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STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 5, 2016David ShawStanford, California Oregon State - 15, Stanford - 26 COACH SHAW: First of all, can't say enough about the character of our football team. Outstanding week of practice. I mean, as good as we've had all year. Guys were flying around. Guys were emotional. Guys were fired up. They came out and played well, came out and played really well. Defensively, I mean, we're on a run that's just fun to watch. A team with some really good football players that only gave up two big plays that led to points, one long run, one long pass. Just exciting, exciting. We're continuing to grow, we're continuing to get better. Offensively Brandon Fanaika was injured. We lost another offensive lineman. Thankfully Johnny Caspers was healthy enough to go in there in an emergency capacity. He was cleared with the doctors. Physically ready to play. We had to throw him back in there and he played pretty well. He did. But you got a glimpse again today of how we thought we were going to play this year early in the year. It's exciting. The combination of Bryce and Christian McCaffrey, it's so special. When we can play the way we played up front in the running game, get those guys opportunities to find creases, get north, finish plays, it's exciting. It's exciting. So we're going to continue to grow there, push ourselves. See where we are health-wise. Casey Tucker couldn't finish the game either. We'll see where we are for next week. Keller continues to grow. Once again, some good things, some not so good things. In a game like this where we score enough to win, win by two scores. You look up, could have had two more touchdown passes. Just got to connect on those. Mike Rector, he's getting down the field. Got to be able to hit him. Continue to work with those two guys. Week two for our starting quarterback. Continuing to grow. Made some big plays with his legs, which we knew he was capable of. Great to see that happen today. Nobody is open, got to take off and scramble. We're not talking about for two yards. He got some big runs today, key runs, both as a gun run and as a scrambler. We'll continue to grow in the passing game. Got to get more out of our passing game, especially the things that are there. We got to protect, throw it, we got to catch it. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. You had a couple of fumbled snaps, a couple of other snaps that were awry. Any explanation there? COACH SHAW: Nope. Inexcusable. Couple bad communications, couple bad techniques. Q. How about Bryce Love, the long run for a touchdown? COACH SHAW: If there's nobody between him and the goal line, they're not going to catch him. We know that about both of our guys. If we give them a crease, they're going to finish it in the end zone. Our receivers take a lot of pride in blocking down the field. Unfortunately we got a holding call on a receiver during the course of the game. We know if we tie guys up, give those guys chances, they're going to make big plays. That's exciting. Like I said, the way we ran the ball today is the way we envisioned running the ball. Christian for 200, Bryce approaching 100. If we can accentuate that with a consistent and potentially explosive passing game, now we're really cooking. Q. This game could have been a lot more lopsided. Four field goals, today, how frustrating was that? COACH SHAW: That wasn't frustrating necessarily. Once again, with a young quarterback, we're not going to take a lot of chances in the red zone. We're going to be smart. We're going to give him opportunities. The only discouraging thing, we had Michael Rector twice for potential touchdowns, just like we had him twice for potential touchdowns last week, twice the week before that for potential touchdowns. Defenses know Mike can run, know he's got speed. We hit him on a couple underneath, which we'll continue to do. When the coverage is right, we get the opportunity to throw the ball down the field, we got to protect it and catch it. That was the only thing frustrating to me. I wasn't worried about the field goals. We're going to get down in the red zone. Red zone is running the ball, having some quick action passes, getting our quarterback potentially on the edge like we tried to also. The way we're playing defense, I have no problem kicking field goals. Q. Can you talk about that stretch toss you ran today. Lot of success with it. Was that something you saw against Oregon State or something we can expect to see more of? COACH SHAW: It's just a philosophical thing for us. Coach Bloomgren early in the week, Coach, we got something we want to take a look at. We talked about something similar to that. We did a little research, worked on it early in the week. Didn't look good. Middle the week, looked really good. Late in the