	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

October 5, 2016

Mark Richt

Greensboro, North Carolina

MARK RICHT: Well, we got our practice in today, which was good. They're closing down our school at 5:00 p.m. today and probably won't open it back up until Monday. It was good to get that one in. I'm not exactly sure how we're going to get this next practice in. As a matter of fact, when I get off the phone here, I'll be getting with my director of football and figuring out what plan B is. But the good news is we have until 5:00 p.m. to be normal with regard to going to class and with regard to strength training and then with regard to study hall and tutoring and all that, so we have until 5:00 to make sure we're in good shape. As a matter of fact, I'm going to have a team meeting at 6:00 to tell everybody exactly how we're going to proceed from here.

Q. Could you talk about the growth of Brad at quarterback, things that you've worked with him the most and the areas where you've seen the biggest progress?
MARK RICHT: Right, well, I'll be honest with you, I didn't really study Brad from a year ago or two years ago. Watched a little bit of film just to try to figure out who's back and who's not, but I didn't really study Brad so much. But the thing I work with all quarterbacks is their ball handling. I mean, I start with QB-center exchange. We go to all the ball handling to our running backs, whether we're handing the ball off and faking like we've got it in our hand or whether we fake like we're going to hand it off and keep it. Also the footwork as it relates to the routes that we run and the progressions that we have. He's got a first progression, second and third, and his feet need to kind of work along the lines of our progressions, and then just fundamentally stepping and drive-stepping to your target, following through to your target, don't fade away to your left or right. Just the things fundamentally that a quarterback needs to have.

And then you teach them how to think. You give them a systematic way of thinking to where when it happens in a game, it'll be second nature to them. You give them enough reps at it that they get comfortable as fast as possible. I mean, he's a third-year starter, but he's a first-year player in this system. We've got to try to develop as much consistency as we can.

Q. You're stepping back into the Florida State-Miami rivalry on the other end. What are your memories -- that was the greatest rivalry in college football.
MARK RICHT: Mutual, mutual respect. We knew, and I say we, when I was at Florida State as a coach, we knew Miami was the real deal, and I think Miami knew Florida State was, as well.

Florida State at one time was dominating the ACC. Miami was dominating the Big East, and Florida was dominating the SEC as much as you could with Coach Spurrier. So between those three teams, somebody was going to the National Championship game, and everybody played each other, at least Miami played Florida State and Florida.

So anyway, everybody was playing each other I think back at that time, and there was just some monumental wars that were determining not just -- it wasn't determining a Conference Championship, it was determining whether you were going to play in the BCS National Championship game, and it was something to behold.

Q. Does Miami have to get back on the board to reignite this rivalry?
MARK RICHT: Well, what we need to do is do our job the way we're being taught to do it. Guys need to focus on hydrating properly, resting, eating right, paying attention in the meetings, working hard in practice, you know, coaches need to be consistent in their message and put our players in position to do their job. That's what we need to do.

Q. If you could take us back to when you were at Florida State and Coach Diaz was a GA, what kind of impression did he make on you back then?
MARK RICHT: Just smart, smarter than everybody else. No, he's a very intelligent guy, okay, and he understands football. He understands offensive football. He understands protections. He understands what people are trying to accomplish in the run game. By knowing that, he's going to try to make you do something you're really not comfortable doing. He's not going to let you do what you like to do the best; he's going to try to give you looks that will force you to do something a little bit different. And then I think over the years as a coordinator, he's learned that not only does it matter that you get the players in the right place but that you've got to hustle and you've got to get guys on the ground. I mean, you've got to tackle.

Not that he didn't know that before, but I think he's as good of a fundamental coach now as he is a scheme coach because of his experiences along the way, and he also loves this city, and this is a part of his family and who they are. It's a nice bonus there, too.

Q. I know when you coached against Florida State in the Sugar Bowl, I'm sure there were some emotions there because of Coach Bowden and how close it was to the time you were at Florida State.
MARK RICHT: Right.

Q. A lot of those people are gone now; are there still some emotions?
MARK RICHT: I don't think there will be. As you said, when I left Georgia to go to -- when I left Florida State to go to Georgia, I had recruited a lot of those guys, coached with those coaches. Coach Bowden led me to the Lord in '86, gave me my first job, all of a sudden I'm an offensive coordinator at a school like that because of him. So yeah, there was a lot of that emotional stuff that was going on.

