	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 26, 2019

David Shaw

Stanford, California

Stanford - 41, Arizona - 31

DAVID SHAW: All the questions were understandable. What we're doing, how we're doing it. I'm not as excitable as some in a positive or negative way, and this is the reason why. We've got a lot of football left to play.

I was hoping our quarterback was going to be able to come back, but either way, we talked about, as a staff this week, we talked about this morning and talked about after the game. Give ourselves a chance to win this game, and with all the stuff that's going on, we've won three out of four.

People outside our building can panic. Fans can panic. Alumni can panic. That's fine. We don't. We trust what we do. It's been very, very successful here. Not going to worry about the injuries. Whoever's injured, hey, we'll coach up the next guys and go out there and play.

But we're sitting here going to the bye winning three out of the last four games and playing some good football. Not perfect, a lot of things we can grow on and learn and do better, but the bottom line is we like the guys we have, we like what we're doing. We've been able to be successful three out of the last four games.

We've got a tough month ahead of us coming back after the bye, but we're not going to worry about that right now. We need to get rested. We need to get off our feet. Usually, when you have a late season bye, you are trying to find a way to rest your older guys and get some of your younger guys moving around and playing, some of the guys that maybe aren't taking a lot of snaps. With us, we're playing most of our younger guys, so they need some rest too.

So we're backing off practice. Usually we practice three times. We'll practice two times, cut down both of those practices. We've got to get as many guys healthy as possible for this last four-game push of the season.

On the game today, can't say enough about K.J. Costello, him coming back, and it wasn't just throwing the football. Two-time captain, senior, leader, felt his energy, felt his passion, pushing guys, talking to them, giving us great feedback coming from the field, and right from this morning's walk through, we just felt it from him, and he was going to make it a go. Hoping he can make it through, and he did. But can't say enough about the juice that he gave us as a player and as a captain, leader for us.

Up front, I thought we played well. We took another step. Difficult last week. We came back and played better this week. That's what you're going to get from young guys. You're going to have learning moments. To have a 300-yard passer and a 100-yard rusher in Cameron Scarlett and almost a 100-yard receiver in Simi Fehoko. It was 11 different guys caught passes. We won't talk about K.J.'s catch. But to spread the ball around, you saw K.J. go from his No. 1 receiver to his No. 2 to his No. 3, hit the checkdown three different times. Twice the checkdown was a running back, and another time the checkdown was a receiver. That's what you need from your experienced leader-quarterback.

Defensively, Khalil Tate is going to make a couple of plays. He's a difference maker. A couple of long runs, one long touchdown. You chalk that one up. He's going to do it against anybody and everybody. After that, we made him run lateral. We did a better job containing, better job staying on coverage down the field, so he had nobody to throw it to. Got some big time stops on defense.

Coach Anderson and the guys got them ready, and the guys played really well. A lot of kudos to Paulson Adebo, who didn't start the season off the way he wanted to, and the last three or four weeks, he's really played great football. For him to come back and get challenged multiple times today, I don't worry about pass interference calls. We want him to be aggressive. But after that, getting two interceptions in the second half, I gave him the game ball today. That's what big time corners do. You take too many chances on them, they're going to get in position, and they're going to make plays, and he was big time today. We needed that from him.

Guys up front played hard. Linebackers played well. As a defense, we played extremely well. Can't say enough about Ryan Sanborn also being able to do triple duty -- kickoff, punt, and PAT field goal and was outstanding today.

Questions?

Q. Coach, wondering, the offensive line has been battered --
DAVID SHAW: You noticed.

Q. Yeah. Drake is lonely on the sideline. To not allow any sacks, obviously, K.J. got hit pretty hard a couple of times, but your first impression of what they were able to do with K.J. back there.
DAVID SHAW: That's what I love about these guys. Drew Dalman is the leader in there, and Drew's played really good football all year, really has. With different guys coming in and out, drew's been our maintain in there. I said it last week, and I'll say it again. We're getting some of our best football at right tackle as well.

Foster Sarell is playing the best football of his career. So two older guys, just juniors, but two older guys playing great football. And our young guys, God bless them. They just go hard. They make mistakes and come back and go hard. They're never shy. They don't back away. They take their coaching and try to get better.

For us to keep the quarterback clean for the most part and have some nice running lanes -- there were some big running lanes today. Tucker Fisk also played a great game as a point of attack run blocker. So the combination of our tight ends and our offensive line had a really good game today.

Q. Coach, what did you think about the two-quarterback system Arizona used today?
DAVID SHAW: Well, I've been in that spot before, and it's difficult when you have an older guy that's had some injuries and kind of been back and forth a little bit and kind of had some uneven play, has been awesome at times and not great at times. You've got a young quarterback that's highly touted that's extremely talented. That touchdown throw he made in the second half, I mean, that's an amazing throw. There was no hole there, and he put it in there. That was a great throw. That kid's got a huge upside.

