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STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 22, 2016David ShawStanford, California Colorado - 10, Stanford - 5 DAVID SHAW: First of all, I commend Coach MacIntyre for the job that he's done at Colorado. I think that needs to be stated first and foremost. Recruiting, coaching, they were very close last year in a lot of games, and didn't finish. This year you see that changed. On to our team. Defensively, outstanding. For what the Colorado team has done up until this game, it was tough to see -- it was tough to even anticipate getting a game like that from our defensive side. Coach Anderson, Lance Anderson, phenomenal job, phenomenal job. Holding that team to 10 points in particular with as inefficient as we were on offense, it was an outstanding job to hold that team to 10 points. They missed a few field goals, but we kept them to those field goal opportunities. Offensively we've got to score more than three points. Ended up with five, got to score more than three. It's as simple as that. There were a lot of things that we have to do better and some things that we have to look into tweaking, obviously. We're not going to talk about those here. You can ask those questions if you want to, but I'm not going to answer that because there are a lot of discussions that we have to have as an offensive staff. Our personnel doesn't reflect our production, and all the fingers point to me. That's on me. That's my responsibility to get the most out of the players that we have. Yes, we have injuries, but nobody cares. Got a couple guys back, got Christian McCaffrey back, probably not 100 percent, but obviously really good, still really good. When we don't get enough 1st downs, we don't maintain our possessions, then no one gets enough touches. Bryce Love doesn't get enough opportunities. Michael Rector doesn't get enough opportunities. Trent Irwin doesn't get enough opportunities. These are very, very good football players. Bottom line, we need more production from the quarterback position. We're not going to have that conversation here about who's going to start, who's not going to start, who's going to play and how much. You can ask the question, we're not going to have that conversation here. We're going to go back and evaluate the film again, and we're going to find out the best way possible to move forward. Questions? Q. Coach, if you're not going to say who's going to start at quarterback next week, what about just assessing Ryan Burns' play, 16 for 29, three picks, a fumble; was this his worst game? DAVID SHAW: I told you my evaluation of the quarterback position. We're not getting the play out of that position that we need. Q. What was the thinking in the second quarter behind alternating quarterbacks? Obviously it didn't work, you wound up with a 4th and 45, the team looked confused, had three penalties. What was the thinking -- DAVID SHAW: Who looked confused? Q. The offense. DAVID SHAW: How do you evaluate if a team looks confused? Q. Three penalties, wind up -- DAVID SHAW: Is that confused or is that just bad offense? We looked bad. We're not confused. We had penalties. We had multiple big plays called back, two off the top of my head called back because of penalties. That's not confused, that's poor execution, that's poor hand placement, that's inefficiency, and it's what's been plaguing us the entire year. We're not confused. We've got to be better, and either -- once again, either we find a way for the guys on the field to be better, or we put other guys on the field. Q. Could you specifically address 1st down and how they defended Christian and the other things you tried to do on 1st down? DAVID SHAW: They mixed it up pretty well, like they have all year. Different fronts, different looks. A lot of things that we saw during the course of the year. A lot of late rotation, which is fine. We knew that was going to happen. 3-4 front, sometimes they bring the linebacker from the field, sometimes they bring the linebacker from the boundaries, sometimes it's two high, sometimes it's single high, sometimes it's quarters coverage, just mixing it up, and they played well. Sometimes we got efficient runs and efficient passes on 1st down. But the bottom line is when we back ourselves up by penalties, it makes it tough, you know, and there are not a lot of calls for 2nd and 15 plus. There are not a lot of calls for 3rd and 15 plus, because either you hold the ball and give yourselves a chance to take a sack, or you have a chance to throw the ball into coverage, or you throw a screen and hopefully you break a couple tackles. You know, so those are difficult situations that we put ourselves in that we have not been able to get out of because good teams, first of all, don't put themselves in those positions, but in the few times they do put themselves in those positions they find their way back out of there, and right now we're not playing well enough to do that, and we've got to find a way to do that because I still believe, looking at the guys that we have, that we're capable of so much more, and I have to find a way, I have to find a way to stoke that fire so that we find that and we get so many momentum and we get some consistency and we get some efficiency and some play making because we've got the guys, and it shows up in moments. Moments don't make good teams. Moments don't make good players. Consistency makes good teams, consistency makes good players, and we haven't had it. Q. Do you know how Alijah Holder is? DAVID SHAW: I'm not sure, but has the same injury as before. We'll see how it is going forward. Q. How much would you say the reshuffling with the offensive line you've had to do because of injuries has impacted the way you guys have been running the ball? DAVID SHAW: I mean, that's a good question. It's hard for me to give you a specific answer other than you start off by saying, you know, it's a brand new offensive line for the most part at the beginning of the year. We have to change it after a few games. We have to change it after three games because of injury. We have to change it again after five games. That's just what we've had. Now, that's not an excuse because we believe in all of our guys. We coach them all. We push them all. We have to continue to evaluate once again what those guys do well, you know, and with David Bright coming back hopefully this next week, we'll see. We'll see does he go back into the mix as a guard, does he go back into the mix as a tackle. But if David Bright is healthy, there will be some competition to see who's going to start in the starting five. Q. Coach, there was it seemed a lot of empty seats at kickoff, and even after halftime -- DAVID SHAW: Say that again? Q. There was a lot of