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BOSTON COLLEGE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 1, 2018

Steve Addazio

Boston, Massachusetts

Boston College - 55, UMass - 21

STEVE ADDAZIO: Certainly today I thought we had an explosive performance both sides of the ball. On offense we had 622 yards, 300 yards rushing and another 300 something throwing. I thought Anthony Brown came out and played an outstanding game after coming back from an injury, probably one of the best performances that's been played around here in a long time. It was a hell of a game, and did a great job.

There was a lot of contributions throughout the offense from a lot of people, and that's really what we wanted to do is distribute the ball. We set the pace in the opening drive. I think it was an eight- or nine-play drive which culminated in a touchdown, and I thought for the most part it stayed throughout the day.

I thought AJ, we didn't play him in the second half. He had 98 tough yards in the first half, and I thought he did a heck of a job. Kobay White made some unbelievable receptions. I thought on defense, we came out, we played super hard, super intense. Came up with a couple of turnovers, one pick for a touchdown, a critical one down in the red zone in the second half. I thought our pass rush at times looked just phenomenal.

Special teams-wise, we had a couple issues with the -- when we lost Jimmy Martin on the field goal short snap and then an issue on the punt, obviously, and we let up a kickoff return, and that's not anything that we're going to do around here. But that happened, so I'm going to have to take a look and address what that problem was.

But all in all, I thought it was a great opening day performance. Our goal for our kids was to play at the highest level, give all the effort they had, be physical, be fast, be relentless and play together, and I thought that we certainly saw that. We had zero turnovers, and I thought that was great. It was great. That's our goal.

With that, I'll answer any questions.

Q. What does it say about your team that this early in the season you took advantage of the opportunities that you had as efficiently as you did?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, I just think that honestly, for me, looking at this game, I wanted to see our quarterback come back out and regain his confidence. He had not been in any -- no one had ever tackled him, hit him or touched him. And so I thought he had to come out here, and he showed zero -- he was not fazed in any way by that, so I thought that was great. And I thought with that, when your quarterback is playing at a high level, it gives you an opportunity to take advantage and execute those opportunities. He made some big-time throws today. As he looked more comfortable, we took more shots. Going into the game, to me it was all about let two win the game and let's bring Anthony along, but as we got into that game, we didn't need to do that, and he showed signs of a guy that was really on top of his game. So I was excited about that, and so I thought that worked out well.

Q. Any update on Jon Baker? I thought he came out.
STEVE ADDAZIO: You know, as per the new ACC rule now -- I'm not going to be able to comment on injuries, but he's doing fine.

Q. You've kind of touched on it a little bit, but were you a little bit surprised as well as Anthony looked, considering --
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yes, yeah. Just, you know, yeah. Coming back, game 1, we were real careful with him in preseason camp, how many reps he took, no one touching him. But there was no signs it was going to be an issue, but my experience tells me that it can be. But it's over now. I mean, in terms of hesitation, in terms of not being confident, and so that was perfect. It worked out perfect, and he exceeded my expectations relative to that. Not his ability. I know he has ability. It's like to me, he picked up right where he left off at the end of the season when we were playing at a pretty high level, and I felt like he picked right back up right at that spot.

Q. The four-minute offense and the three minutes that he had to do 97 yards, that seemed to be maybe the highlight of his day, the way he managed that drive?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah, probably. You know, to me it's like coming at me trying to process everything that happened. Sometimes in those kind of games, believe it or not, I get worn out at the end of the game just with the substitutions become more overwhelming than anything else, you know, who needs to be off the field, when do we take this guy out, when do we take this guy out. I get exasperated by the end of the game, everybody coming at you, I want to take him out, I want to take him out. Sometimes, to answer your question, I guess, I've got to go back and watch it and really process everything that took place in the beginning.

Q. The 33-yard pass touchdown he made, seemed like off his back foot, but to your point, it looked like he wasn't afraid to take contact on that touchdown pass.
STEVE ADDAZIO: Right, right, and then he had that one run. It was like he kind of was running -- I mean, this is just me looking at it, and it was right near me, and I said to myself, okay, he's probably going to get himself down, then he pushed off the contact and reaccelerated, and I thought that was a moment where you said to yourself, he's done with this, you know. So that was a good thing. But he played smart, too. We don't need to be reckless, now. He can be a quarterback that can be a smart runner and a smart player.

