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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 19, 2016

Dave Clawson

Greensboro, North Carolina

DAVE CLAWSON: We've been looking forward to a much-needed bye week. Certainly coming off of Florida State, I thought our guys played hard. We played very well on defense. Offensively we really didn't make any explosive plays, and we sputtered in the red zone and we made some critical errors in the kicking game that really cost us an opportunity to win the game.

But as most teams are, we're a little banged up right now, and the rest and the break has come at a good time, especially with Army coming up. It's such a unique offensive system, and they're playing really good defense this year, as well. It's a week that certainly the extra prep will help us, so we're getting ahead on Army, getting some recruiting done, and trying to rest up a little bit for the stretch run here.

Q. You played Army last year up there; what kind of advantage is that having seen that system before?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, this will be the third year in a row we've played them, so we had them home in '14, away in '15 and now we're home again in '16. It's such a unique system, and when the schedule came out this year, I think it's always nice to have a bye week before you play that system because it's such unique teaching on defense, so much assignment football. The nature of their blocking schemes, all the cut blocking they do, and just defending the triple option takes so much discipline, and it's really hard to get your scout team to run it.

Having a couple of extra days is really critical for us.

Q. Army has been much more successful this year than last year; when you look at them on tape, what do you see that's improved significantly?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, they're just better across the board. I mean, they're doing a great job on defense. They haven't given up 300 yards yet this year in a football game, and in this day and age with all the spread offenses, I think the most yards they've given up, one game they gave up 289, but they've held everybody to under 300 yards. They have out-gained everybody in every game they've played, and they're old up front. On offense they've got three seniors and two juniors, and some of Coach Monken's recruits at the skill positions are now starting to play. The quarterback is experienced. They've got a new fullback that they moved over from defense that's averaging like seven yards a carry, and they've got much better speed in the slotback positions, which in that offense is critical.

This is the best Army team that we've played in three years, and certainly their record and all their statistics would back that up.

Q. Are you hopeful that Kendall Hinton might be able to play for you guys next week?
DAVE CLAWSON: Hopeful. He practiced today, and he looked good. We limited his practice a little bit in terms of what he did, but we're hoping to up that tomorrow and get him a little bit more, and we're keeping our fingers crossed. We've just got to make sure he doesn't have a setback. But today was his first practice since the injury, and he looked good, so we're certainly optimistic going into it.

Q. Once he's able to play again, how do you feel like you'll integrate him back into the offense?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, when he's 100 percent, he'll be the starting quarterback. You don't lose your job on an injury, but if he's not 100 percent and John is, then John is our better option, so we've got to see where Kendall's health is, and that'll certainly play a factor into it, and John has certainly played well, but again, Kendall won't lose his job because he got hurt. If he's back at 60 or 70 percent, then he's not our best option to win the game.

We've just got to feel our way through that in the next week.

Q. Since it's been five years that Wake has been bowl eligible, is that a topic of conversation among the coaches and players or among the coaches or just --
DAVE CLAWSON: Not at all. We don't bring it up. We haven't talked about it once to the team, and we're not bowl eligible, so we haven't won enough games yet to be bowl eligible, and the only way that we can accomplish that goal is that we take -- we try to go 1-0 this next week. We have never put it in front of our team that, hey, our goal is to win six games. Our goal is to win the next game we play, and so far I think our team has done a great job of keeping that as their focus, and certainly we're not going to change that.

We have not brought it up once with them since the beginning of the year, and I don't intend to because I don't think that helps you. The only thing we control right now is our preparation for Army and getting ready to play that game, and if we do that, then it'll take care of itself.

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