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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 7, 2016

Bobby Petrino

Greensboro, North Carolina

BOBBY PETRINO: Well, we're coming off of a good opening win at home versus Charlotte. I thought our players learned a lot about themselves, and we did a lot of good things, but we did a lot of things that we really need to clean up and continue to get better at. We are looking forward to going on the road and playing at Syracuse in a very tough environment. I think it'll be great for our team.

With that, I'll just open it up for questions.

Q. Just your defense against Syracuse's new style of offense, just what you can say about what you've seen on film and kind of how your defense matches up with that.
BOBBY PETRINO: They execute very well. You know, they're going at a very fast pace. I've always liked their quarterback. I thought he was a very good player last year against us. He's tough and has a quick release, and they've got good wide receivers, so it should be a good challenge for us. We've got to do a good job of communicating in a loud place and getting lined up quickly and playing fast, not hesitating.

Q. What can you say about the preparation going into this week for you? What did you try to do in practice to simulate what that speed of the game is going to be like?
BOBBY PETRINO: Yeah, we've had two teams running at our defense and trying to get the ball snapped within 16 seconds all the time and going really fast when we do what we call our crossover drills where it's our two offense going against our one defense simulating Syracuse, and while we're doing that we've got noise going on. It's hectic when you're at practice like that, but it really pays off for game time.

Q. You put up a lot of points obviously in your opener against Charlotte. How much did you go away from that game thinking, yeah, this offense is as good as I thought, or how much did you go away thinking, it was Charlotte, I still don't know what the ceiling is for this offense this year?
BOBBY PETRINO: Yeah, what we do is we just evaluate and grade every play and work hard on individually performing and getting better on our technique and our fundamentals. We always tell the players worry about the process, worry about one play at a time and the scoreboard takes care of itself. We don't put a whole lot into what the score was of that game.

You know, I thought we did some good things. There's a lot of things we need to correct. We are getting better in our passing game, which should help us.

Q. How concerned are you with your depth at defensive line, and considering Syracuse's up-tempo offense, how much do you think you'll kind of go into the bench, how deep you'll go?
BOBBY PETRINO: Yeah, we always rotate our guys in, and the key there is to finding the right way to do it and the breaks on when you can get them in. We've been conditioning hard, and we understand the tempo that they play at is very fast. We like our defensive front and our outside linebackers. They're good players. Certainly we're looking forward to the challenge.

Q. And how big was the loss of Sheldon Rankins to the NFL, and how well do you think Drew Bailey has stepped into his place?
BOBBY PETRINO: Yeah, Sheldon is a great player. He's not only very talented, but he was one of the smartest football players I've had the pleasure of coaching. He really understands the game, is an expert at his technique and knows what offenses are doing. So certainly to replace him, we have to do it with a group effort. But Drew Bailey is playing really well. He's always been a great pass rusher for us. He made a lot of plays last year. I think he's really grown in his knowledge of the game and understands how to play both run and pass now.

Q. At your Monday media opportunity with the guys in Louisville, you mentioned, wondering if the chain crew might not have been set a couple times during SU's game against Colgate and that you might inquire with the ACC a little bit. Did you talk to anyone, an official, and did you get any kind of clarification on what has to go on there?
BOBBY PETRINO: Yeah, the chains have to be set. They've got to let the chains get down and be set before they can snap the ball again, and there were a couple times in that game where they didn't get set. We have talked to the conference office, and that's part of the officials' responsibility is to make sure that the chains are set before they let the ball be snapped.

Q. And this is just kind of more generally speaking, obviously with more up-tempo offenses and teams trying to go fast, that chain gang actually becomes important to the strategy. My understanding is that schools and staffs hire their own chain gang. How much more time is actually put into that and aligning the chain gang with what you want to do offensively?
BOBBY PETRINO: Oh, I don't know. That's a good idea. We might need to look into it when we play fast teams at home, hiring some guys that don't run very fast so they can slow it down. I've never thought about that. That's a new idea for us.

The other thing we might need to do is get some oxygen down there and make sure we have a defibrillator in case they can't keep up when they're running down the field.

Q. I was wanting to ask, what did you think of the amount that Seth Dawkins played in the second half, how he did off his kickoffs, and getting in at wide receiver and just the development that you've seen from him during the fall camp?
BOBBY PETRINO: Yes, Seth is going to be a really good player here before it's all over with. He's still learning and learning the speed of practice and learning the playbook, but he's very, very talented. He's big and he's strong. He really runs well with the football after the catch, which we saw when he made that touchdown run. He makes one or two catches every day in practice where you go, wow, I'm not sure anyone else on our roster could do that because he's got really long arms and can track the ball.

We're excited about his future. He's just got to keep developing and getting better as the year goes on.

Q. Talking about Lamar's play last week against Charlotte, seems like the kid in on all cylinders right now. I talked to him at the Kickoff Classic. Talk about his development going through camp and after the first game.
BOBBY PETRINO: Yeah, he's worked really hard in camp of being right with his footwork and getting his shoulder correct on his pass plays so that he's more accurate. I really like the way he's throwing the ball right now. He's been hitting helmets and hitting hands and putting the ball away from defenders and throwing receivers open. He's doing a nice job of that, and he still can really run with the ball.

He didn't do everything right in the Charlotte game. He missed a couple reads and a couple things that we wished he would have done a little bit better, but he keeps working hard at it. He's a very dedicated and motivated young man that's really fun to coach.

Q. Talk about Syracuse; you guys are going up to the Dome. When was the last time you were up in Syracuse?
BOBBY PETRINO: A couple years ago. Yeah, I've been up there a few times. It's a hard place to play. It's always very loud, they've got a great crowd, and they're a good football team. They do a lot of things defensively that are going to make us have to make sure we can block line movement and attack coverage. Offensively they're running a very fast-tempo offense. Their quarterback is a good player, and they've got good wide receivers. I think it's going to be a good challenge for us.

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