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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 13, 2017

Steve Addazio

Greensboro, North Carolina

STEVE ADDAZIO: It's always great to get ready for a big football game. Notre Dame coming into Boston College is a huge deal here, and we're excited about it. We know we're playing a very good football team. They've played against a good Georgia team and a Temple team and have played extremely well. On offense, they have a really strong veteran offensive line. Brandon Wimbush, their quarterback, is a super athletic guy, good thrower, good runner. They have good running backs, good wide receivers. They're very talented on defense. Mike Elko is coordinating that defense, so it's very similar to Wake's defense, and I think he does a tremendous job. They've got really -- I think they're big, they're physical, and they play really, really hard on defense.

This is a good football team, and it's going to be a great challenge for us, but we're certainly looking forward to that opportunity to get right back on it and get going again, so it'll be a heck of an afternoon in Chestnut Hill.

Q. Was curious what you're working on in practice this week with your young quarterback and your offense as a whole that you can improve on coming off the Wake Forest performance?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, I think it's really simple. We just don't need to turn the ball over. We turn the ball over, the statistics of that game were a pretty close game. It was a pretty good deal there, but when you turn the ball over four times, two volleyball taps, you hand 21 points over like they're checkers, it's going to be awful hard to win a football game.

That's what we did. We fumbled on our own 23-yard line. We tipped the ball right into the hands -- that went into the hands of a DB uncontested in the end zone. We flipped another one uncontested down to the 1-yard line, and we volleyball tipped another one on the plus 40 that didn't end up in points. So what we need to do is take care of the football. We know some of the problems we have with that had a lot to do with some -- we had a major transition this week by losing our senior center, who had the most career starts here, made every call in the offense, and with our second center been out for the last month we had to go to a young player who's going to be a terrific player, and he had never played center before and had never started a football game before, so that's going to get better each week.

What I anticipate and what we've been working on is just making sure that we're doing a great job putting these apex of our offense, the young center, quarterback, and at times freshman tailback and put them in the best situations because they're super talented guys, and they're going to be really good football players.

Q. Given the offense is better this week, you still face a Notre Dame defense that looked pretty good last week. What's your impressions of the challenges that the Irish defense poses for you this week?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, I think that they pose the same problems that the last week's defense posed. We've got to block them, which we did. We moved the ball. Again, we turned the ball over. We can't do that this week. This defense, the defense we played last week was a very good defense, and we're playing another very good defense. You know, we can't do that. It's really as simple as that. There's not a different plan. The plan is just to go out and do what we do and do it at a higher level better, which means don't hand the opponent 21 points.

Q. The Boston College-Notre Dame rivalry has been a strong one through the years. Can you talk a little bit about what makes it special?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, obviously I think you're talking about two Division I Catholic institutions here. I think that's always been the backdrop, right, two prestigious academic institutions that are Catholic schools. You know, so both attracted to a lot of the same recruits, a lot of the same guys, and so it's been that way forever. You know, it's a cool rivalry. It's a cool deal, and something certainly our players look forward to.

I can remember, I've been on both sides of this thing. I remember when I coached at Notre Dame it was like that, so it hasn't changed, and in fact, there was a period of time where we didn't play them quite as much, I guess, but having the opportunity two years ago and now again this year, many of the guys were on the team and understand the atmosphere and the energy that goes into the game.

Q. Talk about the issues you have preparing a young quarterback to play. Talk about some of the things that you look at and some of the things that you plan for as Anthony steps on the field?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, there's enough to plan for with a young quarterback, never mind a freshman center who's never played center before. So you know, there was a lot on everybody's plate last week to get that prepared obviously in such short notice. You understand what I'm saying? So that got compounded. I think what happened last week for us was, you know, the first week we had a veteran guy controlling the center, and then all of a sudden the young quarterback can focus on what he needs to focus on. All of a sudden the young quarterback is focusing on everything else, and he's not quite ready for that right now, in terms of worrying about snaps and protection calls and all kinds of things.

So you know, I don't think it's anybody's fault. It wasn't like anybody put any more on his plate. It just was the mere fact that that's the way it had to be based on the circumstances.

So I think it's hard enough when you have a young guy, but this guy is going to be a heck of a player, and we have a lot of confidence in him, but to put that other piece on him was probably just a bit much, and that hopefully now will continue to settle out, and we'll only get better. It's just a question of how long it takes to get it better.

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