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UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 16, 2016

DeShone Kizer

South Bend, Indiana

Q. What have you seen out of Josh Adams over the last couple of weeks? It seems like his hamstring has kind of healed up and he's back to full strength.
DeSHONE KIZER: Yeah. The last couple of weeks we see exactly what we expected to get out of Josh all season. He suffered a couple of tweaks and injuries. He's a guy who pushes through the first contact. And as our most dominant, and by reps I'm saying most dominant back who's consistently out there with us. He's able to extend the field east and west and also be able to put his foot in the ground and break through the first tackle and stay up and get a couple of extra yards for us. His development and his ability to peak towards the end of the season right now is allowing us to get that run game going the way we needed it to be all season and allow the pass game to develop off of that.

Q. Mike McGlinchey was just in here saying he didn't really have to say anything to Josh because he kept his mentality pretty high earlier in the season. Did you kind of see the same thing out of him that you didn't really need to go in and say, hey, Josh, you're going to get through this, you're still the same guy you were last year, that kind of stuff?
DeSHONE KIZER: Yeah, no. You didn't have to say a word to him. He's a guy who is in his own mind. He plays like a veteran at all times. I think we saw that last year as a true freshman when he stepped up and carried himself, both off the field and on the field, as a guy who we could trust and put a lot of responsibility on, and I think that continued on this season, maybe through a time where we weren't running the ball the way we wanted to. But now he's back in full motion, and we obviously are developing our run game really nicely right now and are very confident in our ability to hand him the ball and make big plays.

Q. Do you feel like the Army game was your guys' most complete offensive game of the year?
DeSHONE KIZER: I think that in the last couple of weeks we were really getting towards that. I can't say it was our most complete. There's definitely sometimes in that game where we're not executing our best. I think we executed really well against Navy and I think we executed really well against Miami. I think we're definitely heading in the right direction at this time of the year as needed with the rough start that we had.

Q. Has it been a lot of getting the run game going so it's not kind of all on your shoulders over that stretch?
DeSHONE KIZER: You know, it's hard to say that. I think that it's more about just executing the plays that are being called. In the beginning of the season we put ourselves in positions where we had to throw the ball a lot in the second half, and I think that's why the emphasis was on our passing game. Now we're in a position where we're having a little more success in the beginning of the game, being able to convert on some big third downs which allows us to get some big time first and second down runs where now at the end of the season you could point any direction and expect success out of both sides of the offense, both run and pass.

Q. You've spent a whole season as Scott Daly's holder. What kind of a teammate and a person is he in the time you got to know him?
DeSHONE KIZER: He's awesome. He's awesome. His consistency is second to none. For a guy who's a senior, you know, has been through a little bit of everything here and to remain the same as that guy each day is awesome. You can definitely see his development physically in the last three years I've been here, and he's the type of guy that you look up to in terms of remaining disciplined, who you are and who you want to be and taking every rep and every opportunity seriously.

Q. I got one more. Who throws a better spiral, you or Scott?
DeSHONE KIZER: I think it's been proven that Scott does a better spiral than I do.

Q. Just wondering, when did you grow more comfortable -- it's pretty clear you are now -- with K.J. Stepherson. I know it's gotta be a process, but so many young guys, if he was like your only young receiver, you could have really honed in with him, but when did you kind of see him where you start to rely on him more and more?
DeSHONE KIZER: You know, I think in the last three weeks he's definitely taken off as an elite top receiver in the country. I think that he was in a position at the beginning of the year where we're going to put him in for a couple of electric plays and then allow some of the older guys to take on more of the reps. I think in the last three weeks we've seen that he is a consistent guy that we can trust in and has developed into one of our top receivers. He made a comment to me last week where I came on the sideline, and he got pressed, one play out of the whole game. And after that one play he felt disrespected, and I think that's the confidence that he has, where he thinks that if there's a guy out there pressing him, he needs the ball in his hands; and if you have that confidence in yourself, no matter what age you are or how many times you've been out there or whatever your experience levels are, as a quarterback you need to make sure you're getting the ball in his hands because he's going to make something happen after he catches the ball.

Q. It looked like you guys were trying to get Chase Claypool involved a little bit. There was the horizontal pass to him, and you looked for him on a slant at the end zone, you almost got yourself. What's the next step for Chase? I know Coach Kelly has mentioned that he's still kind of learning the game coming from Canada the and rules there.
DeSHONE KIZER: Yeah. The whole receiving corps, the development all the way across the board has been awesome. We had to throw them into the fire obviously early in the season, and we saw great success rates with them. A bunch of guys were out there playing in some of their first games and now towards the end of the season you see a consistent development across the board. Chase is a guy where with his size and strength he's very unique in the sense that you can treat him like a tight end in the run game where he's going to be able to take a corner and block him into the end zone if he has to, but now we're finding ways to allow that size and strength to move over into our pass game. Obviously he made a couple of clutch catches against Michigan State, and he's definitely showed some spurts. Now getting towards the later end of the season when you have to start working on personnel stuff and throwing in different packages, he's a guy that we're going to have to make sure that he gets a couple touches, because like any of the other guys out there, with his size and speed, he's able to make some big plays and break off for some big runs. He's just waiting on his opportunity to get that.

