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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 26, 2016

Mark Richt

Greensboro, North Carolina

MARK RICHT: We've had a few days of practice now. As I mentioned before, practicing in the morning. We had a very spirited practice today. I thought the guys really got a lot out of it. I thought Brad was really on target today. There was a lot of outstanding catches made offensively. Defense I thought played -- practiced with a lot of energy.

We do go our No. 1 unit versus our 2 unit a couple times during the day for the most competitive looks we can get, and those were very spirited, and really both the No. 1 units from each side of the ball performed real well today.

Q. Syracuse football gets off plays at a pretty high rate, a few teams from the ACC do, as well, and nationally it's a trend. But with these games, the actual length of the game is pushing a little bit longer. Just curious about your thoughts on these longer games going closer to 3:30, four hours, and also will you prepare differently for games like these?
MARK RICHT: You know, I don't know where that's going. It's a good question. I've never been against going with the fast tempo. I've done it -- I actually started doing it when I was at Florida State in '92, '93, way back then with Charlie Ward, fast break, no-huddle type stuff, basically running a one-minute offense the whole game type deal. I've never been against it, but you are seeing some of these games go super long.

I guess you've got to look at the student-athletes and decide when is too much -- when is enough enough, and obviously rules can change those types of situations, but I don't know what the answer is, and I can't say that I've really sat down and wondered about it or worried about it too much. I've been worried about trying to get 1st downs and touchdowns. But I think somewhere along the way that will become a big topic.

Q. At Air Force they have experimented with eating closer to kick time; have you kind of experimented with anything like that, sort of off football, off the no-huddle?
MARK RICHT: You know, that does make a lot of sense. You know, we do have things for them right before the game, halftime, and things to -- whether it's liquid or through snacks that can get calories in them and things of that nature that are kind of light on the stomach.

But yeah, I mean, if you eat four hours before the game and then the game lasts four hours, that's quite a long time.

Q. We're working on something bigger picture about kicking and kickers for the season, and as someone who's been more hands on with special teams, how much of an emphasis have you put on recruiting and signing placekickers as opposed to relying on walk-ons?
MARK RICHT: Right. Early in my career at Georgia as head coach, I kind of inherited some great walk-ons. Billy Bennett was a great walk-on. We had -- I can't remember his name now. I hate to say that. But we actually signed a kicker, had a walk-on, the walk-on beat out the guy we signed, and so I had another string of walk-ons.

But then with Walsh, I -- that's kind of the trend when I started signing. We had Drew Butler at punter and we had Walsh at kicker, and then Marshall Morgan at kicker. We were scholarshipping everybody probably six, seven years into it for me, and ever since then I'm more in tune, more on track to sign guys rather than hope you get a good enough walk-on.

Now, I'll say this: If you get a walk-on in there who is better and wins the job, he wins the job, regardless of who has the scholarship.

Q. One more if I could. Obviously Florida-Georgia is this weekend. What was it like to be introduced to that rivalry game as a head coach?
MARK RICHT: Yeah, well, a lot of rival games at Georgia, and that's one of them for sure. It's a big one, and very unique, being at the neutral site and everything like that. A lot of tremendous tradition with that.

But just so you know, I think it's -- I really believe it's called the Georgia-Florida game, not the Florida-Georgia game.

Q. But it's not the world's largest outdoor cocktail party anymore. I think I got that straight at least.
MARK RICHT: I never referred to it as that.

Q. You have a unique distinction of being maybe the only person to be a starting quarterback at Notre Dame Stadium back in '82, you were an assistant for the No. 1 team in '93, you won a few games against Notre Dame in the bowl and all, and now you're the head coach for the first time. Can you share your memories of some of your previous trips to Notre Dame?
MARK RICHT: Well, as a player I did get to play that game. I started that game. It was a close game that Notre Dame won. I think we had the lead going into the -- towards the end of the game, I think. Had a chance to keep a drive going and got stuffed on a short-yardage play, quarterback sneak, and then I think we punted it away, and if I'm not mistaken, Blair Kiel was the quarterback who drove the team down in field goal -- I think it was a field goal --

Q. With 11 seconds left.
MARK RICHT: Yeah, so I thought it was like the last drive of the game, got them in position, and made the kick. So I remember that.

And then of course one of those games of the century there when I was at Florida State, had Charlie Ward in the game coming in there, and I remember that game was just brutally -- not so much cold; it was cold, but it was windy. That was the windiest game I've ever been a part of where the wind really made a big difference in the ballgame, you know, for both teams. But I know we lost that thing. I think we were trying to launch it in the end zone at the end to try to tie it or something like that, and eventually I think the very next week Notre Dame got beat by Boston College, which saved our season, and we ended up playing for the National Championship.

And then we beat them in the bowl somewhere along the way in the Orange Bowl, I think.

Q. Yes, in '96 Orange Bowl.
MARK RICHT: Yes, sir.

Q. You started that game in '82 because Jim Kelly was injured, and looking at it, it's one of the most amazing quarterback rosters, because in addition to you, it had Jim Kelly, Bernie Kosar and Vinny Testaverde, so to actually get the starting job at that point in your career, do you look back and say, wow, I must have been pretty decent?
MARK RICHT: No, what happened was Testaverde and Kosar were freshmen, and that was the main reason why, and I was a fifth-year senior at the time and got the opportunity when Jim hurt his shoulder.

Yeah, that was a great group of guys and great players, and Kyle Vanderwende was in that group, as well.

Q. What are the three keys this weekend to getting a win in South Bend against Notre Dame?
MARK RICHT: The three keys? I hadn't thought of the three keys yet. You know, I think that we've got to, on both sides of the ball, either run it well or slow down the run game it's so important to get to your 3rd downs if you are having a 3rd down, that it's real manageable, short to medium. We don't want a lot of 3rd and longs, and you don't want the score to get away from you where you just feel like you've got to chunk it every down like what happened the last time when we played Virginia Tech.

You know, we've got to continue to secure the ball well. We haven't got enough turnovers really lately. We've got a lot of negative yardage plays, which is big, but it would be good to win that turnover battle for sure, and then, you know, when you -- when it's time to kick the ball, we've got to get points on the board. We've had two kicks blocked, an extra point blocked. We've had a field goal blocked, and we also just missed an extra point. So we've just got to be solid in the kicking game.

Really besides that, we've been pretty stinking good in our kicking teams, but that's the one thing people want to remember. So when we kick, when we kick an extra point or field goal, we need to get points out of it.

Q. Do you have to protect Brad because Brad last week got sacked so many times it looked like he was getting rushed every five minutes and couldn't even get himself established.
MARK RICHT: Well, yeah. Here's the deal on that. Like I said before, if you look at how many sacks we had prior to that game, we had one game with eight sacks, which is a lot, but we got behind, we started chunking it every down, and probably -- we've got to run the ball better and stay even with the lead or very close ballgame, so we just don't need to get behind in the score, behind the sticks and feel like we just have to throw the ball every down to win. It's just not a healthy way to play football.

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