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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 20, 2017

Steve Addazio

Greensboro, North Carolina

STEVE ADDAZIO: We're heading down to play Clemson. Unbelievable venue, a great football team. I just have so much respect for Dabo and what he's done down there to build his program and that brand.

When you put the tape on, you press play, this is an unbelievable football team with great fundamentals, play with energy, play with passion, schematically well put together all three phases. This will be a really, really challenging football game.

Our guys are preparing really hard. We've had a great week. Our team's improving as well each week. Really looking forward to getting down there and playing a marquee team, letting it all hang out a little bit, being as physical, tough and relentless as we can be. Should be a great week of football.

Q. You talk about the brand. Going into Clemson and playing there, the last two years it's been number four. Has that overshadowed how good their defense has been?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Not for me. I have an offensive background. Like any other head coach, I'm quite involved with that, in the area you spent your career at.

I think Coach Venables is one of the absolute best defensive coordinators in the country. I've always thought that way. You watch the way they're put together schematically, how hard they play, the way he attacks offenses. I've always felt really that on defense they've been really elite, great players, great coaching.

No, not overshadow it at all. Very much has my attention.

Q. Have you ever seen four defensive linemen in college as good as the ones at Clemson right now?
STEVE ADDAZIO: You know, I have. But they're few and far between. This is an elite defensive line. There's no question, they're very, very talented. We play in a conference full of extremely talented defensive fronts. I came from a conference before this one that was full of those.

This is an elite defensive front, with great talent, size. They're big, they're physical, they're explosive, they're athletic. I mean, there's a lot of good components to them. I think their back end is as good as anybody in the country. They're talented.

They're what you would think when you're saying, Here is a team that just won the national championship. Well, that's what you would think, and that's what you get. You get a very, very talented team that's well put together.

Q. Back in your playing days, did you relish the opportunity when a really elite team, that you had a chance to play them? Do you think your players welcome that?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah, I don't think there's any question. You always want to go out and match up and play some of the best talent and best teams in the country and best players in the country. I think anybody that's a competitor wants to do that.

Now, that doesn't mean you don't have a tremendous amount of respect. That doesn't mean that you don't recognize great talent, great teams. But you also as a competitor want to go against and face and have an opportunity to compete against and defeat a team that's as talented and as good. That's what competitors do.

I think you don't have a problem getting your team's attention for weeks like these. That's not the case. What you want to make sure you do is make sure you have their attention and focus, keep it in the right vein, make sure that every game has unbelievable importance levels, be able to hit the stride with that, not try to ride the rollercoaster week in and week out of this team is up here, this team is over here.

This is what we do, this is how we go about our business. Every time we go out on the field, we have to match up and play. Certainly going into great venues and playing great teams is a little more energy and a little more hype.

Q. From what you've seen on tape so far, do they look that much different with a different quarterback this year or have they just tweaked a few things?
STEVE ADDAZIO: I think they look fantastic. I think the quarterback is one heck of a football player. I'm very impressed by him. But he's been there two or three years, whatever it's been. He knows the system. He's very, very talented. He's just doing a phenomenal job.

I don't take anything away from Deshaun because I thought he was one of the best players in America, period, end. That's being proven right now.

This young man, he's extremely talented. I take my hat off to the preparation and coaching that you can tell is going on. I mean, he's very good. The way he's throwing the ball, I mean, I just feel like he's throwing it accurately, and guys catch it at a high frequency.

When Kelly is called upon to run, he's a good runner. He's able to break tackles, he's elusive. A good-sized guy. Standing at 6'4", 220, that's not a little man. Another guy that fits the mold of a guy that has the ability to run the ball, throw the ball, and I can only see the tape, seems to have great command and leadership with his team. When you have one of those guys, your offense is going to be pretty good.

Q. Your impressions of Syracuse quarterback Eric Dungey, pretty good game against you guys last year.
STEVE ADDAZIO: I'm worried about the Clemson quarterback right now. I really don't have any comment right now. He's a heck of a football player. We got plenty of time, thank God, before we get there.

Q. This week the ACC is partnering with the College Football Playoff Foundation, in celebration of their Extra Yard for Teachers Week, their initiative with that. Talk a little bit about the impact teachers had on you and on your education, if there's one in particular that stood out for you.
STEVE ADDAZIO: I'd love to. My dad was a teacher. On his tombstone, it says: In a whisper, a teacher. That's what he wanted to be remembered as. He was a phenomenal teacher that impacted many lives. He impacted mine, for sure.

He was a tremendous man. In fact, it wasn't very long ago that I received a letter from one of his former students, that he wanted me to know the impact that my dad had on his life. With that, he sent me this wonderful picture of my father. I lost my father fairly young.

So year in, year out, I get these amazing notes and letters, or I'll run into somebody that will talk about the impact my dad had on their life.

I lived it. So the amount of respect I have for teachers, what they do, the impact they have on our world today, I have a great deal of respect for that and admiration.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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