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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 1, 2017

Larry Fedora

Greensboro, North Carolina

LARRY FEDORA: We're using this open week to work fundamentals in all three phases of the game, and then trying to get some -- hopefully get a few guys healed up.

Q. You've played nine straight weeks of football; I know from a physical standpoint it's great to have a week off. Does it help players mentally after that kind of a grind without a break?
LARRY FEDORA: Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, you've got nine weeks of the season, plus you have your four weeks of camp. So you're 13 weeks into it. These guys need a break. They needed a break mentally. They definitely needed a break physically. We're never had an open week this late, so we've -- we've had to address it a little bit differently.

Q. Nathan Elliott came in and played pretty well for you. What do you like about him, his strengths, his weaknesses? Has he injected himself into the quarterback mix now?
LARRY FEDORA: Well, what I like about Nathan is he's a gutsy kid. He knows the offense. He doesn't require a lot of reps to be able to know it. There was no doubt in my mind that unlimited reps he would go in and know what to do and would be able to execute it. You know, he's a headsy kid. He's grown up a gym rat. He's been around football his whole life. His dad is a high school coach back in the state of Texas. He has interjected himself. Yes, there's no doubt about it. He's been involved every week, and so -- but this was the first opportunity he got to really get out there and get some extensive time, and he did some good things. If he can eliminate the turnovers, it would be a really good game for him.

Q. As you practice during this open week towards the next game, is there a pecking order at quarterback now, or is it kind of up for grabs?
LARRY FEDORA: Well, it's been up for grabs, it still is. It's going to be about who shows that they give us the best opportunity to win, as we get into the week of our Pitt preparation.

Q. I know this has been a difficult season for you and the players; is there anything that you can take away about what you all have gone through that can help them in the next few weeks and also moving forward into next season as they go through off-season workouts?
LARRY FEDORA: Most definitely. One thing about the group, they're very resilient. They've stayed close together, and that's not easy to do. On the outside it's nothing -- they don't hear anything but negative things and what's wrong and what they need to do differently. One thing that they've done a great job of and the staff and the seniors have done a really good job of making sure this happens is they've stayed together, and they've continued to have a great attitude and work hard. I tell them daily that you keep doing that, and we eliminate the mistakes, and good things are going to happen.

The things you're going to get out of this the most are how we have handled everything mentally as a team. The second thing is we've got a lot of young guys that are getting reps, and every rep that they get, every game rep that they get is valuable to their development, and they're just going to be better in the long run because of it.

Q. Why do you think this team has stayed together?
LARRY FEDORA: I think it's -- you know, one thing in the off-season and the summer and the winter, the whole thing is about how we handle adversity and overcoming adversity. We've been hit with a lot of adversity this year, and I think our guys have prepped for it. I mean, they understand that there's only two ways you can go, and you choose. They've chosen to stay together and be positive.

Q. A question about the early signing period in December, and just curious how you were going to approach your committed players?
LARRY FEDORA: I mean, we're just looking at it, as December 20th, as being signing day. All the guys that want to sign on the 20th, we're going to sign them. I mean, we haven't looked at it really any differently. So the guys that are committed have the opportunity to sign, whether they're an early enrollee or late enrollee.

The things that -- the interesting part is if you're a guy that's going to enter school at the normal time, you may have already signed before you take an official visit. So there's some logistics in that way.

Q. If someone is committed but wants to wait, how would you approach that?
LARRY FEDORA: The way we would approach it is we would have to discover why is it that they're wanting to wait, and then we just have to deal with it.

Q. Just talk about your team last week against Miami, what you like about your squad, because they played really tough against a very good Miami squad.
LARRY FEDORA: Yeah, they played extremely hard and fought all the way to the end, and we had a bunch of young kids out there that I think are coming along and they're realizing that they're not that far away from being a good football team. But we're still making too many mistakes that we can't overcome because the margin of error is much smaller and very small for this football team, and we can't continue to make those mistakes. But there were a lot of really good things. I was proud of the way they played. Their effort was unbelievable. Their attitudes were really good, and they worked extremely hard.

Q. I know this has been a tough season for you with injuries and all that stuff; have you ever had a season like this before, and if you have one before this, what did you learn from it?
LARRY FEDORA: I've never had one like this, is every day is a learning experience, and every day we're working hard to overcome the problems that we have, and eventually we believe that if you have a great attitude and you practice with a lot of energy and you don't make mistakes, then good things are going to happen to us.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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