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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 5, 2018

Willie Taggart

Greensboro, North Carolina

THE MODERATOR: Coach, if you could make an opening statement, then we'll open it up for questions.

WILLIE TAGGART: Had a tough game on Saturday. Didn't go out and play a smart, clean game against a really good football team. Went out and really stubbed our toe there in the game with five turnovers and not being able to get in the end zone, in the red zone. A lot of teachable moments, learning mistakes, things we can get better at and will get better at. Looking forward to a game this week.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Taggart.

Q. You talked during the off-season a lot about sort of the culture shift at Florida State, trying to get those guys back on the same page, feeling more optimistic about things than when you arrived. Does this sort of provide a good test of how far that's come? What is it you're looking for this week from your team in the locker room, film room, practice field, handle the adversity of coming off a game like that?
WILLIE TAGGART: I tell you what, it's something we've been preaching all off-season is how we deal with adversity. I told the team from I time I got here, I thought that was our biggest issue last year. We didn't handle adversity well when things got tough. Here we go again in that same situation.

What I'm looking for is how we're going to respond to it. I think some of the things we're doing in the off-season should help us. I think it helped a lot on Saturday. I heard a lot of encouragement, guys not pointing fingers at anybody, defensive guys talking to offensive guys. That was encouraging.

I didn't think our guys quit in that game. When it comes to our coaching that we want, our guys are working towards that. I look forward at how we bounce back. You make your biggest improvement from game one to game two. Our guys did a good job of coming up and studying film and seeing exactly what it is we did wrong, knowing we really killed ourselves.

Looking forward to see how they bounce back, respond, the attitude they're going to have, winning attitude or are we going to sit around and pout.

Q. Are there little things from your career in coaching whether you can tell that attitude is going in the right or wrong direction in practice or something like that?
WILLIE TAGGART: I think you can see it on the sidelines. You can hear it when guys talk amongst each other. When it's not going well, you hear guys pulling fingers, getting pissed, all over the place. Again, I didn't see that. I was looking for things as things wasn't going our way. I didn't see that on the sideline. That gave me a lot more hope that things are going to be all right.

I thought in our game we tried to make too many big plays and didn't make the right plays. I think that's part of having a young team, get down and panicked. We got to be smart and play smarter.

Q. When you went back and looked at that game, how do you think your offensive line played compared to Virginia Tech's defensive line? Was it the strength of their unit or things there that concerned you?
WILLIE TAGGART: I thought there were some things we could have done better to help our offensive line. I didn't think we helped them quite a bit as coaches at times. I thought when we were supposed to, they did a great job. A couple times guys came free, it wasn't necessarily on the O-line, kind of more how we schemed it up on certain plays. We can do a better job.

I thought overall our guys did some good things and we all made mistakes, coaches and players. We can do a better job of making sure they're good.

Q. If you would address this, after some of your long plays, Virginia Tech got some defenders injured down on the field. Obviously your fans thought that was an attempt to slow you down. You've seen that before. Address that topic.
WILLIE TAGGART: Well, it is what it is. I guess it's part of football now. That's all I can say.

Q. Would you like to see a rule change to prevent that?
WILLIE TAGGART: I'm sure we will one day. Kind of like everything else, it comes when it start happening. They'll come up with something. Until they do, I don't see why anybody wouldn't do it.

Q. Did you believe that was intentional?
WILLIE TAGGART: I mean, it is what it is. It happened too often, so it's hard not to. It happened too often.

Q. Were you privately before the game kind of concerned with a new head coach and a new offense to get used to that the offense might have that kind of performance on Saturday, or did you not see that coming, it was alarming to you?
WILLIE TAGGART: I think you always go into a first game not sure about what's going to go on. I thought we had a great week of practice. Our guys were prepared. Again, I think some of those things happen the first game. Usually you have one of those games where you can work out some of the kinks. Unfortunately we had a big-time opponent where you can't make those little mistakes, think you're going to get away with it.

Again, I thought from an execution standpoint we didn't do a good job. Again, we moved the ball. When you move it, turn the ball over, it really doesn't matter. We got to do a better job of taking care of the ball first and foremost, then make the play that we're supposed to.

Q. With Cam Akers, he had that one long run, but for the most part not really able to get much consistency going. Was that part of him maybe pressing the offensive line? How would you explain maybe some of the struggles that Cam had?
WILLIE TAGGART: I think it was a little bit both of what you were saying. I think he was pressing, wanting to make a play bad. Kind of a lot of our guys on the offensive side of the ball, I thought we were trying to make the big play instead of making of the right play too often. A young team, we got behind, guys panicked rather than just running the system the way we should go.

There were times when guys, before we hand the ball off, guy was in the backfield. I think it was a little bit of both.

Q. There's a touchdown we had on the Internet where a player fell on a Virginia Tech player in the end zone. What is the protocol to say, Hey, we want to challenge that?
WILLIE TAGGART: I can go and challenge the play. Usually the replay is looking at it. The ref always tells us we can hold our timeout because they're going to look at it first before we do anything. That's what was going on there. We got down there. They held the ball, they were looking at it. I guess they figured they didn't have it, he didn't have it.

Q. Talk about Francois's performance on Monday.
WILLIE TAGGART: I thought he started the game off well. Again, like I was just mentioning to the other caller, I thought as the game went on he wanted to make a play bad for his teammates. Sometimes he forced some things he shouldn't have trying to make the big play instead of making the right play. As the game went on, we got that more often.

I think he's got to have help around him, both receivers and run game, to make it all go a lot better. I thought early in the game, he was on. As the game went on, we wasn't playing as well, I think we all just panicked a little bit.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you.

WILLIE TAGGART: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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