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STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 31, 2019

David Shaw

Stanford, California

Stanford - 17, Northwestern - 7

COACH SHAW: First of all, I don't have any answers on injuries at all. It's a shame their running back got hurt. I love watching that young man play. He plays the game the way it's supposed to be played.

Our quarterback, we'll see how he is the next couple of days. And then Walker Little, we'll see where he is. I don't have any answers to any questions about injuries right now.

But as far as the game goes, typical first game. You expect your defense and you hope your defense keeps you in the game as you find your rhythm on the offensive side. We got so many veterans on defensive side. So many fourth- and fifth-year seniors, so much leadership that we knew it was going to take those guys keeping us in the game, and they did.

Bunch of stops. Bunch of third-down stops. Got turnovers. Our big-time players made big-time players, Paulson Adebo and Casey Toohill, our guys made big tackles in open space -- Jordan Fox.

I thought we played much better on the defensive line. We got pressure on the quarterback from defensive line position which didn't happen a lot last year. Thought Jovan played well last year but as a group we played better as a unit.

Special teams wise, we don't accept excuses. (Indiscernible). We have one of the best kickers in America. We've got to get the snap, the hold, the protection, gotta get the kick. Gotta come away with points every time that group goes on the field.

Return game, excited about our returners. We've got receivers involved in the return game. We decided to keep Cam Scarlett out of that because of our health as a running back. We knew he would have to carry the load for us.

He loves kickoff return; we had to take him away from that. But between Mike Wilson and Connor Wedington, I think we have two guys back there that are not just guys who go back there and catch it, they can break. We've got stay on our blocks, give those guys creases, we've got a chance to make plays. And Mike as punt returner, same thing.

Thought our coverage units did pretty well. Had some nice kickoffs. Got a young punter that we think is going to be outstanding. Had a couple of miss-hits today, but we're staying with him and continue to push him and know that he's going to be better than average. We think he's going to be outstanding.

So we're going to stay with him and help him continue to grow. Coach Alamar does a great job with those guys.

Offensively, no mistake about it. Said it in the press conference, been saying it since the beginning of last year, our bowl game last year -- we have to run the ball better. Against an outstanding run defense we did.

We were physical up front. We weren't perfect. But we stayed on guys and we pushed guys and gave our running backs a crease. And multiple times today, give Cam Scarlett the credit. We challenged him after the bowl game last year, multiple times today we had a running back one-on-one with a guy in space.

And last year we didn't get enough yards. Outside of Bryce Love we didn't get enough yards. You saw it today with Cam and Dorian Maddox -- guys one-on-one in space making guys miss, breaking tackles. That's working hard in the offseason. That's pushing yourself and listening to the critique from a year ago saying where we have to get better.

We can't block everything perfectly, especially against a really good, big, physical defensive. Never going to be perfect. Thought our running backs ran through the trash. I thought we did from the running back position.

Quarterback wise, including both quarterbacks, I thought both quarterbacks for the most part played well. Boy, I know there's two throws in the first half K.J. would love to have back. Big opportunities to make big plays. We hit those plays and the game's probably not as close as it was at the end.

We've got big receivers. We've got speed receivers. We've got guys that can make big plays. Tight ends can make plays down the field. We've got to take advantage of those. We missed a couple.

Second half too many turnovers. Fumbled the ball twice. Davis Mills is a great athlete as well as being a great quarterback. But he's a young quarterback. And we can't put the ball on the ground. The first one and it's a replay, if he pulls it we probably get about somewhere between eight to 10 yards.

The last one that we fumbled, if he pulls it he might have scored a touchdown. They blitzed everybody; if he pulls the ball we have one receiver blocking one defensive back, he has a chance to run and score a touchdown.

So those are learning experiences for a young quarterback. Once again I have no answer on who is going to be healthy enough to play next week. So all I know is we're not going to change our game plan based on who plays quarterback. I think all our quarterbacks can run our stuff. We're going to game plan for the Trojans.

Q. (Question about the targeting)?
COACH SHAW: I have no comment on the targeting review. I didn't see the video clip of it. I didn't see it happen live.

Q. Talked offseason protecting (inaudible), would be good at. Game one, how would you evaluate the offense and defense?
COACH SHAW: Defensively, without watching the film, I thought we were -- probably give us somewhere around a B plus. I really do. Guys ran their gaps. Physical against the run. Quarterback run, get you sometimes, (inaudible) quarterback and accounted for and did a good job mixing those in.

But for the most part I thought we played really well. Special teams-wise B, B minus, probably. Thought we could have played so much better.

We need the proper snap and kick, and we need the proper punts. But for the most part I thought we played well. We can play so much better.