But I will say about a series or two into it, when I looked across the field and saw Mickey Andrews over there spitting and getting all riled up, you know what, I felt like it was a spring scrimmage, spring game, and we were like, we've got to win today. So it was good. It was good.

Q. I know you're going to get a lot of different tests for these guys coming up, but having three freshman linebackers against Georgia Tech and what they do offensively, how did you feel like they held up and how big of a test was that for them?
MARK RICHT: They did okay. I mean, I think the whole team defensively had some really bright moments and some moments where it wasn't pretty. But the good news was if somebody did make a mistake or something did break free, we rallied and got people on the ground and forced them to play more snaps. That was the thing we were probably most proud of is how hard the guys were playing, and that was good. But those linebackers, let's face it, they were here in January, they've heard every word of Manny Diaz's installation that all the other veterans heard.

They went through spring installation, summer installation, fall installation. I mean, all three of those starting linebackers were here in January, and so they really came at a perfect time because it wasn't like all these other veteran players had been in the system two years and were way ahead. They were learning it along with the freshmen.

So I think it just timed out for them to have a chance to do this.

Q. I'm sure you'd love to have sort of an older, veteran leader in that group, too, to kind of help them along, but is there sort of an advantage that they're all carrying each other along? I know they're all very close with each other.
MARK RICHT: Yeah, they are. They're tight. They're buddies. They believe in each other. They support each other. But you know, Shaq Quarterman, he's a mature guy. He's mature physically. He's mature beyond his years when it comes to academics and just the game of football, and I think our players see that, and I think they have responded to him in a leadership role. I'm not saying he is the guy, okay, but he's a guy that players respect, and that's the beginning of leadership, that the guys respect you.

Q. Just wondering what your thoughts are on Derwin James of Florida State and just how different their defense is without him in there.
MARK RICHT: Gosh, I didn't really try to study that. I just know that he's one of the best players in college football, and it's always hard to lose a great player at any position. If there's a quarterback of the defense, he was probably it, and I'm sure that makes it tougher to execute. I mean, I know if we lost Brad Kaaya, it would be tough, but you know what, Malik would have to go in there and do his job and take care of business, and everybody would have to rally around him. But yeah, it's tough to lose a great player like that, a great leader.

Q. And as far as preparations for the next couple days, have you had a similar circumstance to Georgia or something that you could lean back experience-wise?
MARK RICHT: Well, I think at Georgia, we didn't have the indoor yet, so every day could have been an adventure if that lightning horn went off. You know, we were kind of -- we had to go find out what plan B was. If we need to, we'll find a place to go inside and get some work done. I hope the storm doesn't get to the point where everybody has to evacuate town, which I don't anticipate that from what I hear. So I think we'll be fine. We've got three good days in, including this morning, because we practice in the mornings. Tomorrow we're uncertain if we'll get a practice in at all. We usually don't practice on Friday but we may practice Friday morning because we don't play until Saturday night. If it was a noon game Saturday, we'd probably not practice. We might get kind of a short and sweet one in on Friday.

Q. What's kind of emerged as the identity of this year's Miami defense?
MARK RICHT: Play hard. Get them on the ground. Get after it. I mean, just give them good, sound assignments and let everybody be responsible for a gap. If you're a down lineman we're going to let them penetrate, we're not going to have two-gap people, and we'll have different blitz packages and different coverages, and just do your job well. But the main thing is if you play hard and play physical and you fundamentally can get guys on the ground, once our play breaks free through that interior line, then you've got a chance to play another down, but if you can't tackle out in space, you're done. You've just got to have a massive amount of big plays and you're not going to be able to keep people off the board.

Q. Is there anything with your offense or defense that you weren't too sure of going into the season that now with four games under your belt you've got a different handle on it?
MARK RICHT: I think the biggest thing that changed from the spring to the fall was something I already mentioned, and that was the defensive backs, the ability to tackle people in space. When we scrimmaged our first three scrimmages, if a ball broke through, if a runner broke through the line of scrimmage into the perimeter, we really weren't getting him on the ground very often. We were taking poor angles, we weren't playing hard enough, we didn't get enough pursuit from the linebackers and D-linemen that the ball was running through. It was not good. I was very, very concerned, and then Coach Diaz and his staff have worked really hard on this rugby tackling that the Seattle Seahawks do, and Manny has been an advocate of that for a few years now, and they've really learned it better and they're closing space better and getting guys on the ground. That's the biggest change from the spring to the fall.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297