	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

ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 14, 2016

Mark Richt

Greensboro, North Carolina

MARK RICHT: We're just working hard in preparation for this game. Very outstanding opponent, a team that's used to winning. Teams that are used to winning are very difficult to beat. They're excellent in all areas of their game, offense, defense, special teams. They play hard. They play physical. They play disciplined. You know, they have the characteristics of winning -- bottom line is we've got a heck of a ballgame coming up, and if you've got a question, I'll answer it. Bottom line is they're one heck of a team.

Q. To look at these first couple games going into this upcoming game, kind of your 15 total touchdowns over those two games have been scored on the ground. Just what you can say about your rushing attack at this point?
MARK RICHT: Well, we're doing the things you need to do to run the ball well, which is know your assignment, have good technique, block with effort and a little bit of nasty in you. We're blocking downfield well. Our quarterback is getting us in the right plays.

We're doing the things that you have to do to be able to run the ball well, and our backs are certainly making some people miss and have some speed to take it the distance for some long runs.

But it's going to get tougher and tougher as we go starting this week. This defense is extremely tough physically, and they are just -- they're just hard to block. We're going to have our work cut out for us.

Q. You mentioned this is a big game for you coming up in your opinion. What you can say about Appalachian State overall? I know you talked about their defense, but why you think this is a big game in your opinion with a team that you respect.
MARK RICHT: Well, because they're a great team. They're a winning team. Teams that win are hard to beat. They play offense, defense and special teams with tremendous effort, and they play a very sound scheme. You know, they don't turn the ball over a bunch. They don't have a lot of penalties. They don't beat themselves. They have all the characteristics of a winning team, and that's why they win, and that's why they're tough to beat, because they're not just going to give the thing to you. It's going to be a bloody war, and we know that, and I think they know that.

Q. I'm curious about Brad's development as a pro-style passer in that less than a year since you've been working with him. Talk about the improvements you've seen in practices that could really help him in the eyes of NFL scouts, and what do you see that he needs to work on the most?
MARK RICHT: Well, with all due respect we're not worried about the NFL and trying to get him ready for the league and all that. We're trying to run our system and put ourselves in positions to win games. He's doing that. He's doing what we need him to do in the running game. He's getting us in the right plays. He's ball handling extremely well. He's using his cadence well, all the little things that it takes to run the team well. Certainly Brad is a pocket passer. He's not a guy that you're going to put a lot of QB run in there for and a lot of movement of the pocket. We'll move him some, but bottom line is pocket passers need a pocket. So we've got to protect better, okay, and he's got to be more accurate, and we've got to catch the ball better.

We missed some opportunities last week that quite frankly is uncharacteristic of what we've been seeing in practice, and I'm not talking about just Brad, I'm talking about the passing game in general, and we've got to get back on track.

Q. I know people loved his accuracy and his decision making. How have you worked with him as far as arm strength?
MARK RICHT: Well, there's nothing -- in my opinion there's not a whole lot you can do to increase a guy's arm strength. You increase his overall strength. You get his core strong. You get his legs strong because the pass starts really from the insole of your back foot, and when you drive to your target and you turn your torso and you bring that -- at the very end, your arm and your fingertips are the last thing touching the ball, those are things that you can increase overall body strength to help the velocity on the ball, but throwing the football is not about how hard you can throw it, it's about how accurate you can throw it. He's got plenty of arm strength to throw any throw we need.

Q. How much is this game going to be a test of your team's maturity going on the road against a team that's basically treating this like a bowl game?
MARK RICHT: I think it's going to be a huge test. There's no doubt. A lot of these players that have been around a while have been -- have traveled and gone to an away game before, but the bottom line is we haven't done it together as a team, and then as a new staff, the first two games at home, first two games at 6:00, first two games we had a certain schedule that we adhered to and are a little bit comfortable with, but now all of a sudden we're traveling and that's a little bit different. Now all of a sudden we're playing at noon, and that's different. So we've got to live through all that together.

But the bottom line is once we kick off, we've got to be able to execute, and that's why we're working so hard every day to try to create good habits. Habits are the things that you have when your emotion dies down and you begin to be fatigued, and so we've got to create good habits in practice to help us perform well when it counts the most.

Q. Whether it was at Georgia or now at Miami, what impressed you initially about Stacy and the value that he brings to your staff?
MARK RICHT: Oh, well, first of all, he knows what I like to do in the run game. He knows how I like to pass protect. So that's huge. If you've got to coach -- if I've got to coach an offensive line coach, I've got problems. He certainly can handle that bunch and not only handle it but know schematically what we want to do and how we want to do it, so that was huge. If there's one guy that knows it more than anybody, it's him. So that was big.

And then, you know, he's a great person. He's a great father. He's a great husband. He's a great mentor to young people. He cares about young people. He gets it. He gets the college experience as a coach. He understands how to recruit. He understands you've got to mentor young guys and help them through academically and socially and everything else, that you've got to ride a herd sometimes and get them to go.

Gosh, he's been doing it so long and so well, it was a no-brainer.

Q. I wanted to ask you about your running back combo. What do Mark and Joe do differently? Are they similar runners?
MARK RICHT: I mean, we don't look at one of them and say, hey, gosh, he's the guy we need in there if we're throwing the ball or he's the one we need in there to pick up a blitz or he's the one we need in there to run the stretch or this guy needs to run the power or the zone play. We have no preconceived idea that one guy does one thing better than the other guy. They're both very complete backs, and they both can run routes. They can pass protect. They can run inside. They can run outside. They understand what we're doing and why. We really don't distinguish much between the two.

Q. Do you have -- do you go into the game with a pre-planned alternation, or do you --
MARK RICHT: Just go until you get tired and put the next guy in. We'll kind of keep an eye on them, and if they look fatigued we'll sub them out, or Coach Brown might go third series or whatever it is, if it's not before -- if you have two three-and-outs, it's different than if you have two eight-play drives. You can't really go by the series. You kind of go by number of plays and sometimes just by what the kid looks like. He may have just taken off on a 50-yard run and he looks gassed, okay, get the other guy in there. So they're pretty interchangeable for us.

Q. What are three keys for Saturday to winning in a hostile environment because they're a very good team. They almost beat Tennessee.
MARK RICHT: They did, you're exactly right. Three keys? The bottom line is no turnovers on offense, no missed assignments, and we've got to get after them. We've got to get after them because they're going to get after us.

Q. Did Brad have an off week last week because it seemed like that was not a Brad-type of game, two interceptions --
MARK RICHT: Well, our pass game struggled a little bit. His second pick he got hit as he was throwing it, so he really had no control over that one. The first one, quite frankly, I didn't do a good job coaching him, so I'm not going to put either one of them on him quite frankly, but yeah, we didn't throw and catch as good as we should, and there's no question we have practiced better than that. We are better than what we did in that ballgame. But the reality is we're what we show on tape. We're what we did in the game, so we're not very good right now. We've got to get better.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297