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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

April 19, 2018

Steve Addazio

Greensboro, North Carolina

STEVE ADDAZIO: Great to be back on the line here. We just got done with spring practice as many people have. I thought it was very productive, great development throughout the spring. Saw a lot of young guys, got a lot of reps and feel real good about our team and feel real good about the growth we've made in terms of taking the next step and looking forward to a great off-season and starting this thing up.

When you can come to work every day and feel really good about your team and love your team, love being around your team, that's a good sign and that's how I feel about this football team.

So with that, I'm happy to take any questions.

Q. When you added Smith a year ago in an off-field role, was the plan to promote him to full-time as the tenth assistant a year later?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, I mean, I think that was the plan but in the same breath, you're evaluating people every day and they have got to do the job at a high level, and you get a chance to see them and know them and appreciate them and then you make a decision whether, you know what, this is the guy I want to go with or not.

And Antoine did a phenomenal job for us here. Obviously built a relationship with myself, with the other coaches, the players. So it became a super-natural fit to be able to come in and be the added tenth assistant. So I've felt that that was a great way to -- sometimes when you have an opening, you go hire somebody, you don't really know somebody. It can be a little bit of a gamble but this was not the case here.

I was really excited to bring Antoine be a part of our staff and new very well what he was capable of and knew what he was and what he was all about and it matched the values I want in this program and we have had a productive spring with him at the helm.

Q. How valuable is it to have an extra assistant around, and why did you decide to have two coaches on the line?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, I think it's very valuable to have the extra guy in terms of the ability to teach and keep your ratios at small numbers. I think in being able to be wrapped around your team, welfare, helping them on and off the field; I think when you coach them on the field, you can help them more off the field. I think that is very, very valuable. We are in the business of developing young men, so I think when you talk about the cost of hiring another coach to help develop more young men, I think that's what it's all about.

In terms of the way we decided to go with it, I'm a big believer that it all starts up front, both sides of the ball, and in the pool of our talent made it so that we would hire an extra D-Line coach.

I think I might have heard Pat talk about it earlier; I think, though, that you have the flexibility to figure out what your needs are on your staff and what makes you stronger. There's a lot of ways to go about it. One year it might be that. Maybe at another time based on whatever staff movements you could have, it could be something else.

But I thought the model for us right now, the best thing we could do is to have two D-line coaches and one of them is our coordinator, Jim Reid. So I thought that I could lighten up some of the duties on the coordinator, but yet still be actively involved on the field.

So I felt great about that. That's how we handled it, and you never know in the future, based on what kind of movement you can have on your staff, maybe that would change.

Q. Curious if you could talk a little about the development of some of those other quarterbacks. I'm sure you're hoping to see Anthony healthy and ready to go in time for fall camp and being at a hundred percent, but was there some value in seeing the other guys on the roster have a chance to get the number of snaps they did this spring and how do you evaluate how they performed?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah, that's a good question. I thought a lot about it during spring and even after. It was really such a great thing, in a way, for us. I mean, not great at the expense of Anthony not being there, but these two guys, Matt McDonald and E.J. Perry took every single snap at the ones and the twos. You can't get that kind of development and growth because normally you have all these reps lined up with your returning starter.

So these guys got to experience being a starter, got all kind of reps and their growth was phenomenal. They are both really talented young players. It even surprised me the level that they are at right now. By the end of the spring, you walked away and you said to yourself, boy, those guys can both go into a game and play at a high level and that makes you feel a lot better. It wasn't too many years ago around here, that wasn't the case. You know we struggled through a year where we had nobody.

Now we've got three guys that all can play at a very high level, and we have guys on the way in, too, as well. We have two very talented guys coming into the fold that aren't here yet this spring but Matt McDonald and E.J. Perry looked great in spring ball, gave a lot of confidence to the staff and the team. We moved the ball very well. Made plays, and of course we have Anthony there who is getting better every day and will be in great shape to start the season.

So I think we've added talented depth to our program and we all know in this conference, one of the problems is, the ability to overcome when you have these injuries that you can still keep your level of play at a high level and that's what it's all about. So you've got to develop your youth. It was great for that. Really fantastic.

Q. We've talked about some of the major changes or shifts that you guys were able to do offensively just in terms of tempo and spreading the offense out. You still had E.J. in a lot of eight-man fronts and defenses that were wary of your running game. How much do you think this offense can still continue to grow as that quarterback position grows?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, we took a major step this spring in the throw game. We have talented receivers, talented quarterbacks, very talented tight ends, so we can protect the quarterback. We really, if you had to say to me, what was the biggest step we took this spring offensively, I would say without a doubt it was in the throw game and we feel very confident in it.

So it's going to make us a more powerful team because yes, we have a very, very talented, very strong running back behind a good offensive line and it's hard to stop a big back like that. But we can throw the ball now quite well. We have good personnel and I think very confident in that. I think you just become more diversified and it's more on the field for the defense to defend, and that was something we've been working at hard to elevate our game and we've done that, without a doubt. I mean, anybody that watched spring practice could see that firsthand.

So I think that's going to help us. It's going to help our run game, our run game will help our throw game and I think we are going to become a more explosive offense. We know we have tempo, we have playmakers now, and we've got some depth. So I would be surprised if we don't see -- like we saw at the end of the year, I think you'll see our offensive output really increase.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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