	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 25, 2017

Dave Doeren

Greensboro, North Carolina

DAVE DOEREN: Yeah, we had a good bye week here and had a really good opportunity to self-scout us and look at our systems, all three phases, and sit down with our players individually and talk about where they're at and what kind of goals they have individually and technique and fundamentals and get in the weight room a little bit and get caught up with our body weights and our sleep and all the things that matter here as we go down a really challenging stretch.

And getting into this week, excited to go play a great Notre Dame team at one of the nation's best venues to play a game. I know it's going to be a spirited game with two very physical football teams that statistically have done a nice job on the line of scrimmages throughout the year, and their running back is a great player. Offensive line for them with four seniors and our D-line with four seniors, I think it's going to be a great match-up to watch for fans, and look forward to competing in this game.

Q. Nyheim is obviously an integral part of your offense, and the ACC has a bunch of guys kind of like him that are all-purpose guys. Can you speak to that as far as the league strength in that area and what he's meant to your team?
DAVE DOEREN: Yeah, Nyheim is such a competitor first. He's gifted from a speed standpoint, but his competitive spirit is what makes him special in my opinion. The fact that he's producing an offense is kind of something that we knew he could do. He's an elite returner. He helps us on our punt coverage unit down on punts inside the 10. He's had several of those plays, which have helped our field position on our defense, and he's a selfless guy.

As far as our conference goes, the ACC has had great talent for a long time, and it's only getting better. Week in and week out, you see a lot of different types of players that bring different things to the table.

Q. Obviously both you and Notre Dame have kind of valuable advantages. You guys coming off a bye and them coming off a big win. I was just kind of curious as a coach, which would you prefer, to have the bye, an extra week of focus, or to have a big momentum game like they did against USC?
DAVE DOEREN: Well, I think both are good. I don't know if one is better than the other. I will say for our team at this time, the bye week came at a good time just because we were beat up, and we've been dealing with nicks and bumps and flus and different things like that for the last month. I think for us, it came at a really good time for our guys to recover. But you know, there's always -- from a football program standpoint, you love to win a big game, and any time you do that, you've got a lot of positive momentum.

Q. Speaking to the injuries, I know Bradley Chubb had kind of a weird injury a couple weeks ago. Is he going to be all right?
DAVE DOEREN: Yeah, he's fine. He played the rest of the game. He just dislocated a finger that went right back in, and he's doing really good. But we're as healthy as we've been, probably healthier than we were in the opener even. The secondary finally has gotten back to having everybody that we can have outside of the guys that are out for the year, and they're practicing and doing all the things you need them to do. That's been important because we've had a lack of depth there until about the last two weeks. Excited to have our real rotation back there now.

Q. You drew the short straw this year and got the Notre Dame everybody expects to have to play. What are you seeing on film that's made them different from the last couple of years?
DAVE DOEREN: Well, they've got to play us, too, you know, and so we just line up, whoever they put on the schedule, we're going to give them everything we've got. As far as what are they doing better than last year, they're running the football and they believe in running the football. A year ago they were more of a passing football team with Kizer at quarterback. I think he's using his personnel well. I think he's got an excellent offensive line and a big running back and big tight ends. What they're doing really fits their personnel, and they're doing it well and they believe in it. Defensively I think Mike Elko is a great coach, and they're very sound. A year ago he let go his defensive coordinator at the beginning of the season, and so that side of the ball was a mess. They're playing well and they're playing with good systems right now.

Q. There's five or six teams right now in the ACC that control their own destiny. Is it nice to know that all you've got to do is worry about yourselves and not worry about help from anybody else, just win?
DAVE DOEREN: Oh, absolutely. I mean, any time you're in that position, you can really focus internally and think about the things you can do to make your players better and help your coaches coach better and allow guys to improve. I have a saying here that we talk about all the time, it's just we want to put a personal best on the field every day, and it's finding that one more thing you can work on, and I think when you're not worried about anything on the outside of your program, that helps.

Q. I'm wondering maybe if you've had a personal experience with South Bend and what it means to play there, and if there's an extra buzz amongst your players this week.
DAVE DOEREN: I have, just growing up in the Midwest in a Catholic home and going to Catholic church and Catholic grade school, Catholic high school, obviously Notre Dame is something that is talked about a lot. I've been up there several times to watch them play when I was young, and when I was a graduate assistant at UIC we played this in the rivalry game. I know what that place is like and excited to have an opportunity not just to play there but to compete and do it with a great football team that we have against their team that's playing as good as they can play.

I think it's an outstanding opportunity for our program and excited to be a part of it.

Q. Just to continue on that for a moment, do you say anything in particular to your players just about the mystique of Notre Dame and the Golden Dome and all that and the atmosphere? I mean, there's some tremendous venues in the ACC, but that one is sort of the stuff of legend. How do your players deal with that?
DAVE DOEREN: We don't make a big deal out of it. It's still a football field with two locker rooms, and we're going to go out there and play and play as hard as we can and not let something that doesn't have anything to do with winning or losing be a part of the game.

Q. The other thing I wanted to check with you, of course Bradley Chubb is having an amazing season. What kind of player has he turned himself into?
DAVE DOEREN: I think he's the best defensive lineman in the country. It's a tribute to his work ethic. He's taken the ability that his genetics and God has given him and worked his tail off, not just on the football field but in the classroom to become a very smart football player. He's gone from a 237-pound linebacker to a 275-pound nightmare. He plays so hard, and he competes so hard and he has fun doing it. I think for our team, it's just a joy for all these guys to practice with a guy like that. He comes to work every day, he has the same energy level every day, and it's infectious.

You know, it's fun being around players like him. At times you'll be around a guy that you wish he did something harder or worked at it more, and he's the complete opposite of that.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297