Offensively, a run game, I'd say B plus. Pass game, I'd say B minus, C plus. We completed the ones that were good. We were in rhythm. We hit our guys. The guys made plays after the catch.

We said at the end of last year we're going to be better, run after catch. We did that today, quick balls out there, made some guys miss and go.

But for us to be who we want to be, with runs and play actions, we've got to hit the big ones. If they give us an opportunity to hit the big ones, we've got to hit the big ones. And they were there to be hit and we didn't hit them. It was a tighter game than it should have been.

Q. (Question off microphone)?
COACH SHAW: Absolutely. We'll continue to see Dorian roll in there and play. Dorian missed some training camp also. He's a little banged up, only been back about a week and a half or so. Hopefully as he continues to get fresh and get healthy I think we have an outstanding 1-2 punch between those two guys. Both guys can run and pass protect and can catch.

So really Dorian is going to help us have a healthy camp hopefully for the whole years. They'll be able to rotate in and out and keep each other healthy.

Q. You praised the maturity of this team all through the offseason. Can you take us from a Northwestern score and it was 10-7 how you closed it out and what you saw on the sideline and what you saw on the field in terms of maturity?
COACH SHAW: It's one of the things that you want as a coach, when things are difficult, I don't have turn into Knute Rockne. I don't have to do all the talking.

The talking should come from the players and from the coaches relating to the guys what we need to do next. There's no sense of panic. There's a sense of, hey, we haven't played well enough so they're still in the game, so let's go out there and play better.

The fourth quarter chatter I thought was outstanding. Guys were positive. Guys were pushing each other. Guys were trying to go out there and excel.

Players were having ideas. I talked to the coaches in the offseason, and I want our guys to know our stuff so well that they have suggestions, right? Hey, coach we're doing this but they may be giving us this. Maybe we can rush this way. So we can have that dialogue.

It's not negative. It's actually really positive. They're seeing the game with the coaches. I think we have great dialogue because of our leadership, because of our age and experience, because of our guys, their unselfish nature, trying to push each other, trying to help each other.

Nothing makes you happier than when a guy makes a play, a guy in his own position is the first to come off the bench to celebrate with him. I saw that a lot today. Our guys are invested and they're working really hard, have to clean up a lot of things. Another big test next week.

Q. To follow up on that, after the turnover in the second from Davis, did you see any interest knowing he'll have to go out there and lead (inaudible) of the game?
COACH SHAW: I didn't need to say much to Davis. I gave him a coaching point in a nice way. But I've told Davis since we started recruiting him, he's probably the one guy on the team that has the exact same mentality as I do, the exact same personality, the exact same kind of you know even keel. Some people see it as a positive; some people don't.

But he was upset at himself but not too upset. He knows what he needs to do better. I had no problem throwing him back out there. He knew what to do. He made two big mistakes. Two big mistakes that he'll learn from.

But if he's going to play next week, we're not going to pare the offense down. He knows what to do. And he has the skills to go out and play them.

He threw some beautiful balls today. The one down the seam to Colby, heck of a throw. That fastball outside to Michael Wilson, that's not a throw a lot of college football players can make. He just stepped into it, flipped it.

He can make all the throws, athletic enough to get out in scrambles for first downs for positive yards. So if K.J. is healthy, he'll go back out there. He's our starter. He's our leader and captain. And if he's not healthy, we have all the faith and confidence that Davis can go out there and win the game.

Q. Any surprise factor that Paulson was put in position to make plays and then is there any surprise (inaudible)?
COACH SHAW: No. Guy's a top-tier defensive back. And there are certain guys that you worry about saying that early in the season his junior year. I don't worry about Paulson. Paulson is one of the hardest working guys on this team. He's one of the hardest guys on himself on our football team.

He demands excellence from himself. Sometimes you have to make sure that you get him to take some air out of the balloon because if he doesn't make a play he gets so angry, upset at himself. He's so focused and locked in.

I don't anticipate over the course of the year him having a chance to make a lot of plays. But I do believe most balls will go over to the other side.

I know he's going to be willing and patient and know his job, do it really well. If he gets opportunities he's going to deflect some. If he gets too many opportunities he'll intercept them.

Q. (Question off microphone)?
COACH SHAW: So our honorary captain is Chris Marinelli. And some of you have been here a while, knows Chris started quite a few years for us. He was one of the first leaders we had when we got here with Coach Harbaugh in 2007. And not only was he a founding member of the Tunnels Workers Union, he was the founder. It was his idea. It was him bringing it from his father's experience in Boston as a tunnel worker.

And I talked to guys about the mentality, doing the dirty work, about being physical, talked to the entire team, spent a lot of time with the offensive line. Coach Harbaugh did a great job offseason with that entire group. And Chris came in, put the cherry on top today.

