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FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 10, 2018

Willie Taggart

South Bend, Indiana

Notre Dame - 42, Florida State - 13

THE MODERATOR: Coach will give a quick opening statement, and then take questions.

WILLIE TAGGART: Another tough loss for our guys. They did what we couldn't do in this ball game. We came in and wanted to start fast, and we didn't. We met a really good football team, and you can't do that. Disappointed. We wanted to start fast, we thought taking the ball hopefully our offense could do something to get going, but we didn't. We made mistakes, had an interception early in the game and a turnover early in the game on our side of the building. Against a good football team, you can't do that. For our football team we definitely can't do that right now.

Q. Coach, third straight game you guys gave up over 40 points. What has gone wrong with the defense?
WILLIE TAGGART: I think we've got to tackle better. We've got to be better in our gaps, and as coaches we've got to make sure we put our guys in right position to make the plays we are capable of making.

I also think helping on the offensive side of the ball early in the game would help as well, but I think what happened is we're getting so far behind, and we're not stopping the run, which we did earlier, and then you can't make them one dimensional. That hurts you. Having a faster start, playing offense better earlier would help our defense, but tackling is what our defense needs to do, and getting in the gaps.

Q. Coach, your secondary, specifically the safeties were being asked to cover one-on-one a lot, and they were asked to do it again tonight for the third straight game. Has there been any thought to doing anything differently, because it's obviously not working.
WILLIE TAGGART: It is. If you watched the game you see what we differently. You see the interception we got and we weren't playing man.

Q. (No microphone.)
WILLIE TAGGART: No, I didn't think that. I think any quarterback is going to struggle when you have a lot of drops, and you don't get into a rhythm. So I didn't think putting Blackman in was going to spark our football team, and I don't think putting him in was going to make you catch balls or anything like that.

Q. (No microphone.)
WILLIE TAGGART: (No microphone.) We dropped the pass and they caught 'em. We've got to catch the football. We've got to catch the football. The other one, hold onto the football. We gotta continue to work at it. Again, it's disappointing, because it's holding us back, but we can't stop. We've gotta keep working on it at practice, and then bringing the attitude to the game. I think that's one of our issues is mental toughness, discipline and execution.

Tonight I thought discipline was a lot better, but executionwise, we went backwards.

Q. Coach, third coldest game at Notre Dame Stadium since 1980. How much do you think the weather had an affect on your team tonight?
WILLIE TAGGART: It didn't. We just didn't execute. No one was talking about the weather. We didn't execute. We had a chance, offense would move the ball at times, and then we were stepping in our own way. Defense we gave up too many big plays, explosive plays, and you asked about our defense that's probably the biggest thing is giving up too many explosive plays.

Q. You had a chance to face two teams that might be in the College Football Playoffs, Clemson and Notre Dame. How do think they compare, Clemson and Notre Dame?
WILLIE TAGGART: They are both undefeated. Both good football teams. They play good football. They execute, and they don't beat themselves.

Q. (No microphone.)
WILLIE TAGGART: And they are a veteran football team.

Q. Patrick and Akers, Patrick gave you some good runs tonight; Akers gave you couple of touchdown runs. Talk about them. Are they finally getting the running game going?
WILLIE TAGGART: It's getting better. They did a little better today. We had some good runs here and there. We've got to be more consistent with it. I think, again, we get behind early, it's hard because the team can just run the football, see what those guys do. Starting slow hurt us in a lot of ways, and we've got to find a way to start faster.

Q. You talked about players quitting in the second half, but tonight it seemed like the team really kept their heads high and battled to not let it get out of hand in the second half.
WILLIE TAGGART: I mean, not just tonight. I thought we had fight last week, too. (No microphone.) Couple guys here and there we felt like didn't do it. Our guys have been working. They want to win. They're working their tails off. Probably trying so hard we're getting in our own way. But our guys also understand that we've got to change that. So no one needs to hold their heads down or anything, pick our heads up and keep working and try to find a way go to get out of the storm we're in. That's what we're going to do.