week, We got a chance here. Two backs we have, fast and explosive. If they are around the edge like they were a couple times, get vertical a couple times. Those are two good plays for dangerous backs. Augmenting that, looks the same, we're cutting back inside, having a good mix and match. That was a good addition to our offense. Q. Can you talk generally about how well the offensive line blocked on the move today, then on Bryce's touchdown, Nate delivers a punch that knocks two guys down, guys on the move and with power? COACH SHAW: Yeah, that's the thing we knew, this Oregon State defensive front, they're very active. They'll stem before the play, they'll move, they'll move after the play, slant in the running game. We knew our guys had to be on their men. We talked last week a lot, really with Notre Dame, saying, If we give our guys creases, they will make plays. The last two weeks especially, having both guys healthy, if we just stay on our feet, keep our hands on those guys, give our guys a crease... His ceiling is very high, wide as well. Ceiling is very high for a guy who is young. He's down to 340 pounds, but he's athletic and physical. I'm excited about what he's going to become. What I love about him, too, he keeps his head down. All he talks about is, Coach, I just want to keep getting better, keep getting better. We're going to keep pushing him to get better. Q. Can you tell me about your defense a little bit. This is the seventh time this season they've held opponents to 15 points or less, and the linebacking corps had the interceptions today. COACH SHAW: It's been a good group. Been a good group. Led by Solomon Thomas, the all-everything defensive lineman. The guys are playing hard, they're playing smart, they're playing together. They don't care who gets the play. So for one guy to take up a blocker so somebody else can make a play, they get excited about that because it's an entire unit that's playing really well. The last couple of weeks, our inside linebackers are making plays, Bobby Okereke last week with a great sack. We gotten turnovers, fumble recoveries. As a unit, they're getting a lot of confidence. Early on, that was a group that everybody targeted because it wasn't very experienced outside of Kevin Palma. Now you look, see Notre Dame is making a big stop in the middle. You see Bobby Okereke continue to grow and make plays, Sean Barton continue to grow and to make plays. Mustafa Branch had a couple of really good plays today. That inside linebacker group is very athletic and active. Whatever we had early in the year for lack of experience, we've now kind of made that up with some timely play making. Q. Ukropina, four field goals. Tell me about how reliable a kicker he's been. COACH SHAW: He's been outstanding. We missed one today. Hit the post three times. Never been around a guy that hit the post three times. Guys are teasing him that he's showing off his accuracy by hitting the post. The thing is we trust him. Today that 52- or 53-yarder looked like it was going to be good for 60. He crushed it. You need that. You need a great punter, a great kicker, you need a great defense. Right now we've got all three. The running game comes along like it has the last couple weeks, that's outstanding. We get the passing game going, now we're talking about being the kind of team we want to be. This late in the year, the thing that's difficult is we haven't been where we wanted to be. The positive thing is we've continued to grow, we've continued to grow. We've gotten better and better on defense, better and better on the offensive line, juggling people in and out of the starting lineup. A lot of credit to Mike Bloomgren. Every single week seems like we have five or six new guys to get ready to play. Our receivers are blocking down the field. Once again, we continue to augment that with a consistent passing game as we help a young quarterback grow up. We're starting to become the team we want to be. Q. By my count you closed it out by rushing the ball 28 straight times on your final 28 snaps. What does that indicate to you? Was that a conscious decision or was that something that's kind of organic as the quarters went on? COACH SHAW: It was a very conscious decision. We're running the ball for six yards a clip. They're getting a little bit tired. We got two runningbacks that we can rotate through there. Then add in Keller Chryst with some of the gun run quarterback pulls that he made there, too. That's difficult. You have an offensive line that's feeling good, creating creases, giving guys a chance to run. Got two runningbacks that are getting better and better, stronger and stronger, an athletic quarterback. You got a two-score lead. Let's ground this thing, let's end the game. That's what our guys did. Q. Pending the Tucker and Fanaika injuries, are you pretty happy with the five who started the