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UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 12, 2016

DeShone Kizer

South Bend, Indiana

Q. Given the conditions Saturday, what sort of were you able to take away from watching film of the N.C. State game?
DESHONE KIZER: I know that obviously it wasn't ideal for us with the weather and it was difficult to execute our jobs across the board, but to play against an N.C. State team who has a very strong front line that they had and very sound defense, the things that we can take away are some of the pre-snap looks that we had. You know, the style of defense that a lot of the ACC is adapting to is another opportunity for us to see our offense versus the defenses that we have. And more importantly it was nice to see us go out and execute before the ball's thrown in some of our routes and things like that. We had a lot of premier looks to get the ball out there, but unfortunately with the wet ball that we had it was hard to execute those looks.

Q. How can that help you, looking at the pre-snap stuff going forward, where maybe you don't play an ACC team for a little bit, I guess, one week. But going into Stanford, how can that help you out going into this game?
DESHONE KIZER: It makes you put a little more emphasis on that part of the game. You kind of take the ball being released and being put out there for granted when you go through putting X's and O's up on the board. Every play looks great on the board, and every play looks great in a pre-snap look. And for us now, we can truly focus back on getting the ball into the guy's hands after the stuff that's put on the board and after the thing that's we talk over in pre-snap looks are going over.

We have quite a few great teams to go out and play against, and we've put together on the offensive side of the ball, a decent set of first half of the season to go off of and to learn from and to build from as we move forward and string together several wins.

Q. The forecast for Saturday is clear with a high of 74, a low of 60-something. How excited are you for those conditions?
DESHONE KIZER: Yeah, I've never been more excited to be in South Bend, I can tell you that. Hurricane Matthew has gone past, and we're thankful up here.

Q. DeShone, obviously the end result of the game at Stanford last year was very disappointing for you guys, but what were your memories of that game? Obviously, it was one of the better games in college football a year ago.
DESHONE KIZER: Yeah, it was everything and more when it comes to being in a rivalry game like that with your whole powerhouse, academic, all the way across the board when two teams on two sides of the country play against each other. And you hear all about it. To go out there and play them was awesome.

Obviously, we were playing for a National Championship that game and an opportunity to play in a National Championship. To lose the way we did definitely hurt, and that's something that's definitely fuelling our preparation moving forward for this game. We'll definitely keep that in mind as we continue to get ourselves ready to go back out there and play against them again.

Q. Is the intensity and perspective still the same when you go up against them this week? Because obviously not as much is on the line as it was a year ago?
DESHONE KIZER: It doesn't matter if both teams are undefeated or both teams are zero-win teams. When you're playing against Stanford, you know everything that's been put into this rivalry. There's a lot of history that goes back with this rivalry that I don't even know of, that I know I have to go out and represent. To have the opportunity to put on the Golden helmet against the Cardinal out there, it's an honor, and you really have to treat it that way.

So moving into this game there is nothing on my mind as far as a rocky start, a great start, personal accolades. None of that is on your mind. You just want to focus on how can you win a rivalry game against Stanford.

Q. You guys are obviously in a position where you didn't expect to be or want to be at 2-4. You need four wins to get to a bowl game. How important is that for the program to be able to right the ship and be able to get to the bowl game?
DESHONE KIZER: What's important to this program is getting a win against Stanford. Four wins means nothing if we don't win this week. We need to get back to who we are, and that's focusing on figuring out a way to get wins on a weekly basis. Obviously, a rocky start sucks, and we know what we need to do to end up in a bowl game position. But in order to get that far, we have to win this week.

Q. A couple of the players talked about practice had been tweaked or changed a little bit to help you guys figure out how to get over the hump at the end of games to make that one play here or one play there. Whether that be the order of reps for the first team and second team or some small tweaks like that. What have you seen that's different this week in terms of trying to -- what BK has talked about and making that one extra play?
DESHONE KIZER: Yeah, we pride ourselves in the schedule that we play in it being as difficult as it is. We pride ourselves on getting ourselves to the fourth quarter and winning from there. Obviously, we've put ourselves in position to win every game with the losses this year in the fourth quarter. And with that, we have to make sure that bra aligns with that same philosophy of winning in the fourth quarter. And Coach Kelly really adjusted the way we go about that by mixing in some red zone stuff, mixing in some two-minute stuff in the beginning of the week rather than having it just be a one little session on Thursday. We're going to do it every day to prepare ourselves for that and to truly build the confidence that's needed to go out and win those games.

Last year's team we had a bunch of guys with a bunch of experience who had been in fourth-quarter situations and we were able to come out successful in quite a few of those situations. And with that, this year's team, we're a little younger, and that's the truth. In order to prepare ourselves to win those fourth-quarter situations and to finish strong, we have to be able to have the confidence and truly know what's getting ready to go out there every time we step on the field with the schedule that we play.

Q. How much more red zone, for example, would you be doing? Is it just like one extra period, half a period on a Tuesday?
DESHONE KIZER: Yeah, a typical week you're going to go out and throw out all your game plan ideas within Tuesday. Figure it out, clean it up. One day you go back out there and you go again on the new refined list, try to clear that up. A little bit on Wednesday you get into some of those situations with red zone and third down and exotic looks and things like that, and Thursday you clean everything up and prepare for the week.

But instead of throwing exotic looks and red zone on Wednesday and cleaning it up Thursday, we want to see it all week now. These are the situations that we're in, and these are the situations that have led us to losing games. So instead of dedicating 30 minutes to 45 minutes in a week, we're going to put it in every practice and make sure we're completely confident of what we're going to do when we're in those situations.

