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BOSTON COLLEGE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 7, 2018

Scot Loeffler

Boston, Massachusetts

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. You have balance. As an offensive coordinator, a guy who has worked with quarterbacks so long, your feeling about the package, Anthony and AJ?
SCOT LOEFFLER: Yeah, the foundation of any football program in my opinion has to be able to run the ball. You also have to be able to throw it. It's the new wave in football, that you have to be balanced.

We've got a dynamic runningback. We have a few dynamic runningbacks in my mind. Any time the defense has to account for the run game, it makes our throw game much better. We're super excited about it. We feel like we have some weapons on the perimeter. Hopefully the throw and run game can really work together the way we want it to.

Q. One of the positives about a guy getting hurt is he comes back a year stronger, bigger, more experienced. You have that now in your offensive line, notably with Baker. Give some thoughts on the guys up front, how much they've grown over the years to the point where they're at.
SCOT LOEFFLER: You look back the year before I was able to come to Boston College, you saw a bunch of freshmen. I think Lindstrom was a 245-pound true freshmen getting ready to play Florida State, Clemson. They had their licks. At times a few guys were forced to play that were undersized, not ready to play.

You can't substitute experience. Right now we feel we have six, seven, eight guys that have experience. We're older, stronger, more mature. We understand exactly what we want to do. It's always great whenever you have a veteran, older offensive line.

That's the way we feel about our offense in general. Are there a few young guys still out there? Yes, there are. That's college football. For the most part we're older, smarter, strong, faster. I think everyone has a really great appreciation of what we're trying to accomplish on offense.

Whenever you're an 18-year-old kid, you get a pass play or a run play, you're worried about getting to your spot. Now I think we're at the point where our older players in particular understand why we're trying to do what we're doing.

Any time you understand the whys, you play faster, you play smarter. We think we're moving in that direction.

Q. Anthony, when he gets hurt, what do you focus on in terms of continuing his mental growth?
SCOT LOEFFLER: We started that process in the bowl game actually. He was playing every rep. He was standing behind the center taking every rep. We made an emphasis with him, he was a young guy last year, too. Games one through six, he played like a rookie. As he got some experience, he got to grow up a little bit. But he needed to take the next step of truly understanding why we're doing what we are doing.

He understood the playbook, the plays. If you don't understand the whys, you aren't going to be good. The later half of the season, he started to figure out why we were doing what we were doing. It's one thing whenever you're in a great play. But being a quarterback, understanding if you're in a bad play, this defense is going to take the play away. By throwing the ball, aggressive play, he's getting to the point where he's able to audible a little bit more. He's getting to the point where he understands the whys. I think that's really important. We all think that's really important.

Q. In this particular situation, how difficult is to manage reps in practice when you have a starter who you want to protect, but at the same time you're going to need the guys behind him?
SCOT LOEFFLER: That's a great question. The fortunate thing is we get a lot of reps in practice because of the style of play we have. We're a no-huddle team, got a lot of repetitions in practice. I don't think we're in a position -- the old huddle systems, you get so many reps, have so much time. We're having the ability now to get much more practice reps. I don't think that's necessarily right now a problem.

Q. You talked about how you need balance on an offense. Last year Anthony Brown was starting to take strides. The injury came. A.J. Dillon also took strides. Seems now they're both coming back. It seems almost as if it's a perfect storm for the passing game to take its next step. How do you see the receiving corps panning out?
SCOT LOEFFLER: They're doing a great job. We have some older guys, Tom Sweeney has been around, Jeff Smith has been around. We have some older guys that understand what to do. They've played a lot of football.

What we're trying to do right now is this. We have been in situations where this time of year everyone thinks we're not going to be very good. We're getting a little bit of praise. In all actuality, all this doesn't matter. The outside world doesn't matter. What we're really trying to concentrate on right now is just that snap, 100% concentration on just that play. We're trying to improve each play each day, just really taking it day by day. I think if we can keep that mentality, just worry about that play, just worry about us, good things are going to happen to us.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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