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BOSTON COLLEGE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 1, 2018

Steve Addazio

Boston, Massachusetts

COACH ADDAZIO: Morning, guys. Ready for week 6. Seems like the season is flying by. Came off tough, hard-fought game on Saturday. Thought both teams played really physical, really hard.

As we discussed post-game, really proud of the way our team battled and fought and came out and won that game. Ran 105 plays, which is probably -- was an all-time record here of plays run, I believe. That's a lot of plays.

We're pretty physically -- was a pretty tough game. I think we're physically beat up a little bit right now. I'm not going to get into the injury thing. I don't have anything to get into other than the fact that I hope everybody is ready to go. But that game, certainly was a price to pay for that game.

The flipside of that, I thought we have been in some real tough contests. I think that makes you better. If you can stay healthy, it makes you better.

So I think we're kind of a team that's leathered up a little bit. Playing NC State; they're undefeated. Their quarterback is among the elite in the country right now in terms of touchdown passes thrown and passing efficiencies.

He's outstanding. He's got a great receiving corp., so they're explosive. Defensively they're one of the top teams in the country stopping the run and defensive scoring.

This a really good team that appears to be healthy playing at a high level. We've got to go down there on the road and find a way to compete against them and beat them. That's the goal. Give us a chance to start out 2-0 in the conference, which would be the first time in a fair amount of time as well.

But our work is cut out for us. We got a big week ahead of us here. Tomorrow will be a big day for us, as it typically is. We'll grind through the week trying to continue to attack the spots that we feel like we need to improve in and continue to grow in all areas.

So I'm happy to answer any questions.

Q. Anything you can tell us about AJ or Jeff?
COACH ADDAZIO: Not really. I mean...

Q. Will they practice or anything?
COACH ADDAZIO: I don't know. I just don't know yet. As I said, I think I we got a lot of guys with a lot of dings right now, and that's the result of being in a lot of tough games, you know.

So probably have more information as the week goes on, but right now I'm hoping to have everybody. I'm hoping that we get on the mend pretty quick here. Usually I get better feel for that by tomorrow. I wouldn't expect some of these guys will be practicing tomorrow, to be honest with you, but I don't think that's a reflection on whether they will necessarily be ready to play for Saturday.

I think just happens when you get five games into a tough, physical season. We go on the road, playing a Big 10 team, come back here and play a big, athletic Temple team. I mean, we're not -- we've been in some tough games, some tough games.

Q. Shift gears. Talk about Ryan Finley. Amazing numbers, touchdown and reception ratio.
COACH ADDAZIO: Yeah, right. I'm with you. Good player. I mean, I can remember talking to one of the pro coach es and them telling me that they really like him; they feel like he'll be a good pro player. He's a good quarterback. He's accurate. He sees the field well; he throws it really well. He is one of the -- maybe the best quarterback in the league. He's certainly one of them. He's experienced. He's good.

Those guys are tough when you play these guys. That's a tough order. That's what you're hoping, right? When your quarterback is one of those elite guys, it usually makes all the difference in the world. They're playing with a heck of a player, and they've got a good receiving corps, too. You know, I mean, pretty talented here.

I mean, Kelvin Harmon is outstanding, to name one. They've got the right combination.

Q. Is it the right fit for Dave's system, too?
COACH ADDAZIO: I mean, Dave has had different systems since I've been here. I shouldn't say like different systems, but different styles of guys. You know, they've had the great backs, and I think when Matt Canada was as in there he had one kind of system. Like all of us, I think you have to evolve and just evolve with who your talent is and who your personnel is and everything else.

I think he's done a great job. Dave is great guy, great coach. He's done a fantastic job there. They've recruited well and acquired talent well. You know, they lost a good chunk of their defense, but from what I've seen on tape they've done an unbelievable job recruiting. I thought they had some big, strong physical guys interiorly last year just to name a spot, and all of a sudden you look and you say, Are those guys -- are they still here? Did they leave?

They're pretty dominant interiorly. They've got good players, which is good recruiting. Same on both sides of the ball. This is a talented football team. They're one less game than us. I guess they canceled that West Virginia game, that nonconference game there, so they're one down. They've had one less series of injuries.

You know, that can be a plus; can probably be a minus, too. It's just hard to know. It's hard to know.

Q. Development over the course of the year. Since you're coming up on the halfway point, how do you characterize where the team is now versus back in August when you started camp?
COACH ADDAZIO: Well, you know, I would say we're one game down to where we wanted to be at this point, honestly. Overall, I think we are explosive on offense. I was disappointed and thought we let our tempo dip down; we picked that right back up last week and set a record here for the amount of plays we ran.

I think the quarterback has come back from his injury. For the most part, I think he's done a fabulous job. AJ picked up from last year and has had some really good performances. I like where our line is right now. I think our line is playing outstanding. Tight ends look great. Made improvement at the receiver position.