We have two important ball games left. We have something to play for, and our guys will come out and continue to work hard and get out of this storm.

Q. Is it great to have the last two games at home?
WILLIE TAGGART: Absolutely, great to have it at home and I know a lot of our fans are disappointed, which they should be, but we're going to need them. I think our fans can help us, too, get out of this. We're going to need them.

Q. (No microphone.)
WILLIE TAGGART: We didn't have much. This was the first game where it was that way. It was disappointing because the throws were there, and that stops drives, stopped some of the things we wanted to do with offense and the ball. I don't think he had a drop this year, and he had multiple in this game. Just one of those days. It's frustrating.

Q. Coach, you got another physical team coming in next, Boston College. Is it more of an execution thing or more keep doing what you're doing? What are your thoughts?
WILLIE TAGGART: It's executing. We gotta understand what they're doing, and as coaches make sure we put our players in the best situation we can to stop 'em.

Then as players, go out and get it done. We've got to go better at tackling. You know, we let guys have too many yards after contact. That's not Florida State football. That's not defense in general. We've got to be better. And not giving up explosive plays. Three weeks in a low we've given up explosive plays and it's hard to win that way. Hard to play good defensive that way.

Q. Joshua from Baltimore, talk about him and his development behind Brian.
WILLIE TAGGART: He's come a long way. Kaindoh has been injured. Last year he got injured and he was just coming back and getting better and better and had a great week in practice, and he's a tremendous talent. The more plays he sees the better he's going to be. He's one we're going to lean on as we continue to move forward.

Q. You moved the ball fairly well most of the game, but you had seven tries that ended in Notre Dame territory and you came away with 13 points. How frustrating is that? Why do you think that happened?
WILLIE TAGGART: It's very frustrating. It's lack of execution. Again, we need to execute consistently. We've gotta be better. I think our guys, for us, they have to score faster. Not have the long drives but score faster. The long drives we tend to make a mistake in, and part of that has to do with the young football team. We've got a lot of young guys, and they're trying their hearts out, but we've got to try it the right way. And do it the way that you've been training. More importantly, do it under the lights. That's where we all need to do it.

Q. Throughout most of the season your defensive line has been one of the strongest units on the team, but in the past three weeks you haven't had a sack and they have struggled against the run. Is there anything in particular you have noticed that has been an issue up font?
WILLIE TAGGART: Yeah, we are not getting to the quarterback. Gotta find different ways to try to get there. We're not getting there with our four-man rush. When we do blitz, they're throwing the ball and we get back and cover and get pass interference. That's not helping us as well. I do think some of the things Coach Barnett did there in the second half, where we didn't play man coverage, and we got some turnovers, our guys could see the ball. I think when our backs are not turned to the ball helps our guys. We have some talented players back there, and I think they can make more plays when they see things in front of them. Up front we've got to rush one-on-one. A lot of time they're chipping and double-teaming Burns, and that's when someone else needs to step up and make a play for us.

I want to say that, too, you've gotta stop the run. Hard to get there when you don't stop the run. So we've got to stop the run.

Q. Coach, you took snaps under center, Cam played a little Wildcat. Are you just trying something new?
WILLIE TAGGART: We start so slow we get behind we can't do a lot of things we want to do as a team. That's why it's important for us to start fast and not be so far behind so we can't run the things we want to run. Things we had in our package. We weren't able to get to them.

Q. What went into the decision to start Deondre tonight?
WILLIE TAGGART: Francois, he was healthy, ready to go. He didn't play the week before because he wasn't healthy. We had to go through the week and see -- he didn't practice the week before. We needed to see how he practiced and performed and he did a good job with it. So we thought it was right to put him in there, and he did some good things. Probably missed a lot of throws, but he had a lot of drops that didn't allow him to get into a rhythm, and that's tough for a quarterback. I don't care who you are, it's tough to get into a rhythm and get some things going. That's why we started him.

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