Q. Do you feel that you need to have failure and adversity in order to succeed?
DeSHONE KIZER: Absolutely. I think this season has taught me that. You don't respect and appreciate the ups when you don't go through the downs, and I think that this season has really proved to me that in order to achieve greatness, you have to see what it's like to be on the other side of it. Last year I was thrown into a fire and came out pretty successful. And that was my whole career up until that point was me being a top athlete in a leading position and being successful. And this year has been the first year where, you know, I didn't have the start that I really wanted to have, and I really had to experience what it was like to be a losing quarterback. And with that I think I've learned quite a bit in a sense of in order to maintain the elite stature and maintain success, you have to be able to feel what it's like to be on the other side of it so you can appreciate what goes into being successful.

Q. What examples in your life maybe even outside of football are proof that failure does lead to success?
DeSHONE KIZER: I think my finance grade says a lot about it. Started off a little weak, and now from that I've definitely put in a couple more hours in tutoring with my tutor to pick that back up.

Q. What did you say your grade was?
DeSHONE KIZER: Next question. (Laughs).

Q. Mike McGlinchey was just in here and said that the attitude of the team could have easily gone a different way. I guess how could it have gone a different way and why didn't it go a different way?
DeSHONE KIZER: Yeah, you know, once again, we were a bunch of elite athletes who have experienced success our whole careers, from grade school to high school, I would say that 90 percent of the team has never really experienced a true losing record. And with that our mentality could have completely went down a different path in the sense that we could have lost the want and the drive to go out and practice to prepare ourselves to win games. I think everyone's mindset here going into a season is to win a National Championship and to see within the first four weeks that that opportunity was going to get pushed aside and the chances became slimmer and slimmer as you lose more games. Your mindset could completely go in the wrong direction, and I think with the leadership that we had here with this great group of seniors, we were able to maintain the energy and the focus and the discipline to continue to have that winning mentality and to remain the football powerhouse that Notre Dame is in the sense that our mental side of things allow us to really be engaged in practice and really dive into our game plans each week and really be focused in on the things that allow us to continue to win.

Q. DeShone, just wondering, you've talked all year about winning each week and trying to get to a certain goal. Obviously the National Championship was the original goal. Is the bowl game now, the fact that if you win the last two games, you know you can get there, it's kind of clear cut what it's going to take. Is that a big motivating factor, do you feel, for this team for the last two weeks?
DeSHONE KIZER: Yeah, I think it's definitely a motivating factor, but I think it's more along the lines of just being a winning program. Six and six is a big feat to get to rather than being five and seven. We want to be a team who continues on a winning tradition at Notre Dame, and I think in order to get to a bowl game, it aligns right along with that. But right now our main focus that we've learned through the losses that we've gone through is just to win this week. Not only do we have two games out there, but we have two games against two really good opponents. Virginia Tech is one of the hotter teams in the country right now, playing really good defense, throwing the ball all over the place, really electric. And obviously, not to look ahead, but USC is doing the same exact thing. So for us it's us focusing in on how we can do whatever we can to just go one and zero this week to experience the fight song in the locker room and take on those amazing traditions of winning here.

Q. To get those two wins and get to six and six considering where you guys were at one point in the how big of an accomplishment do you feel that would be for this team?
DeSHONE KIZER: I think it shows that we're heading in the direction that we should be. In the beginning of the year we really weren't, and it was parent through our record that we weren't on the line that we wanted to be on, and since we've acknowledged that and put forth the effort and the time to change that, I would say the Duke game might be a time where we really changed our mental and focused in on it and had a couple of heart to hearts in here to figure out the best way to go about it. Our mentality and our program is heading right back on the right direction of winning. I think to get to a bowl game would be the best part of this season that shows that we are back on that track of winning and getting ourselves in position to continue on the winning tradition that Notre Dame has always had.

Q. You've been pretty open about just not really sure what's going to happen for your future. Obviously this potentially could be your last game in Notre Dame stadium if you decide to leave. Do you think about that at all and will you look around at anything Saturday just in case if it is?
DeSHONE KIZER: You know, the thought has definitely crossed my mind. I can definitely acknowledge that. But I think that with that, you have to treat every game like it's your last. This season has really shown me that to appreciate every opportunity that you have to step in that stadium. Through a competition with Malik, through a rough start, I think that those opportunities and those experiences that I've had in that stadium have been awesome, and I've definitely learned to appreciate them. But like I said, there's so many things that you can learn from through this season. I think one is to take each game for the game it is, to look ahead and to say that this could be my last game, that would add a lot more pressure than is already out there. I think it's more important to focus in on the opportunity that you have in front of you, and that's to play just another game out there with my brothers, with a great senior class who I know is going to be playing in their last game and to do whatever it takes to try to bring another win home.

Q. How much do you want to get the W for those seniors?
DeSHONE KIZER: That would be everything to me. This season has been all over the place, but one thing that's remained consistent is the leadership that's come from that senior class. And for us to get a win on the last home game would be absolutely amazing.

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