I think on defense, you know, I think on the positive side of things, you know, we're high up there in the categories of sacks. We're high up there in the categories if TFLs and interceptions.

I think we got to do a better job stopping the run, and I would say that's an area that we've traditionally been strong at. We've got to do a better job tackling and playing fundamentally, but probably part of the issue for us a little bit is we're a 12 team on offense. They see 12 a lot and we see a lot of 11 in our conference.

We've got to keep growing there and getting better there. We got to continue to emphasize tackling and some run-fit schemes to help us there.

But overall, I think we've improved from training camp. I think we're heading in a good path. I always say this. This is not something new. I fear sometimes in this conference -- for anybody, not just us -- you got to stay healthy. You start taking on some water with injuries and it really changing the makeup of your team in a hurry.

So we're going to into Game 6. I would say we're dinged up. Hopefully we can get all our guys back, because we're going now into conferences play. You would like to have your full arsenal. So would a lot of people. We're not the only ones.

But that's part of the game right about now: Getting a little bit of good fortune and staying ahead on that.

Q. You mentioned the fundamental side of that. Is that something you can look at different players and different schemes and coach to it, or is it more looking at your guys and saying, Okay, if we get a bigger back try to hit him higher or lower? How do you kind of get into that with the defense?
COACH ADDAZIO: I think tackling is a problem, because as I look more today than, say, five, ten, 15 years ago, we did a lot more tackling. No one really tackles anymore.

We're all trying to keep our guys healthy, and we feel like if we keep them up and off the ground and -- just don't tackle as much as we used to, and so I think tackling isn't as good. It's like anything else. You want to be good at something you got to do it. We tag off a lot on 7-on-7. I don't like it, but we do it just because we can't take the injuries.

But I'm going to put a little more emphasis on it this week. Because when you see something that you think needs to -- I'm just a believer. Not that this is any rocket science, but if I see something I don't like I'm going to address it. Okay, we got to fix it.

Not just say, Hey, that's not good enough. Okay, it's not good enough and we want to make it better. How are we going to do that? Let's set the practice, the drills, the periods, and we'll have to emphasize that more. To me, it's not where it should be.

So that's just kind of mindset that I have about attacking things. I'm not a guy that likes to let things just talk about them. If there is a problem, identify it and go to work on it. I think we need to go to work there a little bit. I think part of that is offensively we have the capability for sure to give our defense more looks in 11 grouping. We can do that. It's not what we particularly do, but we certainly can.

I think we need to probably do a better job of giving them more full speed looks within more of the styles of runs that they're getting in this conference. In my past I've been in them, but I'm not in them not right now. I think that will help our defense a little bit.

So I think the combination of tackling a little better, continue to develop our fundamentals a little better, maybe giving them a little bit better, faster looks from our own offense against our defense will help I think with the speed of that whole thing better.

We've got good players and we're doing a lot of good things on defense. I mean, you look at us -- and as I said when I started out, we're leading sacks, we're leading in TFLs, interceptions, a lot of good things. We're explosive, but the consistency needs to get better.

We need to get off the field. On offense we're trying to stay on the field. On defense we need to get off the field. It's just compounding. You get tired, you get exhausted, you get six, seven, eight plays in the drive, next thing you know you're a little gassed and you don't got in the gap quite right and they slice you.

Q. Any update on the kicking situation?
COACH ADDAZIO: Yeah, yeah. I guess I should look at that, huh? I think hopefully we get Colton Lichtenberg back this week, okay? This is the time year you got to make some decisions, right? Because guys have played in four games, so you try and be careful here.

Because of Colton's injury, Danny has to kickoff. That's that hard-striking deal that got Colton injured in the first place. We have to play Danny this year. We have to play him. If for no other reason, we have to play him so he has the kickoff.

So with John, I don't want blow a year on a guy if I don't have to, so we put Danny in there. I anticipated that we're going to have to make a decision moving forward here, and I knew probably the way this thing would go because Danny is not -- I have to play him.

I wanted to see Danny kick a couple extra points and wanted to see him in that role while I had that last week to mess around with this thing. And then in my back pocket I know I have Colton allegedly coming back this week.

So I felt like if that's how that were to play out, then I could preserve John's redshirt year -- if that's the way that plays out. So I would say that that's my mindset moving forward right now, but you know, you don't know what tomorrow brings. Someone could fall off a skateboard out here and the next thing you know you got to reshuffle the deck again, right?

I think it'll play out like I said that we'll probably have Colton back and some field goal capacities, and then I'll have to make that decision. I can't evaluate that because I haven't seen him kick in maybe four weeks or something like that. I'll play it by ear.

