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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 31, 2018

Mark Richt

Greensboro, North Carolina

MARK RICHT: As you all know, we practice in the morning. We got our Wednesday practice in. It was a good practice. I thought the guys were very focused. I thought they went hard. I think our scout teams gave us the look we needed. Wasn't perfect by any stretch, but we got better today, and we're trying to earn the right to win. So that's what's happening here at Miami.

Q. Can you just describe what challenges Duke presents, and especially with a David Cutcliffe-coached team?
MARK RICHT: Well, first of all, they are one of the tops in the country in regard to penalties, or lack thereof. So they have done a good job of not shooting themselves in the foot in that area.

Of course, offensively, they always have nice wrinkles for you. They are very good at running the ball. They have got a serious nature about them in that regard. Got a great back, Jones at quarterback. He's leading the league in touchdown passes. He's a guy that, you know, looks like a prototypical pocket passer but he runs the ball well. So you have to worry about that, too, the QB run, and the diversity of his game is very tough to defend, and then as far as their defense is concerned, they have played an awful lot of man coverage.

They do have some combination coverages, too. They throw in some Cover 2 here and there just to keep you off balance, but they have got a lot of faith in their defenders, and they have got some guys that can put the pressure on the quarterback, if they can get your run game slowed down.

So I'm sure that will be a challenge for us to run the ball well and for them to stop the run.

Q. Looks like the tight end position has been a little depleted. Is Will Mallory out and is Irvin coming back or Polendey coming back any time soon?
MARK RICHT: No, Polendey and Irvin are out for the year, and Mallory, it doesn't look like he'll play. He has not practiced this week to this point. There's a very good chance that he won't play. We're not counting him out 100 percent yet, but it doesn't look very promising, and so we've got one scholarship tight end, period. He's a true freshman, Brevin Jordan. Obviously Brevin has done a nice job for us and all.

But you know, we've got Brevin Jordan as I mentioned, and then we have a walk on tight end named Nick Ducheine. So I'll be honest with you, I'm not even sure what number Ducheine is going to wear. But if you see another tight end in there besides Brevin, that will be who it is. We don't have a lot of depth at all right now.

Q. Is there anything maybe switching receiver to tight ends, like Njoku or anybody?
MARK RICHT: There's no way they could learn what to do and be functional at tight end. You'd have to just go to different personnel groups if something happened. You'd have to go two backs and three receivers or something like that.

To try to teach a guy what to do at tight end on a week's notice would be literally impossible to do. You're better off just trying to get into another personnel group that gives you a better shot at guys knowing what to do.

Q. In your opinion, why is it so hard to win a conference game in the ACC, and why is it even harder to do it on the road?
MARK RICHT: You know, it's a great question. We've won a bunch at home in a row. Of course we lost our Bowl game, which was a neutral site.

But in-season at home, we've done well. In-season, out of our home stadium hasn't been, as well, that's been a trend. I know this past week, I think 11 out of the Top-25 got beat, and ten of them were away from home. You'll see a game where Purdue might get beat on the road, and then they play Ohio State at home and play lights-out. Oregon had a big victory against Stanford at home, and then they played away from home and got beat.

It's just the nature of the beast. Having home-field advantage, sounds like a clichÃ©, but there's a lot of truth to it. Being at home and having your fan base there helps a lot and we look forward to ours being there.

Q. At this point of the season, how do you get your offensive line better and are there any changes that have to be made to make that better?
MARK RICHT: Well, we are improving, and I don't know what's out there as far as everybody wants to blame somebody, but the O-Line position group tends to get a lot of it, but you know, it takes everybody to do their job.

It takes receivers to block downfield on running plays that the ball gets spit into the perimeter. It takes tight ends and running backs to pick up blitzes and things of that nature, part of pass protection at times. But I'll say this: When you make a lot of changes, then you're kind of starting Ground Zero sometimes.

If we were going to make a change, it would be to probably a true freshman, and you start making changes to true freshmen, we already have enough of them playing right now. You add a couple more, and you go through the learning curve. You know, everybody struggles because one guy is still trying to figure it out.

We're much better off continuing to get the guys better that have been getting their repetitions, and just, you know, getting the position of not making the same mistake twice.

Q. Is there something that you have to get the running game established, too, because it seems like the running game hasn't really been that there this year, a couple games -- something you can get going this weekend?
MARK RICHT: That would cure a lot. That would help a lot. Any time your running game gets going, your play-action pass is better. You start throwing the ball when you want to throw it rather than when you have to throw it. It's going to be important to get that off the ground.

And again, I've seen plays where we block it beautifully up front and it get into the perimeter and a guy, you know, on the edge maybe doesn't set up just right and you might get a six-yard gain when it could have been a 25-, 30-yard gain.

All the little things matter. Receivers are more than route runners and ball catchers. They are blockers, and sometimes we flex our tight ends out and they have to block out there in space. And so you know, the running game has a lot to do with everybody and then you've got the QB run that the QB has to make good decisions. Sometimes he should hand the ball off and sometimes he should pull the ball, and you know, one mistake on missing a chance to pull it and run for 20, can hurt your run stats, too. But we definitely need to get the running game going, you're right on that.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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