game as a unit, or is that something that's going to be fluid? COACH SHAW: Oh, it's been fluid since week two. Just keep it fluid. Whoever's healthy is going to play next week. You know that. Q. Is it a relief you've become bowl eligible? Does that feel good? COACH SHAW: I don't know if it sounds good or if it sounds bad. I can never allow us to have that as a goal. I refuse to do that to this program. That's the bare minimum. We don't believe in bare minimums. For us, we're trying to get to the point where we're playing as well as we possibly can play. If we do that, then we win games. What that does to us at the end of the year, that's great. We'll go where they tell us to go. For us now, we focus on our process. We focus on how we play. All that stuff is going to take care of itself. It's great to get to the sixth win point. We can't ever think about that as a goal. Those sights are too low for us. Q. How do you applaud this group for keeping on the grind when there's been disappointment for them? COACH SHAW: Every coach, every head coach does it everywhere. It's not like some of them mean it, some of it don't. But I love these guys. I can say that because not everything's been easy, not everything's been handed to them. Some things have been out of their control. It's easy to blame an official call. It's easy to blame injuries. It's easy to say that we got a young quarterback, we're not going to be any good. It's never happened. We've practiced better and better and better. We've taken care of them also. We've augmented our plan late in the week with this very difficult schedule with an early bye week, which was not ideal for anybody. So we've had to manage our practice time more than we ever have. At the same time, when it's time to practice, our guys go. Once again this week was outstanding. Guys were talkative, energetic, passionate. I think they also feel it. We're getting better. The bottom line for us is when we put that film on of ourselves later tonight, tomorrow, we want to see our ability, we want to see what we're capable of. It's a canvas. Once you play the game, it's painted, it's done. We're still trying to have that perfect painting at the end of the game. We're getting better. We're close. We're just not quite there yet. Q. Christian, are you in favor of him vaulting tacklers? COACH SHAW: It's been a while since we've had that discussion. It really hasn't come up again until today. I'll have that discussion with him before I comment to you. Q. I'm not sure if that's a no? COACH SHAW: That's intentionally ambiguous. The hard part is, what I'm not going to do is limit a guy's instincts. He's just under six foot. I don't know how tall he is. He's got like a 40-inch vertical. If he feels that's the best way, I'm going to lean on him to a certain degree, but I'd hate to see him summersault it over guys. We'll have that conversation. At the same time I'm going to give him a little bit of leeway, some discretion. There's certain things he does that you say, Might not want to do that, then he gets a 20-yard gain. I'm not going to mess with his instincts and his ability to run the football. Q. Coach, Keller had close to a hundred yards rushing in this game. How much of that was the game plan today? In general, how much does a quarterback's ability to run the ball factor into this offense? COACH SHAW: It's huge. It's been huge since Tavita Pritchard was the quarterback. I'm a firm believer in what Jon Gruden used to say all the time with the quarterbacks. You have to get three to four first downs a game with your legs. That's built into the west coast offense. Watch Steve Young, watch Brett Favre, watch Aaron Rodgers, these athletic quarterbacks where you don't need to run a hundred yards necessarily, but the gun run game, being able to scramble on third down versus man-to-man, those things are big, huge. We need it. I'd rather have him throw for a hundred than run for a hundred. Right now we'll take what we can get. Q. He had more rushing yards than passing yards today. What does he need to improve on to improve that passing game? COACH SHAW: It's just playing. It's just playing. I can't tell you how many deep balls and intermediate throws we worked on with our receiving corps and hit them all. Didn't hit them all today in the game. But once again, I'm not going to treat him like he's a fourth-year vet quarterback. He's just starting, too. There are going to be some growing pains. Growing pains are sometimes painful. I believe the fruit of our labor will show eventually. We're going to stay positive with him. We're going to keep pushing him at the same time. But we're also going to stay positive with him and take the positives out of every single week and try to accentuate those for the next week. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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