So that is the adjustment there. You know, it's kind of -- you're probably listening to me like, What are you talk about? We've improved a lot in our special teams each week right now. The problem is we have these bizarre things going on right now that make everybody focus on what's going on special teams. I mean, we dropped the punt that was in our hands, going from our hand to our foot. I mean, I guess I'll have to address that. I'm not sure what the fix of that is.

Then Mike Walker, who has been fabulous on the return game and was fabulous Saturday in the punt return game. He took a hard shot when he was going down and a coughed the ball up and ends up -- we might lead the country in scooped scores against us. I don't know. I would like to see that happen for us a couple times. That would be a nice thing.

It is what it is. They scooped and scored 7 on us, and we survived the punt debacle because I think we intercepted them. Maybe that is when we had the hit the throwing arm forward for the fumble. I don't remember which one it was. So we survived one of the two events.

Usually when you do those two things, they both usually end up not good, you know. So we need to eliminate that. That needs to stop happening. It's making me sick to my stomach really, to be honest with you. It's going to have to come to a screeching halt here.

Q. You talked about the red shirt rule. If AJ is out potentially out in Saturday, would you think about turning to David Bailey?
COACH ADDAZIO: Yes, 100%. We made a decision with David that in our minds we would like to play David. Now, still have some games to mess around with that, I guess, but moving forward our mindset was to play David Bailey no matter what.

Kind of like we were doing with AJ last year. Not quite on the same pace we were with AJ. Maybe a little slower here. We would've liked to have gotten David in the last couple weeks. Probably should have. But at this juncture, I would say we're certainly, in our minds, leaning towards playing David Bailey this year, but we do have the luxury I guess of at least another game for sure. I've got to look at it. I keep a chart on it all.

Q. How do you assess how physical practices should be in a week like this when guys are dinged up? On the other hand, you've got this tackling issue that requires you to be physical. How do you balance that?
COACH ADDAZIO: Right. I think the tackling issue, you can attack without putting the whole team in harm's way. You set up some tackling drills and things like that. I didn't want it in insinuate that we're going to go out tomorrow and started tackling each other. That won't happen.

But we will put them in drills to tackle. So we'll probably have our DBs and linebackers in some much more aggressive tackling drills on Tuesday.

In terms of the physicality of the week, last week I was jacked up about our week. I really was. I felt like the week before I made a mistake. I felt that I pulled back the reigns a little bit. It was probably too early in the season to do it. I did it for the right reasons, but in hindsight maybe it wasn't right.

So this past week I decided we were going to go out and we had a legitimate Tuesday. I'll call it a bloody Tuesday. It was a tough, rough Tuesday, and then we had a tough Wednesday. You know, I would say the assessment of that, and you look back on it was, that we got a little better again.

Now, here we are in a new week. I would love nothing more than to go on the Tuesday, to be honest with you, and have a rough Tuesday. I would love nothing more than that. I'm not sure we can do it. I'm not sure that's real. I just try to do the best I can to take the information I have each week and make a decision. It's not always right, but with the information that I have, I've got to make those decisions. I haven't made it yet for tomorrow.

Now, it's not like we're not going to have a tough day, but there is tough and then there is real tough. I'm not sure we'll have the bodies bodes to make that overly productive tomorrow. I don't have enough information, as I said. That's why I said I really can't give you in any information to make the decisions yet.

It's a valid question. These are the things that as a head coach you have to assess and do the best with the information you can to make the best decision for your? Team. When you win you think what you did was really good, and when you lose you go back and say, Gee, I wish I did it a different way. That's the benefit of hindsight, but I got to look through the front windshield here.

To me, probably not going to have the most physical Tuesday. We'll see.

Q. (Indiscernible.)
COACH ADDAZIO: Sure, sure. Everybody uses different terminology. Essentially one tight end, okay, in the game, and three wides, and one back. That's 11.

You know, 12 is two tight ends, two wide outs, right, and a back. You can go into what's 21 then? Well, 21 is really like 12, but a lot of people categorize it differently. In some people's mind 21 means it's a fullback, a tailback, and a tight end. We don't differentiate with that. Our guys are one in the same, so I try and just call it 12, 12 grouping.

Sometimes we play in 13, which would mean three tight ends, right? We play in a conference that is a lot of 11 and a lot of 10, which would be zero tight ends. Those are more spread out teams. We're different within our conference just by who we are.

But the good news for us is we have the mechanism in 12 because our tight ends are pretty -- we can get into these more spread out formations even though we're in 12 and run the styles of plays that our guys see. We're just going to have to go back and do a little more of that.

We're not running a lot of read zones right now. I've done that in our past. With Tyler Murphy we were big read zone team. We're not running a lot of read zones for a lot of reasons, one of which is I don't want to put our quarterback in that situation right now.

But we can, and we can do it really pretty well. Just have to assess how we can do that to help our defense a little more since they see so much 10 and 11. It's unbelievable. So I got to look at that this week. We'll adjust to that.

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