. He's phenomenal, having a phenomenal year. And he does so many things as punt returner, kickoff returner, receiver, runner. He's dynamic. I'm not on any awards committees, I just know that he's special and everyone that sees him play knows he's special.

Q. Your three healthy defensive linemen Aziz, Brennan Scarlett, Solomon Thomas, had well over 500 snaps logged coming into this game. Can you talk about their performance tonight and can you talk about their performance surviving a 12-game schedule with, basically, three defensive linemen?
COACH SHAW: One word. Gritty. Gritty. It's hard. We would love to have some more depth, but we, you know, these are three guys that are playing the best and we trust them and we believe in them. Even when they get tired, they know that they got to keep going.

And we rotate them as best we can. And we're in nickel, so we play two at a time, most of the time. So we try to roll as best as we can, but they know we need them. We need them. And as long as they're healthy, as long as they can move, they're going to go out there and fight for us. So I give those guys a lot of credit. A lot of credit. We got time for one more. If there's one more. Out there. Any more questions? Excellent. Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297