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STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 31, 2018

David Shaw

Stanford, California

Stanford - 31, San Diego State - 10

COACH SHAW: Couple things off the bat. Tough, hard-fought game. Two very physical football teams.

We wanted to establish the run, which never really got going. That's a credit to San Diego State. They were good all last year. They were good this year, so far this year, game one.

A lot of blitzing and stunting. We tried to stay with them as long as we could. And in doing so they left obviously JJ Arcega-Whiteside, in particular, one-on-one. So we came back at halftime and said, okay, let's just stop being stubborn; let's go take advantage of it.

And he kind of saw that at the end of the first half and then into the second half. So everyone will talk about Bryce's lack of yardage. Bryce doesn't care. We won the game.

Bryce is a great football player. So I want to say that he missed one pickup, the rest of his blitz pickups were phenomenal.

He's a team player and a good football player. K.J. Costello, I thought he played well. I thought he played well. Not perfect, but I thought he played well. Once we figured out what the game plan was going to be. Of course he was game. He ended the season last year as the top downfield passer in America and probably going to start off this year about the same.

Did a great job managing the pocket. Not every pocket is going to be clean with as many blitzes as they were sending. They got to him a couple times. Couple times he had to make throws with guys in their faces. That's what big-time quarterbacks do.

We think the ceiling is extremely high for K.J. and we're going to keep pushing him. Keep pushing him to improve, get better every single week, like we would the rest of the football team. We thought our offensive line in the run game, a lot of stuff in there. A lot of stuff in there, a couple creases, some that almost went -- can't say enough about their pass pro.

Might be the most blitzes as we've seen in one football game. For our quarterback to push up the pocket most of the time and find some big plays down the field to our guys is a credit to Coach Carberry and the offensive staff for putting together a good protection game plan that allowed us to do that.

Can't say enough about how hard and physical San Diego State played. They didn't make it easy. It was difficult. We talked about it this morning. And anybody that expected this game to be easy shouldn't have shown up.

It's going to be hard. It's going to be physical. It's going to be won in the second half. That's exactly what we talked about. We sent something out social media wise early on, just want to mention it in this room, that throughout the year our guys are going to wear two ribbons on the back of their helmets.

A yellow ribbon for sarcoma awareness and a lime green ribbon as well for lymphoma, with the thought that anybody that watches a Stanford football game that's going through a tough time dealing with cancer maybe gets a little jolt. Maybe gets a little, you know, little peace. A little pump up. To know that we're thinking about them. We're trying to raise awareness for them. Proud of our guys for agreeing to do that.

Questions?

Q. Was wondering, is maybe one of the biggest general positive takeaways on offense tonight that completely lose the run game but there's enough talent in the passing game to still score 31 against a team that's probably going to go to a bowl game this season?
COACH SHAW: Yes. Tavita Pritchard once again did an outstanding job today. Game planning and then us talking through the passing game what looks good.

We talked about it during the course of the game as much as we wanted it to be as balanced as we could be and establish the run we also needed a game like this. We needed a game to put on film. Told the guys we can't talk anymore. It's about playing. And we needed a game to where if someone is going to play with all those guys in the box show what we can do outside. We have all the confidence in the world about our quarterback and our receiving corps and our tight ends. We think it's one of the best groups in the nation.

Part of it got shown tonight. And people tried to take JJ away, great, Trenton is going to have a great game. You saw Colby Parkinson make plays, and Kaden Smith made some plays tonight. Got a great group of receivers that are still coming along. That's the goal to be as balanced as possible. If someone wants to take away a part of our game, great. We shift our focus and we find a way to take advantage of that.

Q. Coach, how much of the problems with your running game tonight were due to the fact you had a redshirt freshman at center and new people at left guard?
COACH SHAW: That wasn't the problem. The problem was they're really good and they dedicated themselves. Like I said it's the most blitzes we maybe have ever seen in my 12 years here in one game. Constant. We call it a cross dog where one linebacker goes the other way and the other linebacker goes the other way then two guys off one edge with everybody slanting and then linebacker that walks up like he's over the center and then scrapes either side to blitz, just it was constant pressure, constant movement, hard to really get a hold on guys. And we got to the point we're saying okay this is the game they want to play great we'll shift the focus and we'll go down the field and that's what we did.

Q. What's it say about Trent Irwin, the play, the interception late in the first half and he hustles back, forces the fumble, three plays later you guys get a touchdown?
COACH SHAW: Probably the play of the game, honestly. The play Trenton made, ball is deflected, intercepted. And Trenton is, underestimated speed. He took off full speed coming back there. He saw the ball. He got it out and he got on it and it was a fight down there. And it's not pretty at the bottom of those piles fighting for the ball.

He did exactly what we work on. Exactly what we teach and preach, which is getting to that fetal position and rake the ball away roll over on your side protect the ball that's exactly what he did. Got the ball back and went down and scored.

Q. Can you talk about the defense once again, it was kind of a rough first quarter and then once again really settled in and held San Diego State down?
COACH SHAW: I believe Lance Anderson's probably the most underestimated defensive coordinator in America. We had a rough first quarter. We had them a couple times. They got out of danger. They had a long drive. After that we pretty much snuffed them out. Great job against the run against a team that's dedicated to running the football. Granted, their running back got a lot of touches and a lot of carries and got over a hundred yards. But our guys were stout. Our guys were physical. Made them earn it. A couple of long runs squeaked out there but the rest of the time I think our guys were great. I thought we played well up front with a bunch of young defensive linemen. Gained experience as the game went on. Linebackers were outstanding.

I thought you saw where Bobby Okereke is, that speed and explosion. Sean Barton made plays. Great to see Mustafa Branch go in there, make some plays also. Great to see Joey Alfieri on a third down use that speed and explosion, get around the edge and sack the football. That's what we talked about. That's what we want we want our guys to play fast and physical and I think as our young defensive line continues to grow I think we're going to get better and better.

Q. You mentioned trying to take advantage of when JJ was on one and one coverage. Can you describe how K.J. and JJ work together on some of those plays where he's in single coverage but it's not like he's wide open, how he ends up making those plays?
COACH SHAW: Without giving away any trade secrets, the bottom line is if it's one-on-one, we're going to give him a shot to make a play. And there's one time during the course of the game where K.J. overshot him by about two yards. And we talked a lot about JJ making sure he stays keeps running and K.J. giving him a chance to make a play. As long as he can see the relationship we don't care if the DB is inside or outside. If it's single coverage, great. If it's double coverage, great, then we go someplace else. Which happened a couple times in the second half, right, where we had JJ inside, had a guy over the top. Threw the ball back outside went to Colby in the middle. Threw the ball inside to Trent.

Just being able to see where the safeties are, that's where K.J. has really grown, sees what defenses are trying to do. And finds the matchups and relationships. Saw him come off the number one a couple of times, find the tight ends over the middle, find a check down here or there. I thought he played really well.

Q. Jovan walked off the field looking a little banged up at one point in the game. Can you update his status. And anyone else who stood out as getting particularly banged up?
COACH SHAW: I'm pretty sure Jovan went back out there. Got banged up. Got cleared. Went back there.

Connor Wedington came off also. We got to get him checked out. I don't know if it's not too bad or if it's bad. He didn't seem to think so. He wasn't in a lot of pain. We'll get him checked out.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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