Q. There's a perception out there that Coach Kelly blames players for when things aren't going right. I was wondering, how do you react when those things are said?
DESHONE KIZER: Blame is definitely not the word. In this game there are 11 guys who are required to do their job. And in order for us to go out there and to give a better result than we have in these last six games, you have to challenge guys. And when you guys sit up here and ask about specifics on guys, he's going to let you know exactly what happened and in order for us to not up come out successful.

That can be perceived as blame, but perception is part of what we do here working with the media. James walks in and he gives an answer, and it's perceived as if he's saying that it's a horrible thing that coach puts blame on guys. But I'm sitting here having a conversation with him, and all he's trying to say is, hey, yeah, it's tough when the coach calls you out. But we take that as a challenge here.

We accept everything as a team. But individually you're going to have to get challenged to play your best. And when you're 2-4 right now, everyone has to point their finger at themselves and look at themselves in the mirror and accept those challenges so that we can come out and be more successful and hopefully put together the wins that we need to put together in the second half of the season.

Q. Obviously, as a quarterback, and quarterbacks all over the country are said to be the leaders of the team, but it seems like you're really calm and composed no matter what happens, win or lose. I'm just wondering, where did you kind of learn at a young age to be that way?
DESHONE KIZER: I really don't know. To be honest, last year you get thrown into the fire the way I did, you have to fake it till you make it. You start pretending like you know what being a Notre Dame quarterback's like when you have no idea. And eventually it's just built up that faking it becomes reality.

Eventually I was able to accept the position here and learn the ins and outs of it, and try to make it my own this season. And I think that goes back to the experiences that I had throughout high school, being a young guy, freshman playing varsity basketball and being put in the position of a point guard. Then playing baseball and being in the position of pitching and trying to lead a baseball team. I've always had the ball in my hand. Those butterflies that I had my freshman year in high school became smaller my sophomore year. Eventually you get to your senior year, and nothing really gets to you, and I was able to take those experiences and apply them here.

When you're out on the field, no matter if there's a million people watching you or 200, you're going to have to rely on your instincts and go back and reach back for those experiences that you've had in your past, and I've done a pretty good job of it. I look forward to taking all these experiences from this year now and making myself a better quarterback. Never once have I ever played in anything like what we played in against N.C. State. But I can tell you now that the typical rain storm up in South Bend won't affect me as much as it would have two weeks ago.

Q. Aside from finishing coach mentioned he's looking for the offense to do better in exerting its will. What does that mean and how do you guys go about getter better at that?
DESHONE KIZER: We need to be a team that goes out, starts strong, maintains that same strong start throughout the whole game and then finish as strong as we started. We go out and we show great spurts. We have athletes all over the field. We have a great offensive line. We're completely sound across the board and very skilled. But with that, we haven't done a good job of going out and keeping our pedal to the floor the whole game. We hit lapses, and that's the truth. That's the reality of how this season has started and those lapses have come back and ended up with four losses.

As an offense, we need to do whatever we can to take that same energy that we have in our strong starts and our spurts in the second quarter and our spurts in the third to make it a complete game.

The confidence I have is because of that right there is that we haven't had a full game. We have so much more to move forward on. There are a lot of teams out there right now that are peaking or going to start heading downward because they had a solid game plan that defenses are going to adjust to.

We have so much more out there, and as an offense we can still put much so many more points and move them forward. That potential makes me excited what this offense can do. We have the potential to put up 70 points a game, which we're going to get ten drives. That should end in ten touchdowns, and we know it. We just look forward to going out there and getting better each week and keeping our pedal to the floor and getting those points to win games.

Q. One thing you pointed out specifically is first downs and you're not doing as well on that. Is that part of the problem is that you haven't been as focused or done as well in the first down and puts you behind the chains?
DESHONE KIZER: Every play is its own play. You have to execute the way you execute them. We're required to do certain things on certain plays and our first down calls have been great calls. We go out there and we execute what we're supposed to do and get ourselves into the right play and go out and do our duty, we'll be as successful on first downs as we are on second and third.

I think that's a mindset. That's an attitude, and in practice we're starting to see that mindset and attitude in every rep that we get that people are out there competing. We don't need to preserve ourselves. We have way too many athletes out there to go out and fill in for spots when needed. And I think that mindset and attitude has changed, we'll continue to move forward and be more successful on first down, second down, third down, first quarter, second quarter, every situation of the game we'll be able to go out there and get the points that we need.

Q. Little off topic, but you had a kid from Make a Wish foundation with you guys a couple weeks ago. I'm wondering what that experience was like, and how spending a time with a kid like that might kind of alter your perspective?
DESHONE KIZER: Yeah, Peter's awesome. He came in, and he's a guy who has gone through so many things that we could never imagine. It makes you truly seize the day and seize the opportunities that you get.

Notre Dame does a good job with our community service and bringing in guys like Peter to really put ourselves in a position that allows us to understand that we're truly blessed to be where we are, to have the abilities to go out and play the game that we love. And also to put in perspective the things that we think are hard. These guys are literally going out and fighting for their lives on a daily basis. The chemo, the radiation, everything they go through is nothing compared to the two-hour practice we put on out here.

So those experiences that Notre Dame has given us really allows me to truly learn to seize the opportunity that we have and to continue to move forward and through rough times, like we're in right now at a 2-4 start, to truly just be happy for the blessings that we have and be optimistic in moving forward and going back out there and fighting again like those guys do each and every day for their lives.

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