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BOSTON COLLEGE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 12, 2018

Steve Addazio

Boston, Massachusetts

STEVE ADDAZIO: Okay, guys. Getting ready to head into another big week. Heading down to Tallahassee, playing a really talented football team, at home, highly motivated to be able to get to bowl eligibility, and an offense that has a quarterback that has a great arm, great skilled player, and a defense that watching tape this week or Sunday and today, very few people have been able to get much going early in the game. It appears later in the game some people are able to make some hay against them. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the defense is on the field a little bit longer.

But this is a very talented football team. No one ever had any doubt about that. We are talking about four and five stars everywhere. Top recruiting classes that didn't go away.

So this is a talented team and a motivated team on their home field, will create a big challenge for us.

Obviously we need to have a great week. We came off a very emotional game. A lot of energy was put into that game. A game, which after reviewing it, I believe we played with a tremendous amount of intensity. We got dealt a tough blow early, and the kids responded with great effort and great intensity, and now we have to rally back up because we have a chance to get the eighth win of our season, which has not been something that has happened a lot here, and there is a lot left here to go. Our team has a great mindset and great attitude.

Anthony Brown had an abdominal injury. He's day to day but doing well. So I think we are prepared to have a great week this week, with great focus and need to get prepared to bring that down on the road with us.

So I'm happy to answer any questions.

Q. Steve, in AB's case, are you preparing as if he can go or do you have to just have to roll with EJ again?
STEVE ADDAZIO: I think it's day to day. I think obviously, EJ is going to get a bunch of reps, then we will see how that is going each day, but Anthony is doing well, but I'm not a doctor. What does that exactly mean? I guess tomorrow morning I'll get another update and be able to figure out, does he take active reps? If so, how many? And we will go from there?

Q. (No microphone).
STEVE ADDAZIO: I don't know that. Maybe not. I think I'm cautiously optimistic and we will see how it all goes?

Q. How about AJ, too?
STEVE ADDAZIO: AJ is really honestly about the same as it's been each week. I think he comes off the game, doesn't feel great on Sundays and Mondays, and as the week goes on, we see improvement. I think we are trying to see if we can get to the point where we can get some real practice reps because what's happening right now is we are not able to get any practice reps, and that affects us.

So I would say day to day from the status of practice reps. It's just trying to dictate what the previous game's impact had on that ankle.

But again, as I said, Saturday I gave a lot of credit to AJ. He's really tried to battle through that every week. This is a very, very tough injury for a running back, and usually one that's going to linger until you get an extended period of time where you can get beyond it. So he's certainly not having the opportunity to play at the level that he wants to play at. But the fact that he is shows you the kind of toughness and determination he has to do whatever he can do for as long as long as he can do it to help the team?

Q. Back to FSU, are there any discernible differentness between Francois and Blackman? And do you have to kind of game plan differently?
STEVE ADDAZIO: I think there are some similarities in both, but they both throw the ball well. They are more passers first than runners first. We have played them both, they are both talented guys. So I don't think it will affect how we prepare. Obviously one's got a little bit more banked experience, but to some degree kind of similar skill sets.

Q. I want to ask you about some of the play-makers have you on defense. Specifically, Hamp and Wyatt up near the tops of the stats. What have you seen from them this year?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well the biggest play-maker on defense is Zach Allen. He's making plays all the over the field that anybody can see. But certainly Hamp has made a bunch of plays in terms of INTs, which are recorded on levels in the NCAA and Wyatt has got a bunch of sacks, but those are just two guys on a defense that's very opportunistic, that has made a lot of big plays.

I think the biggest impact that we have done definitely, certainly we have done a good job with sacks and takeaways but certainly we have created a lot of unsettlement to quarterbacks with hurries and hits. So there is a lot going into that. But I think those two guys have done a good job with INTs and sacks, and both are athletic guys and experienced guys, but we have a number of those guys on our defense right now.

Q. Do you think that Zach's play is benefiting Wyatt in that pattern?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Oh think there is no question that it's all complementary football right now, but Zach Allen has been completely dominant in every game - run, pass, everything. Wyatt is playing exceptionally well. Those are two of the best ends in the country. They are exceptional players. That will prove itself to be true.

