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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 25, 2017

Dave Clawson

Greensboro, North Carolina

DAVE CLAWSON: Yeah, we look forward to hosting Louisville this week back at home. We haven't played at home in a month, so I think our players are excited to get back to BB&T, and we play an excellent Louisville team. Really good on offense, the No. 1 offense in the ACC, scoring and yards, and I think their defense probably played their best game of the year last week. They're good in all facets. They're very talented, and it'll be a great challenge for us.

Q. Nobody else has had much success in containing Lamar Jackson; how do you go about preparing for a guy you know he's going to make plays, he's going to accumulate yards and points? What's the secret to keeping him from going off for huge numbers, if there is one?
DAVE CLAWSON: I mean, he's just so gifted and so talented of an athlete. I mean, it sounds simple, but yet you have to be able to tackle him, and that's a lot easier said than done. He is just elusive, slippery. You know, there's just plays that look like the defense has leverage, and he just outruns -- there at times are defenders in position, and he outruns them, out-athletes them, he's just faster than them, and when you just, say, try to keep him in the pocket, he can pick you apart. He reads coverages well, he throws a beautiful deep ball, he's got good receivers that go up and get it, and you don't average 550 yards a game by accident. You know, and they've got really different ways of getting him the football. If you do something to take him away, then there's something else that they can do to counter that that keeps the ball in his hands. He's a very, very difficult out.

Q. I would think that obviously one of the things that you can do to help yourself would be ball control, if you can sustain some drives and keep him off the field and put them in the hole?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, I mean, you have to make 1st downs, but they're the type of team that no lead is safe. They can just quick strike and one-play you and 80-yard you. You're not going to shut them out. You know, they're going to score points. They're going to get yards. You're going to have to find ways to get stops on 3rd downs, and it's one of those games that the offense is going to have to rise up and go punch for punch to have a shot.

Q. It sounds like you're in for a shootout then?
DAVE CLAWSON: I mean, they're certainly capable of winning games by scoring 50 and 60 points, and they've done that. We're improved on offense. We haven't shown the ability to do that yet against an ACC team, and I think that's our challenge. We're better on offense, but you don't know what's going to be required to win this game, and you've got to be able to answer the bell. That's certainly one of the things that I think we're better prepared to do this year than in the past, but until you've done it and done it consistently, it's hard to bank on that. So we've got to play well on offense. We've got to score touchdowns in the red zone. Last year we moved the ball a little bit on them, but we got bogged down in the red zone, obviously limiting his big plays, like I said, which is much easier said than done.

Q. At your press conference this week you mentioned the fact that you've been at the crossroads of several big games and been right there and your team hasn't been able to finish. How do you get them to the point where they finish in those games and come away with a key victory for you?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, you're right. I mean, we've been in games and been competitive against good football teams, but I just don't think -- we can't ever relax. You know, we had two-score leads against both Georgia Tech and Florida State, and our response to getting those two-score leads were we gave up a big kickoff return and we gave up a big play on defense. You know, it's always playing that game with the score is 0-0 mentality. Every rep matters, every play matters. In competitive football games, every play can be the difference of winning and losing, and you need to be able to play with that focus without it making you too uptight.

Q. One of your new playmakers this year, young freshman Greg Dortch, has brought some explosiveness to your offense. Talk about what he brings to the table for you guys both there and on special teams.
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, he's, again, a dynamic guy that has very good ball skills. He's got good open space skills. He has the ability to make people miss, and he's been good in terms of getting yards after the catch.

Q. Just to go a little bit further on Dortch, he's one of a bunch of guys in the ACC that are doing very well with all-purpose yardage. Can you comment on the strength of the ACC and how important is Dortch to what you guys do?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, he's really allowed us to open up the offense, that we've made a lot more explosive plays this year, and I think everybody in this league has a space guy that is elusive in space, and we're going to face perhaps the best in the ACC this week with the quarterback that we're facing.

But just seems like everybody has a player like that, and that was something that we really lacked. He's given us that this year. He's made big plays. He gives us match-ups on safeties and linebackers, and once he gets the ball in his hands, he has that ability to make somebody miss and get yards after the catch.

Q. Does he relish that role?
DAVE CLAWSON: Oh, he loves it. He loves it. I mean, that's his MO as a football player, and that's why we recruited him. We saw that on high school tape, and he just made dynamic play after dynamic play, and that was the reason that we recruited him is we needed some play making ability in the slot, and Tabari Hines played well, too, so now we've got two guys we feel good about getting the ball to in that position.

Q. Do you feel this is kind of a trend, this type of player, becoming a key factor?
DAVE CLAWSON: I hope so for us. We always like guys that have good ball skills that can make people miss, so we can never have enough of them.

Q. There was a story obviously this week about how your program has changed since the issue with the players going to Louisville last year. Have you addressed that with your team at all this week, and how important to you treat it?
DAVE CLAWSON: I mean, we didn't address it at all. That was an issue last year. It wasn't just Louisville, it was multiple teams. As I stated last year, we always viewed that as an internal Wake Forest issue that we addressed, and we've moved on from it.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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