Q. You said he did more than maybe even you expected; how much does that expand what you guys are capable of doing offensively in terms of your game plan and so forth going forward, and how much does Anthony Brown as a weapon make it that much harder for teams to load up on AJ?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, yeah, I think the fact of the matter is you saw our receivers making a lot of catches, you saw our tight ends, our receivers, you see our running backs, and I think all that does is make them defend 53 and a third. So they were kind of starting to load the box real, real heavy, and that's when we started throwing the ball. There was one play we ran where everybody was open. I think he hit Kobay down on the boundary, but Tom Swinney was 20 yards open. They were all open. That's what happens if you're going to roll the dice and gamble heavy and bring everybody into the box. We're no longer back in year one with Andre where we were going to run the ball and run it again and run it again and run it again. We don't have to do that now. We're still going to run the football, but we're going to take advantage and have the ability to take advantage of what the defense gives us.

Q. Davon Jones, is he still a linebacker, or is he just your short yardage tailback or both?
STEVE ADDAZIO: He's both, and Davon is a guy that's a 235-pound guy with tremendous hands and great feet and acceleration on contact. We've been 2-A'ing him all camp. It's like we have -- obviously we have AJ, and then we have Travis, and Travis does some unbelievable things for us, right, and then we have Davon, who's another big, physical, going to hit you and drive you back, and then of course we saw the openings of David Bailey, and David Bailey is a monster, okay. I mean, he is a 250-pound man, and you're going to start to see his emergence now. You saw it today. And so that's exciting. And Benny Glines played tailback most of training camp, and he was exceptional looking, as well. So our goal is to have a stable of backs because you need a stable of backs.

Obviously we have the best back in the country, but we've got to be able to give him a chance to have a rest. The way he runs, his style is so physical, those plays don't end, they just keep driving and driving. That takes a lot of exertion. So we have to have a stable of guys that we can keep hitting people with. I like the fact that we have size there. That wears down the defense. That wears the defense down. It's very difficult to tackle those guys.

And then Travis, I mean, he's got unbelievable acceleration and wiggle, and the change of pace is hard to deal with.

Q. Talk about the pass rush.
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah, I thought the pass rush at times was just outstanding. Just watching Zach Allen turn speed into power and turn the corners and get under people. He, Wyatt, I thought they did a fantastic job in the pass rush. I thought our defense played really well and did a great job.

They've got a quarterback that's a pretty good player. He's accurate and he can throw the ball, and they've got a couple of really good receivers that can flat run. They've got a pretty big offensive line up front. I mean, it was a challenge, and I thought our defense played extremely, extremely well.

Q. At the start of last season Anthony had trouble hitting Kobay on the deep ball. What did you think of their connection today?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah, Kobay is a heck of a player, and you're seeing the maturation of a couple of players, right? That's what you're looking at. Don't forget, now, this is like Anthony Brown's 11th game of his career. Everybody forgets that. 11th game of his career. That's it. Kobay White is in his second season, right? I mean, these are young guys. They're just starting to come into their own. That's all. You saw the emergence of a guy like Hunter Long today. Hunter Long is going to be an unbelievably great player. You saw the emergence of -- I talked about him already, David Bailey on offense, right? Pay attention to that one now, all right? A lot of guys stepped up today. I thought Jeff Smith did a great job today. I thought Jeff, he caught a lot of balls in there. How about CJ Lewis? I thought he was going to take that one to the house. I think he's going to be a real big-time guy. I really do. He's a big, tall, tough guy. He's got great hands. We have some skill and we have some playmakers and we have some speed. That's where we are.

Now, hey, quite frankly I told our guys down there, it's just one game. We came out, we had a heck of a day today. What we asked and challenged our team to do, they did and they responded. Next week is a new week. Tomorrow is a new day. Every day for us we've got to come out and we've got to grind.

UMass has got a good team. Mark has done an unbelievable job; they're going to go on and win a bunch of games. But right now this was one win we can put in the win column; we can learn from it; we can grow from it. And the most important thing is we'd better improve from it, because we're staring down the gauntlet of a lot of tough games ahead of us.

So our goal is just to get better each week and find the areas that we can improve on because it's fragile. It was great, wonderful, terrific. Celebrate the win. We're starting fresh to be 1-0 again tomorrow, and that's really what I want to focus on.

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