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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 2, 2016

Steve Addazio

Greensboro, North Carolina

STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, it was great last week to get a win on the road. Obviously now we're heading into a big week playing Louisville. Louisville, as you mentioned, is a top-ten ranked, seventh ranked team in America, and deservedly so. They're loaded with great players. Coach Petrino does a great job with the schemes at Louisville, both on offense and on defense. I think they're really sophisticated. They've got really good players. Obviously Lamar Jackson everybody knows, but I think their running back Brandon Radcliff and their receiver is quick in staples and Bonnafon, and just really, really good players.

On defense I think they're just fantastic. They're big, strong, fast, multiple in their scheme, whether we're talking about Devonte Fields, Josh Harvey, Cummins or Kelcey or Hearns, they're all outstanding. No. 1 total offense, averaging 603 yards a game, and on defense they're top 10 in total defense, 16th against the run.

This is a monumental task to play a great football team here in our home stadium at 12:00, and we're working really hard this week to put together a great plan and to get back on the field and have another chance to get another opportunity to win.

With that, I'll take any questions.

Q. Can you describe how badly your team needed that win?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, obviously the kids, which is really what it's all about, all players need validation for the work that they put in, and our kids, like many players, work really hard. I think we have -- I love this team. I love our players. We're kind of an inexperienced outfit. To be able to go on the road and get a win and experience how we had to do it as a team, everyone had to do their part and pull together and make some plays, and it was a team effort with great resolve. I thought it was a great learning experience for our program, and I think will pay back to us as we move forward into the future.

The validation of the win -- kids, they need to smell, taste, feel, touch winning. Winning it what it's all about, and to see the smiles on their face was fantastic, and I think it'll go a long way in coming down the home stretch here as we continue to develop each week.

Q. What do you see from Louisville on film? They have that running back that everybody is talking about. How are you going to stop him?
STEVE ADDAZIO: I mean, it's hard to stop anybody on their offense because they have so many weapons, whether it's the quarterback, the running back, the receivers, the tight end. They're multitalented, so if you focus on one area, you're going to get beat on another, so I think you've got to play great team defense, and we've really got to do a great job of rallying to the ball and being multiple.

But it's going to be quite a task for us.

Q. Regarding Landry, he's from North Carolina; how did you find him in recruiting and go about recruiting with obviously four ACC schools in that state that would have seen him, too? Did he play high school ball in North Carolina?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah, he did. He was a really good player. Al Washington on our staff recruited Harold, established a physical relationship with Harold. People came back in on Harold, but I thought we had such a strong relationship, Al did, that we were able to maintain that and be able to sign Harold here. He's a fantastic player. He was a really outstanding player in high school, and he's very explosive. He's developing at a high level. I think Coach Pasqualoni has really helped to take his game to the next level right now, and I think just doing a great, great job.

Yeah, every once in a while you're able to go in and get involved with a really good athlete and hang on, and that's the beautiful thing about football. You know, there's great players everywhere.

Q. How were you able to sell him on the weather in Boston as opposed to the weather in North Carolina?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, I think what we tried to sell him on was the education here in Boston. You know, the elite, Ivy League degree that you receive from Boston College that will have an impact for you nationally, and an opportunity to play early in an aggressive, multiple scheme that will feature giving the ends an opportunity to get one-on-one matchups, and then I think like anything else in recruiting, it's building a great relationship and trust.

Q. I wanted to ask you about your offense; considering the opposition, this is on paper the best offensive game you had this year, maybe in a couple years. You had real balance between the passing game and the running game against a quality opponent. Can you talk about the jump you seemed to have made? Obviously it's a gradual improvement, but am I reading it right to say you kind of reached a new level last Saturday?
STEVE ADDAZIO: You know, I think it's a good question. I thought we saw the promise of that in the Georgia Tech game on opening day. We're very inexperienced on offense right now. We have an older quarterback, but inexperience within the scheme. But we've got some fine young skill players that we were dropping too many balls early on, but we're developing. Our line is starting to come together. We got healthy again, and we're young but we're coming back. The tight ends, the receivers, the running backs, it's all coming together. It's not consistent enough yet, and the lack of consistency has really been a problem for us, and probably a little bit of the herky-jerkiness in the schedule and who we played, when we played them, we never really got a chance to get on any kind of consistent developing run between that and some injuries.

But I feel like we're starting to get that now. We're by no means a finished product, but I think what we saw Saturday was a glimpse into the future of where we're headed. We've invested heavily in our throw game, and we hadn't seen enough returns because of too many dropped footballs, but we caught the ball much better on Saturday.

I think we're heading in a good place, and I think we've just got to keep continuing to grind. Of course then you go ahead and face what I think is one of the elite -- I think North Carolina State was a great defense, as well, but we're facing an elite defense in Louisville and an elite offense, and sometimes, yeah, you sit there and you say, boy, I wish we could get a little bit more consistency going here, and all of a sudden we're going to play which is one of the very finest teams in America. But hopefully we can carry some of that with us, continue to make some plays, and be able to get a positive outcome here on Saturday.

Q. In two of their last three games, Louisville has really been challenged by teams -- no offense, but at your level, as opposed to when they blow out Florida State and they blew out NC State, but Duke and Virginia both kind of take them to the wire. Does that offer hope that this could be that kind of game?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, I do take offense to that level, but that's okay. That's neither here nor there.

Q. Sorry about that.
STEVE ADDAZIO: Actually I think in college football you head it up every day, and you'd better bring your A game, and the minute you think you're playing a team at a different level is the minute you've been slapped, and I've been around long enough to see it. It's ACC football. We're in the elite conference in America, and any team on any given day will beat any other team. And so whether it's on BC, on Louisville, on Clemson, on whoever, you've got to bring it, you've got to have a great week, your players got to understand what they're up against, and it works for the underdog, it works for the favored team. To me it's all the same.

The old clichÃ©, which I really believe in to tell you the truth, is everybody puts their pants on one leg at a time, man, and no one can measure what's in someone's heart, and that's why I love the game of football. It is what it is. I don't measure, I don't score compare, I don't do those things. I watch the tape. I evaluate the personnel, and what I can tell you wholeheartedly is Louisville is absolutely one of the most elite, talented teams in the country right now, so we know that we more than have our work cut out for us, and we certainly understand that.

We've been in this situation before since I've been here, and you know, we're just looking to let little ol' Boston College see if we can go out on the field and play a little football on Saturday.

Q. I should have asked you this as a follow-up, but you all had a lot of success against Lamar Jackson last year in a game that went down to the wire. Anything that you all did in that game, can it be applied as you prepare and game plan for Saturday?
STEVE ADDAZIO: You know, I think there are, but I also think being up front, he's elevated his game. You know, he was a young guy last year, and he's just taken his game to another level. Certainly, though, we did play well defensively, and that's without us really doing anything on offense. We blocked the punt, and got a couple of turnovers which gave us an opportunity to really be right in the middle of the game, which we were right in the middle of the game until the last drive because it was a 17-14 game, but the facts are that I think Lamar is just taking his game to a whole 'nother level from a year ago to this year, and he's really -- just really a dynamic guy, both with his legs and his arm and his ability to read coverages and things like that. But there are always things that you can take for sure, and that's what we're trying to look for any possible angle that we have that can create some disruption.

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