Got to have another big game out of those guys. Ray Smith and Tanner Karafa inside. Got to have an another great game on the back end. We held the No. 2 team in the country and one the most potent offenses in America that averages 48 points a game, they scored 20 points on our defense, which gave us a great opportunity going into the four quarter, as we said we wanted. Had we had an opportunity to keep our quarterback healthy beyond six plays into the game, that would have been the kind of game that at the end, it was still a great game, but it would have been a game at the end that we would have hoped that we could get into, which was really, really going into the fourth quarter with an opportunity to win it.

But again, the way we played, against that team, I'm not sure anybody has played them to that level, especially without your starting quarterback. So I thought it was an outstanding effort against, I told you at the beginning of last week, it was one of the most elite teams in the country. There's two teams and everybody else. That team, that was an elite team. Our intensity and the way we played gave us a great opportunity, even with losing our starting quarterback after the sixth play, we were still in very much in the middle of that game until that punt return. Because you're only a play away against defenses like that. Sometimes it's very stingy, stingy and then you can crack something.

We had opportunities in the throw game that with wide open people for a touchdown. So there was opportunity. It's a tough sled, then with running it, they were loading the box so heavily that there was opportunities in the throw game.

Q. Right after Saturday's game you were still (inaudible) how early in the game AB went down. It seemed like you were still processing it. With AD's situation and AJ's situation, is it kind of one of those things in the preseason that you are like, at worst case scenario that you kind of brace for (inaudible)?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah, I mean, I don't think any team in the country wants that to happen on any level. We experienced it firsthand last year when we last Anthony. We have been down that road. We were playing at a high, high level last year at that point in time. Any team is going to get affected that way.

See, here is what goes on, we have a lot of confidence in EJ Perry. EJ Perry is going to be one heck of a football player. The biggest problem you have in college football is with the amount of hours that you have and the time demands, that you can't get two quarterbacks with an equal amount of reps to get them ready, or one or the other, or one is going to suffer. It isn't like Anthony has been here for five years.

So EJ suffered from the standpoint, which a lot of backup quarterbacks have to do, is not getting the right amount of reps. Now in the summertime, he had a ton of reps. He was playing at a really high level. I would assume this week that EJ will get certainly at a minimum a fair amount -- a lot more reps than he had one week ago. That position, as you guys know, everything is hinged on that position. You saw what happened with the Patriots. That production at that position is critical. They're leaders. They're the greatest. That's how that rolls.

So you want that guy who holds so much control of that offense and that team to have the maximal preparation for every game. So for EJ, he didn't have that. That's what's tough, when those things happen like that, you're usually given a chance to have the next week to get more preparation, you can have a much better opportunity. That's why that's so impactful when that happens in a football game.

Now, some people have guys that are backups that are fourth- and fifth-year players. That can help you a little bit because they have a little bit more bank of experience or even possibly more game experience, because you've been able to get up more significantly during the season. There is a lot of things that can help that you a little bit. Even last year when Anthony had gotten hurt, Darius had had at least more game experience and more time in the program.

But I want you to know that EJ Perry is a very talented player. I think you guys got a good vision of that. He can throw it. He can run it. He's got a tremendous presence and courage. But on a specific game plan during the week, you need those reps at a high level to give yourself your best opportunity, especially when you're playing at the level that we were playing against. You can overcompensate it sometimes against other opponents, but on that one? Then your tailback is not able to play at the level that he's capable of playing at, and he's out of the game at some point there in the fourth period. That's just is what it is, and it's hard.

Yet you didn't see that team ever stop competing for one second. So that shows where I think our team and our program is. There are a lot of teams out there that without their starting quarterback, without a healthy starting running back and wish they could have played at a level that we played at right there.

Q. (No microphone).
STEVE ADDAZIO: Oh, we are getting EJ reps. We are rolling. Yeah, I mean the good news is on the reverse -- "good news" isn't probably the right way to categorize that, but on the reverse flip of that, but if Anthony gets less reps, he's certainly got so many reps during the season, he's got a little bank. That's not perfect either because he's still a young player and needs all those looks that you could possibly give. But at least he has a bank of looks to this point.

So EJ is having an opportunity to get a lot more looks than what he had a chance last week to do. Where that really shows up is in the throw game. That's where it shows up more than the run game, it's the throw game because of the multiple coverages and the things you have to do in the throw game that are necessary.

I think he's does a great job of throwing the ball and reading defenses. Just those specific coverage looks, some of those coverages we saw were a little bit more unique. They weren't vanilla.

