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STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 23, 2017

David Shaw

Stanford, California

UCLA - 34, Stanford - 58

DAVID SHAW: We have been playing hard since the beginning of the year, have not been playing great situational football, giving up too many third down conversions on defense, not converting enough on offense, being able to run the ball but not throw with the efficiency. Those things changed today, which was great. Question on everyone's mind I'm sure is about Bryce Love. Bryce played extremely well. The guys up front gave him a lane and I don't know that there's another back in college football like this guy. So explosive, so physical. Also, as a runner, he gets yardage after contact. Really the story of the game. I thought K.J. Costello came in and played extremely well for what we asked him to do. We stayed in the things he was comfortable in, he started a little rough early but played with energy and passion, gave guys chances to make plays on the ball, which was great. Kept drives alive. Scored with his legs. As we talked about, with quarterbacks, if nobody's there, let's get positive yards with our legs. We'll see the extent of Keller's injury. See if he'll be out for any length of time. If he is, then you'll still probably see some combination of K.J. and Ryan Burns. And if not, then we'll see what happens. Questions.

Q. You say that the quarterback duties will be split between Costello and Burns. Is Costello going to start against Arizona State?
DAVID SHAW: We're not even to tomorrow yet. I'm going to enjoy tonight.

Q. Can you tell us what Keller's injury was.
DAVID SHAW: Not specifically right now, no.

Q. Okay. On Bryce Love, did you consider leaving him in so he could break the school record for that last stretch?
DAVID SHAW: We had a brief conversation about it, very, very brief. But we had done the same thing with Christian two years ago. There was one game where he was very close to the record and we had a three score lead and you don't do that, you don't potentially sacrifice a season. It was a physical game, Bryce still got a great touches, but at the same time he got touched a few times too. With a lead like that, you don't put your running back back in and Cam went in there and did a great job.

Q. There were three targeting calls. One against Holder and I wanted to -- and then another one that was erased. What did you think of, first of all, the one against Holder and then did you think that Keller, the hit on Keller Chryst should have been targeting?
DAVID SHAW: I haven't been able to see that one on Keller necessarily. But I will say this and I will always say this, I thought the operation was correct. If it's any doubt at all, if there's any doubt at all, for the most part we should throw the flag and we should send it upstairs. Now send it upstairs to the replay, we have a command center now, a PAC-12 command center, let's take a look at it, let's make the right decisions. I didn't get a very close-up look at any of those, honestly, to say whether I agree or disagree, but we should always operate with caution, we should always err on the side of it is a penalty. We teach it and coach it as well as anybody, I believe, in America. And we had a couple guys that dipped their heads today. If you dip your head and put your head down and you go head first, you're going to get a flag and you're going to get penalized. So I'm not going to complain at all, not at all. This is where we are in football, high school football, college football, NFL football, if it's close, we should throw the flag, because we have to take the head out of contact.

Q. Can you just talk about how big a play Harrison's blocked field goal was, just where you guys were at that moment and the way things worked out afterwards.
DAVID SHAW: Here's Harrison Phillips, who is playing at an All-American level right now, he's playing so well. He's defeating double teams, he's running, he's so strong, so physical, plays with great leverage and a PAT field goal block is one of those downs that a lot of guys just say, you know what, I'm going to take my two steps and put my hands up, and but I just played seven plays, eight plays, 10 plays on this drive, I'm not going to do it. And Harrison's not like that. He's been inches away like three times so far this season and he blocked one today for sure and I think he tipped another one, he got his finger on it anyway, that went through. So once again credit to him, he talked to the team earlier this week in a team breakdown and basically said he's not satisfied with his own performance and before he asked anybody else to do any more, he was going to do more. He was going to try harder, he was going to be better. And he was that again tonight.

