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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 10, 2018

Dave Clawson

Greensboro, North Carolina

DAVE CLAWSON: Yeah, we're heading into a much-needed bye week after getting thoroughly beat by a very good Clemson team last Saturday. We really need this break, I think, for health reasons. Mentally, I just think it comes at a great time for us, and we'll get the players back here on Sunday and regroup and kind of get ready and reset the season a little bit for the second half and get ready for Florida State.

We had a couple practices this week. We have got some coaches on the road recruiting, and like I said, just a good time to analyze what we're doing, look at the film, and kind of set a plan moving forward here to improve us.

Q. Demetrius Kemp and Essang Bassey were saying after the game that some senior leadership is needed here. Is that something you've seen over the last couple days, be it in those practices or in the captains' meeting?
DAVE CLAWSON: Yeah, I think any time you have a game like that, as bad as it was, there's good things, and some of the good things were, I think, some of our seniors and upperclassmen were still playing hard. Demetrius Kemp was playing very well. Essang Bassey had a good game. Some kids played well.

We just, for injury reasons right now, are playing a lot more freshmen and younger kids than we anticipated, and I think there's an expectation in our program right now that not everybody is living up to. That starts with coaching, demanding it and making sure it happens, and I also think we need our leadership to step up. If they want to have the season that they want to have, finishing up their careers here, I think they realize they're now depending on guys the rest of the way that I don't think any of us thought would be playing when the season started. But that's the reality of where we are. That's part of college football. Injuries happen. Other people have to step up, and that's where the bye week was good.

We really had a chance to kind of reset things on defense and work on a lot of fundamentals and some things that we probably had gotten away from that certainly showed up on film, not just against Clemson but the first six weeks, and give ourselves a chance to improve and keep ourselves in games.

Q. On the depth question, is there any update you can give us of the status of guys like Greg Dortch or Justin Strnad or Cam Glenn?
DAVE CLAWSON: I mean, I think we're going to have Cam Glenn back on for Sunday practice. We'll have Justin back for Sunday practice. I anticipate getting Ryan Smenda back for Sunday practice. You know, Greg Dortch we probably won't know more until Sunday. We've given him the week off, and we've just got to see how he feels. Some guys we'll get back and some guys we won't.

Again, we've practiced yesterday, today. We are giving the guys a couple days off here for fall break, and then they'll get back Sunday and we'll have a better idea then.

Q. Given the popularity of RPOs in college football, I'm curious about your thoughts on the ineligible receiver downfield rule. I know there's been talk about changing it to what the NFL does. What are your thoughts on that?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, you know, when I'm with our defense, I don't like the rule, and when I'm with our offense, I like the rule. I think it makes it really hard. All those things that you taught for years in terms of run-pass, high hat, low hat, how a lineman comes off the ball, you just throw all that out of the window now.

You know, that's the rule. We probably take advantage of it as much as anybody. We're very much based on an RPO system, and we certainly actively coach our kids to get two to three yards but not four. But I do think it's a very hard rule to officiate. I think it's impossible for the officials. I really do. It's a hard rule. It's based on when the ball is released by the quarterback, and with all the different keys they have, it's a tough rule to officiate.

You know, I'm not for it or against it. Whatever it is, that's what we'll adhere to, but it does make it very hard to play defensive football anymore.

Q. You said earlier there's an expectation in the program that not everybody is living up to right now, and I was hoping you could elaborate a little bit more on that. What specifically did you mean?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, you know, just when you -- we played really good defense here for our first two or three years, and we had good players, but I also think we had a culture of guys running to the football and playing with good pad level and pursuit angles. I just feel that we've got away from that. When you put on our film in the fourth quarter against Clemson, and at this point the outcome has been decided, I was really disappointed to see some of the efforts that we got.

Again, a lot of it is younger guys that haven't played before, but we're certainly not proud of that film, and we've got to make sure that whatever allowed that to happen doesn't happen again. The expectation is that we play hard regardless of the score, but there's a number of plays in the fourth quarter that quite frankly I'm ashamed of and I'm embarrassed of, and as the head coach I'm responsible for it, and I allowed that to happen, and we've got to get that fixed. Again, a lot of it is younger guys that quite honestly I did not think would be playing for us this year, but we're at a point injury-wise that they have to play. But we clearly haven't got the message through of how we want to play defensive football here in terms of pursuit, hustle, effort, pad level, how we tackle, how we take on blocks. There's a lot of bad fundamental football on that tape that we have to get fixed.

Q. Did you take a more active role in practice this week in terms of trying to deliver that message? You've already made the decision to switch coordinators, but what can you do in the bye and moving forward to make sure that message is really coming across?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, I don't like to say I got more involved. I've always been involved. I mean, what happened on that film and what's happened the first half of the season, I mean, I'm directly responsible for. It wasn't one coach or one position or one kid. It was the head coach of our program allowed that to happen.

To me, there were some things on that film that I could show the team of exactly what we're talking about. Are they proud of that effort? Are they proud of the name on the back of that jersey? That's what's being put on film. And if we're going to play better football here and finish the season up the way we want and find a way to win games, then that can never be on film, whether it's practice, games, scrimmages, look team, whatever. And it's very disappointing to me that in year five things like that have creeped back in.

You know, we'll make things as simple as we have to on defense to make sure that we're getting lined up in proper stances and we've got guys pursuing and running to the football and taking angles and playing with proper pad level and all the things that -- you can have the greatest genius of a defensive coordinator calling defenses for you, but if you're not playing with a fundamental base and proper pad level and defeating blocks and tackling and wrapping up, you're not going to stop people or even slow people down, and obviously we haven't done that the last few weeks here.

Q. I wanted to ask you, it looked like you were really particularly bothered in the first half with the referees, and I wanted to ask what the cause of that was. We didn't get a chance to ask you about it on Saturday.
DAVE CLAWSON: You know what, I'd rather not talk about it. It was an issue that I addressed with the supervisor of officials on Monday, and he agreed with my perspective on it, and there was a situation in the game that wasn't handled the way it should have been. I knew it, and it was allowed to keep happening, and eventually it got fixed but not the way it should have or when it should have. You know, so again, that was -- I wasn't happy with it. I expressed that the whole first quarter. It eventually got fixed, but it was not -- it wasn't handled the way it should have been procedurally from their end, and again, I had a good talk with Dennis Hennigan, and he agreed, so we're moving forward.

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