Q. (No microphone).
STEVE ADDAZIO: No, no. Oh, in the game? Yes, of course. If you put a young guy in the game that doesn't really have a lot of game time in there, yes, it makes you have to process and think about every call because you have a game plan registered a certain way, and now you are saying -- you're trying in real quick time to process what this -- this may be best to attack this, but what's best to build the confidence of a young guy and not to expose him right away and try to build into it? Which again is very difficult when you're playing against that level a team in game to do.

I think moving forward you want to pay close attention to giving a guy a chance -- shoot, we were still doing that with Anthony. Honestly, you're talking about really essentially -- he's just about probably has completed basically a full season of play, Anthony. So he's still young in the process here. But EJ is very young in the process.

And the psyche of that is important. I thought EJ came in and played with great courage and confidence. I was really impressed with that. Then as the game wore through and it became more evident that we needed to really engage in getting the ball down the field, that's where it gets more complicated and more exposure is going to come.

Q. When EJ entered the game it looks like you cams turned to a speed option of sorts --
STEVE ADDAZIO: Read option.

Q. Yeah, speed or read option. What went into that decision? You ran it more infrequently than when Anthony was in there. Was it more evident --
STEVE ADDAZIO: No, quite frankly it's a skill set thing. We were starting to really little by little have more than and more of a game plan even with Anthony because he has dual-threat capability. As I said earlier, we were slow with that, with his injury coming back, blah, blah. But with EJ, EJ, I don't know if you guys realize, EJ is an exceptional athlete. He has tremendous measurables. He's very fast, very explosive. Great change of direction. You'd be shocked by it, his measurables are elite and he can throw it. So to put him in the game, he's very, very comfortable in an option setting. So we wanted to let him utilize his legs to give us a little kick.

We had one play, I can't remember which one it was, soon after he had been in the same early on, he ran a read zone, was probably gone for a touchdown and he lost his footing and it was like a six or eight-yard gain that was like, whoa, this thing is gone because he's fast. That was a touchdown. But that's all part of the amp of getting in the game, the adrenaline and you're playing fast. It's all part of that stuff. It's just all part of it.

He gives us another element. Bus Anthony has got a really real dual threat capability to him. But EJ is legit fast, and EJ has got a really good arm as well. So we are going to certainly utilize those skills, absolutely.

Q. Coach, that hit on Anthony looked like the kind of hit that's illegal at the pro level.
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah, probably. People have told me that. I don't know all the rules of the pros out but yeah.

Q. Do you think the NCAA should look into changing that a little?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah, I think, I mean the NCAA is really proactive in trying to do everything they can for player welfare. That's what's going on with all the hits to the head and cut blocks and really a lot of conversation about kickoff return teams. They are really working hard, which I'm a real big proponent of, trying to make the game safer.

So yeah, I think it's reasonable to say that's probably another rule change that could occur. I'm not on that committee per se but that would make sense to me. They are trying in the NFL to really protect the quarterbacks at a high level, and I get that, they take a lot of tough shots.

That was kind of a really unique thing, and certainly by no means any ill intent or anything like that. It was just guys trying to play hard and part of the game, but I think that's a piece that we can help taking some of the -- it will be controversial early, just like the targeting rule is. And nothing is perfect, but I think these are all things that we can grow with to make the game safer.

Q. After the game I think Dabo mentioned he called to check on you and Anthony. Is that pretty unique for an opposing coach?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, Dabo is that kind of guy. I wouldn't say it's unique but I think it shows you he's -- I like Dabo a lot because I think Dabo is a great guy. I think he's a sincere, caring guy. I think Christian is a great guy and a sincere, caring guy, and I think that was really terrific that they did that. It speaks who they are. I think it's good for college football and these are good people. These are good guys.

We all understand you get on the field and you are battling against each other. It's a tough sport but at the end of the day your thought process is you want the best for everybody. You don't want to see anybody get hurt. You don't want to inflict anything on anybody. You are just trying to do the best you can to make a play.

Q. Was it Dabo and Christian calling (inaudible)?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Dabo I spoke, with Dabo via text. I spoke to him after the game. And via text he had mentioned to me that Christian was looking to reach out to him. I don't know that that occurred. I haven't talked to Anthony about that. I would assume it might have, but that's what Dabo had mentioned to me via text.

All set, guys? Thanks.

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