empty seats before kickoff -- DAVID SHAW: This is not the time and place to have that conversation. Q. Then what about the boos on 4th and 45? Is it okay for the fans to feel frustrated? DAVID SHAW: We have high expectations for this football program, and 4th and long, if you could see me on TV, I might have been the one booing. It was not good enough. Our fans deserve better. Our defense deserves better. Now, we had a couple of explosive plays that were taken away from us. We had a couple of opportunities that we did not take advantage of. We tried to throw a screen pass to one of the best running backs in football, arguably one of the best running backs in the history of football, and he couldn't get out. Did he get grabbed? Did he get held? I don't know, it's a conversation. The quarterback held the ball, tried to find a way to get it to him, we fumble the ball, we lose a bunch more yardage. Once again, not good enough. Not coaching them well enough, not giving them opportunities to be successful. Once again, that's on my plate for this week coming up. Q. In terms of consistency, how does the team you saw out there today compare to the one you see every day in practice? DAVID SHAW: Well, that's the hard part for me, and honestly, it's a sign of -- it's typically the sign of a young team or the sign of an inexperienced team to where you practice so well during the course of the week and then you get to game day, and the things that you believe that you can hang your hat on, you don't do well. I mean, it's a sign of an inexperienced team, a sign of a team that is inexperienced and plays inefficient football. You know, I'd love to give you more hard-core answers, but that is one of my frustrations. We close our practices; you guys can't see practices. Last two weeks of practice offensively, outstanding. Outstanding. You know, even last week without Christian, this past week with Christian coming in and out to try to see if he's healthy, we practiced really, really well. Now, we have to get that translated to game day. We have to. And that's the charge for me and the coaching staff, to find a way to help our guys, because that's what coaches are here to do. We're not putting it on the players, we're putting it on how do we get our guys to do what they're naturally given to do, as hard as they work, to put them in position to be successful on game day. Q. Can you talk a little bit about your defense and just the job they did? Colorado was averaging 39 points, you held them to 10, and that's the second team in a row you've held to 10 points. How tough is it from that standpoint to be able to hold them so low and yet your offense just still struggle to even get -- DAVID SHAW: Well, that's kind of been the conversation that we've had here, but I will say this once again: I don't know that there's a better football player playing on defense in America right now than Solomon Thomas. I can't say that for sure because I haven't seen everybody play, and he's raised his level and he's raised the level of the guys on defense. Colorado moved the ball. They're a good offense. They moved the ball. They are an efficient and versatile offense with explosive capabilities. We held them to 10 points. It's a great, great day on the defensive side. But it's not the best day because we didn't find a way to win. Defensively, once again, I don't know that you can play better. I don't know that you can play harder. We had a couple more guys get banged up and helped off the field. It's been that kind of year for us. We've got to continue to recuperate, and that's the hard part of where we're in right now. Once again, with a week-two bye and trying to play 11 straight in this conference, including nine conference games and Notre Dame, it is difficult to continue to try to get guys healthy in the middle of the season without a bye. But that's our charge. That's on our plate, so we've got to look at our schedules, we've got to look at all the things that we're doing so we can get our guys healthy, we can get our guys fresh and get our guys coached up well enough so they can go out there and play fast, have fun, and be efficient. Q. You've had great success since you've been here at Stanford; right now you're arguably going through one of your toughest stretches ever. Personally how are you dealing with all this? DAVID SHAW: I can take it. I can take it. It's just football. It's a sport that I love, that I enjoy, coaching a place that I love with kids that I love and a coaching staff that you can't find a better group of guys to spend 18 hours a day with, even when things aren't going well. I love going back in there and finding a way with these guys and working with these guys. Our record right now is not the worst thing that's ever happened to me. I can handle this. We can handle this. The bottom line is we have games to play, and when you are an adult or a young man who's turning into adulthood, what you want is opportunity, opportunity to grow, opportunity to learn, and we have opportunities in front of us. Everyone -- I warned our guys, prepared our guys, it's going to be tough. People that say they love us are not going to be very happy with us. That's fine. Let it roll off your back. We've got a lot of guys that have gone through a lot worse things than what's going on this football season. So for us we don't lose perspective. We look at what is ahead of us right now. What's next? A road game, night game against Arizona. Okay, how do we get from where we are right now to the point where when that ball is kicked off next Saturday night, we are at our best. No more, no less, nothing else. There's no grand scheme. We talk about my career; there's no career right now, there's one week. That's the beauty of the football season, beauty of football season. No matter what, win or lose, you dust yourself off, you mark the things that you need to accomplish before you kick the ball off again, and you do everything you can to put your team in a position to be successful one week from tonight. Q. David, questions on two specific plays: The fumble near the goal line, did Burns get the ball and back up too quick or did he not even -- DAVID SHAW: It's just executing the quarterback-center exchange, and if we do -- and it was a pass, and if we do, I saw two guys open. Q. The other one, 4th and 8 at the 36, I think it was slant to Irwin and he ran into the defender. What explanation did you get on that? DAVID SHAW: Let me tell you the explanation I've got. What I saw was a lot of contact with the ball in the air. I saw contact with an intended receiver with the ball in the air. The explanation I got is inconsequential to me. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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