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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 17, 2018

Mark Richt

Greensboro, North Carolina

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by Miami head coach Mark Richt.

Coach, please give us an opening statement and then we'll open it up for questions.

MARK RICHT: We got this open date, as y'all know. Our players actually lucked out. Our fall break was the same time we had an open date. Couple days to get away. Kind of rare in season, with you we're going to give them a little bit of a break.

Had a couple practices the last few days. Thought they went well. We were certainly taking our time scheme-wise doing a little more fundamental work, making sure we're blocking and tackling like we should.

Good couple of days.

Q. I'm asking some coaches in light of Nick's withdrawing from Ohio State to focus on the NFL. Do you think that will be something that we see more often in college football?
MARK RICHT: I missed the news. What is the news you're talking about?

Q. Nick Bosa, the defensive lineman from Ohio State yesterday decided to withdraw from school and focus on getting ready for the NFL.
MARK RICHT: Right.

Q. He might be able to return but decided to shut it down at this point.
MARK RICHT: I certainly don't know all the details of his injury and all that. It's not really shocking to have a guy who knows that he's finished with his college career to focus on the next thing in life. That's a little bit different of a situation than probably most. That doesn't seem like too big of a shock really.

Q. What do you remember with Todd Gurley, back with his situation, the knee injury, deciding to turn pro at that point?
MARK RICHT: Well, I mean, he was draft eligible when he decided to turn pro obviously. But he had an injury and came back from an injury, did the very best he could for his teammates.

Todd, shoot, any box you could check on a runningback and a person, he was all those things. He chose to be with us as long as he was eligible to, then he moved on after that.

Q. Do you know who will be starting at quarterback yet at BC? Have you told either the quarterbacks or the team that decision?
MARK RICHT: The first question is yes, I know. The second question is I'm going to tell everybody.

Malik is going to start. We plan on getting cozy in the game. Malik will be the starter.

Q. Is that moving forward or just for Boston College?
MARK RICHT: I don't know. Best way to answer the question. Certainly for Boston College.

Q. What led to that decision?
MARK RICHT: Well, I think he deserves to play. Again, my goal always is to try to get the guy I think gives us the best shot. At this point I think it is Malik, so... That's what we decided. We plan on getting Kosi in the game, though. If Kosi comes in the game, it's not like we're yanking anybody out. We want to plan to have Kosi get in the game because he's developing, he's getting better. All that experience is going to pay dividends throughout his career, maybe even before the season is over.

Q. When you were able to watch the film and kind of evaluate the way both N'Kosi and Malik played, what was the impetus for that? Is it maybe the fact that it's on the road again? Was that part of your concern?
MARK RICHT: No, not at all. Right this minute, I think Malik is just better equipped from his abilities and his experience to lead this team right now. But Kosi is certainly a guy that obviously we think very highly of. We want him to continue to grow as a quarterback and as a person. That's why we want to make sure we get him in the game.

Q. What have you seen from the two of them in these practices since you've spoken with them?
MARK RICHT: I've seen great, not good, but great attitudes. They understand. I had a talk with them. I said, Look, man, none of this is personal. No decision I've ever made at this position is personal. It's always trying to do what's best for the team.

I mean, we do love these guys. We care about them very much as people. We understand their feelings when things don't go the way they want, all that stuff. I want to them to understand, Look, we're trying to win games and trying to do what we think is best. There's no agenda other than that.

Made it very clear to N'Kosi that he's going to have a great career, he's going to continue to grow as a quarterback, and we're going to continue to get him in the game to allow him to grow. He's at that point in his career where you have to get snaps to get better. He'll get snaps, for sure.

Malik right now is the guy that gives us the best shot. That's how we feel right now. Again, nothing based on personalities or who recruited who, all that kind of stuff. It has 100% to do with what we think is the best interest of the team right at this moment. That's why we did what we did.

Those guys have a clear understanding of what's going on. They've been phenomenal. Last two practices have been great. I'll say this, too, real quick about Malik. If he didn't handle his business the way he did under the times when he did get moved to second team, it would have been a lot harder to transition as smoothly as he transitioned. Malik was cheering for N'Kosi. It was not easy, but he was trying to help the team win through how he would signal, how he would help N'Kosi during the practice and in the game.

I got to give Malik a lot of credit as to how he handled everything.

Q. The progress of Brevin Jordan, what you have seen from him since he's arrived?
MARK RICHT: A lot of people thought he was the best tight end prospect in America. We thought that. Actually, our number one and two, the guys we thought were the two best tight ends in America are here. Mallory we feel the same way about.

The position that Brevin is in, what we call our F for the most part, he plays tight end, he'll play fullback, off position, he'll spread out, that position is the position that fits his skill set the best. That's why he is starting right now.

Because we had some injuries at the tight end position with Polendey, Michael, when those two got hurt, Mallory had to play backup to Brevin. If everybody was healthy, we would have Mallory split out more like we Njoku. Mallory is doing things not in his skill set yet because he still has to grow physically.

If everybody was healthy right now on our tight end board, in our current team, Mallory would be getting a lot more work as a split receiver. As it is, he has to get by Brevin. Brevin has done a great job physically and mentally. I think a lot of freshmen hit the wall. I think there's been times I've seen all them struggle a little bit through the practices and things of that nature because it's a grind for them. But this open date couldn't have come at a better time for those guys.

Q. The offensive line you have obviously shuffled a bit over the last few weeks.
MARK RICHT: Little bit.

Q. How beneficial would it be for the offense and the quarterbacks to have that unit of size basically set in stone moving forward?
MARK RICHT: I think that would be good. On the other hand, when you have players that are good enough and have earned the right to play, we believe we need to play them. We don't think changing the combination really has been problematic because these guys are getting a lot of reps during practice in the spots that they play.

Now, if you have the same five every no matter what, could that be beneficial? To a certain degree, yes. Again, if you don't have anybody else who can play, then that's what it looks like.

These guys, we got seven guys we think can play for us. We need to get them in the game. I think we're doing a good job of it. I think they're catching (indiscernible) personally. I see what happens. I see we may block a guy to the perimeter, we don't get the perimeter blocking that would score a touchdown if everybody got their hat on the right people, block like they should. I've seen quarterbacks bail out of a perfectly good pocket, start a scramble when they didn't need to do that. I'm not saying that's happening every down, but it's a little bit of everybody taking a turn. When you do that in offensive football, you're not going to continue drives. You throw a couple dropped balls, couple missed pass, a couple penalties, all of a sudden you're punting. That's what happened this last game more than anything.

Virginia certainly did a good job. They played hard. They played well defensively. No doubt about it. But there were so many unforced errors, so to speak, coaches use the term 'self-inflicted wounds', just way too many of them. When we straighten that out, we'll be pretty good. There's no doubt in my mind we'll be good.

Q. You were a quarterback a long time ago. How difficult is it for a kid that never started on the road before getting that practice, playing in a road game?
MARK RICHT: Yeah, it is difficult. Of all the people that it affects, it's probably your quarterback more than anybody else.

I'm not going to say that was why he struggled. If we had the same game against Virginia at home, they did exactly what they did, I think -- I don't think it was attributed to that. There might have been some of that added to the struggle. I would say no.

The one thing you have to change the most when it's loud, that's your cadence, use a non-verbal cadence, all that kind of thing. But we do that every day, every week. Even when we're home, we do it that way.

The things that usually are different at an away game we do at home already. I don't see it as that big of a deal.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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