As we got into the fourth quarter, we started hearing guys talking about the union, put it on the union, the guys up front know. They know we're running it and being physical, and Chris put something in their heads about those years we started really churning, with Stephon (phonetic) and with Toby Gerhart, with Tyler Gaffney.

We were really getting good running the football. There's a lot of pride we have, the defense, knows we're running it and we still running and still get a first down, seven yards, six yards or four yards.

We believe we run the clock out. Asked a question earlier in the week about rush versus pass. And if you throw the ball well and smartly, which I think we could have thrown the ball better in the first half, run the ball in the second half.

If you're good at running it, you're going to end up with kind of lopsided stats; but for most of the second half we had a two-score lead and then one-score lead with less than four minutes to go, less than three minutes to go.

We run the ball. If we get a first down they're not going to have time to score. It's kind of the law of diminishing returns as far as the clock is concerned, keep the clock churning make them take their timeouts, try to impose our will on the defense and hopefully we can finish the ballgame.

Q. You've had seasons where you've had to make it work with a skeleton crew on the defensive line. Can you talk about today the fact that you have to get the motivation going and what a difference that makes for you guys?
COACH SHAW: It's huge. It's huge. Jovan Swann has had an outstanding offseason, as has Michael Williams. Those were two of our leaders, our seniors, and our defensive linemen. Those guys played well today. I don't know how many stats they had, but they played well.

But the guys you commend: Thomas Booker, we'll see how he is health-wise. But Thomas had a great offseason. He's a playmaker, has a chance to be really, really good. He's made some growth.

But where we needed growth was the guys behind him. Thomas Schaffer came in and made some plays today. Played well. Dalyn Wade-Perry made some plays.

We need those guys to continue to come out so we can rotate those guys so everybody can stay fresh. I know Dalen got a hit on the quarterback. And Thomas had some really nice pressure in the running game, splitting guys, pushing guys back. We need to dig deep there so we can rotate those guys, keep them fresh.

Q. Northwestern quarterback, how did you prepare for both?
COACH SHAW: Didn't even think about it. Didn't think about it. Didn't really care who was going to play quarterback for them. We knew they were going to run their offense. Both guys are decent athletes. We knew there was going to be some element of quarterback run into it.

They probably ran the ball with the quarterback more than we anticipated. We made some adjustments there in the second half. But for the most part we didn't spend a moment thinking about it because it's more important that we focus on our defense than who they have playing at quarterback.

Q. One of the ways to victory was (inaudible) and Wilson. I don't recall you having some receivers that can do that. (Inaudible)?
COACH SHAW: Let me choose my words wisely here because when I answer questions like that in the wrong way I get a lot of text messages and phone calls from former receivers.

When we had Ty Montgomery, he was a really good down-the-field receiver but also built like a running back, get the ball in his hands quickly.

That's where Connor Wedington, his background is being a running back. We got the ball quickly to him a couple times but also a good downfield receiver.

Mike Wilson is a complete receiver as well. Great route runner, very physical after the catch, punt returners, kickoff returners. And we wanted to take the pressure off the quarterbacks. Seen them take shots down the field, but we have to take advantage of those off-coverage, give those guys a chance, we broke a lot of tackles, probably more broken tackles by receiver in this game than we've probably had since we had Ty Montgomery and Doug Baldwin, those guys.

But it's something we've emphasized. We haven't emphasized it as much in the past. JJ, JJ broke some tackles also. But he was such a great down-the-field receiver, kept throwing the ball down the field.

With this group, we wanted to do both, down the field but also have a quick game, take so much pressure off the quarterback and the offensive line.

Q. Three-quarters, three-and-a-half quarters (inaudible), the scoreboard didn't say it, but you were in complete control of the game and had to kind of grind it out. What is your concern in terms of building momentum off this one as you take it on the road to USC?
COACH SHAW: Well, my hope is that we hit those three passes that we should have hit. So that's 10-0, 17-0 or 24 or 28-0. That's what my hope is to keep the running game to be physical.

But when someone drops safeties down or blitzes, like Northwestern did today, that we pick it up. We have an opportunity down the field one-on-one. Mike Wilson was open down the field. Colby Parkinson was open twice down the field. Cyrus. We took one shot. It was kind of a 50/50 ball.

Probably threw the ball a little too far. But he had another shot down the field, as well as Simi Fehoko.

We have some guys that make plays down the field, have a chance to take one-on-one matchups down the field we feel are in our favor.

So that's the thing for me is to play as well as we did on defense. Play a little bit better in the kicking game, play a lot better on the offensive side, on the passing game, but also be as physical as we were in this game, more so as we run the ball the rest of the season.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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