Q. Then just how much streamlining and customizing where K.J. did you have to do just in realtime as it's all unfolding?
DAVID SHAW: Well on our call sheets anyway we have the favorite plays of our quarterbacks. All of our quarterbacks on the team will have their favorite place on the call sheet. But at the same time we have indicated with K.J., this is our second year with K.J., I have a good idea what he's comfortable with and we're going to give him those things he's comfortable with so we don't have to change the game plan, I wouldn't say we had to shrink the game plan once he got in there and we knew the situations we were going to throw the ball we knew what calls we were going to get to and constant communication with our Coach Pritchard, who is with K.J. every day as his coach. So we had a good feel for what he was comfortable with and the kid went out there and played well.

Q. If you could talk about how the offensive line did today, pass protection seemed to work well for Costello, you talked about the run blocking a little bit already but there was also a little bit of the bad side in terms of the penalties. Penalized more today than you guys typically are so the good and the bad for the line today.
DAVID SHAW: Yeah, and I don't know who the last holding call was on, I don't know if that was on the linemen or one of the tight ends. It was on Schultz? Okay. Yeah, we got sloppy with our hands inside one time, the false starts are sometimes difficult when you have a new quarterback. We try really hard to make sure they sound the same, but doggone it, they just don't. So that those were two of them. We tried to go on a quick count and K.J.'s quick count was a little bit different than Keller's, so we got to continue to work on that until all the quarterbacks sound the same. But both of those were quick counts and we were trying to go on them and we jumped. But, yeah, we got to clean up the penalties, got to be a little bit better, we got to be a little bit more settled in our shoes before the ball gets snapped. Because we just play fast.

Q. Also, if you could talk about, I know that the defense went up against an amazing quarterback and he had a great performance, Rosen did, but did just enough for a long time in this game to really hold them down. If you could assess the defense from your view.
DAVID SHAW: Well the biggest thing is getting stops and keeping them out of the end zone. So they scored a couple times, but a couple times we stopped them in the red zone. Made them kick a field goal and then blocked a field goal. Those are huge in a game where we got down there and got touchdowns. If we can get touchdowns and make them kick field goals, it's just math, we win. So a lot of guys say when we get down there, you hear it from our sidelines, stand up D. That's just a reminder. Stand up. Now's the time. And from last week, the hard part for us from last week was I thought we played so well on defense until that last drive. Until those couple of third downs we gave up, we were in the wrong position. And we talked about timely play making, talked about that early in the week last week. It's not just playing hard, it's not just playing smart, it's not just playing well, it's playing well at the right time. It's on third down, we have to get off the field, we have to get off the field. They're in the red zone, make them kick a field goal. That was the big difference today. We stood up on defense a couple times. Give a lot of credit to Lance Anderson and his staff. But at the same time you're talking about one of most talented quarterbacks in America and you're not going to hold him down forever. He made some unbelievable throws, that throw he makes for the touchdown, I don't know there's another guy in college football that makes that throw. Splitting two defenders and the guy hits the guy in stride. It was beautiful. And you know when you're playing against a good player you're going to give up some plays. But we came become, we fought back, guys never hung their heads, we talked about fighting every single play and our guys did that tonight.

Q. What did you think of that touchdown catch by Schultz, one-handed wonder there.
DAVID SHAW: Well, little credit goes to K.J. for making it very, very difficult. But that's Dalton Schultz. He's a captain, he's a senior, he's a leader for us, he's got unbelievable focus and concentration. He's made some big catches over the years and at very key moments, which is why we went to him when we were down there, we knew he was going to get off, hoped to get a better pass to make it a little bit easier. But the focus and concentration just to get your arm and hand underneath that ball was outstanding. It was a great highlight.

Q. Do you think Bryce Love got officially into the Heisman race tonight?
DAVID SHAW: Heisman? Remind me.

(Laughter.)

No, I'll just say this Bryce is one of the best players in America. It's not just statistically, it's the film. You watch him, there's not many guys like him. So, we're four games in, just starting the second quarter terrible of the season, I don't worry about pose seen accolades just yet. Thank you.

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