So to balance between a guy that's made a lot of plays for you and is obviously a big time player and the future quarterback, that's a tough situation, but both guys went out there, and both guys played well. I think Khalil was over 200 yards passing and 100 yards rushing, and the young kid came in and made some big time throws.

I think they're doing their best with it. It keeps us off balance honestly, it really does because, before you call the next defense, you've got to know who's playing quarterback because both guys play differently. So it does present some challenges to us as well.

Q. Coach, obviously, K.J. was healthy enough to play, but it's been five weeks since he played. Were you worried about rust? If so, was it the 40-yarder to Simi, or when did you realize it was going to be a big day for him?
DAVID SHAW: The biggest issue for us was pregame warmup. If he could make it through pregame warmup, he'd play. If he couldn't, then he wouldn't. We got over the hump this week in practice. Last week he tried to go, and he threw the ball extremely well on Monday night last week, and the next day he couldn't throw it. He just couldn't do it. This past week, we tried to get past Monday. We got past Monday, crossed our fingers for Tuesday. Got past Tuesday, crossed our fingers for Wednesday.

So it was kind of just one of those weeks, but every time he went out there -- make no mistake about it. He's in pain. It's not easy. He's not 100 percent, but he can go out there and throw it.

He and I had a long conversation yesterday, he said, Coach, I'm going to give it a shot. If I can get through pregame warmup and grip the ball and throw it, I'm going to play. So we gave him that opportunity, and he went out there and played one of his better games of his career. Really, really proud of him.

Q. Coach, were all the play action calls today something part of the game plan going in or a response to something you saw from Arizona?
DAVID SHAW: Well, different than last week. When you're running the ball, then the play action's great, and we were able to run the ball. To be able to come back and fake the run and throw the ball down the field, and Simi made some plays, and Connor Wedington made some plays. Colby Parkinson made some plays in the play action game as well. So when we're able to run the ball, then those things are hard to defend.

Q. Play calling and execution put the whole package together. How close was today's offense or performance to what this ideally should look like?
DAVID SHAW: Very, very close. Very, very close. We had a couple of inefficient plays that set us back and we had to punt. We had second and long and third and long, which has kind of been our Achilles heel offensively this time of year. It only happened for a couple of times. But for the most part, this is what we want to look like -- 100-yard rusher, bruising rusher, got the two young backs in there and both guys made some big time plays. We'll continue to have those guys continue to grow. A bunch of different guys catching balls and making plays.

From the very beginning, I've been excited about this corps of receivers with their different tight ends as well -- Simi and Colby and Mike and Connor, Osiris -- all these guys can make plays. We get the protection, and we get the running game going, and the quarterback plays at the level that he's capable of, we can be tough to stop.

Q. Coach, what did you see from Coach Anderson and the defensive players in the second half to hold Arizona to seven?
DAVID SHAW: We talked about a couple things at halftime. I tried to listen to what the defense is doing, not just talk to the offense. Really just subtle adjustments, just some subtle adjustments. What you saw in the second half was a lot of effort. You saw great effort. Malik recognizing the quarterback and turning and flipping his hips and going as fast as he can and tipping that ball away. Jonathan McGill, same thing.

The play that we got beaten on earlier, quick slant in the slot, him jumping aside and knocking that ball away. Paulson and Adebo knowing that they're going to take some more shots on it, him staying in position and making two great plays. I saw that first interception going all the way because you saw it on offense doing it where you run the out route, and if that ball's not thrown perfectly and thrown extremely on time, if it's a split second late, his three-step acceleration when the ball is in the air is as good as anyone in America. So him taking the first one and staying on top of the second one, we just believe he gets an opportunity to go for the ball, he's going to go get it.

So a combination of making some subtle adjustments, but guys going out there and not letting the quarterback's ability to scramble hurt us. Trying to keep him outside of the pocket, and if he goes inside and then really collapsing on him. The bottom line, when that guys run forward, you've got to stay in front of him and make him choose a way. If you don't get in front of him, you're not going to catch him. He's going to run straight to the end zone.

Q. Coach, you mentioned Ryan Sanborn's performance in handling everything this game. What growth have you seen from him from training camp onwards and also in responding to stepping up for this challenge with Jet out of action?
DAVID SHAW: Honestly, what I like about Ryan, same thing I like about Jet Toner. They're a couple of guys that emotionally the three of us are kind of on the same wavelength. Jet went down last game. Okay, Ryan, you've got to go. You've got to handle the kickoffs and the PAT field goals. He says, okay. And he goes out there and kicks the ball.

He's got a strong leg. He's extremely talented. He's got the ability -- he's one of those rare guys that has the ability to do all three and do them all at a high level. You see the kickoffs going out of the back of the end zone. You see the punts with great hang time and great location. All the field goals went through all the uprights. That's all we care about. He's got the ability to do that. We don't want him to do that at all times, but looks like the rest of the year, he may have to handle that, and he's ready for it.

He's been in really good condition. We're watching his pitch count, so to speak, make sure he doesn't kick the ball too much during the week. Coach Alamar has done a great job of really monitoring him to make sure we don't overkick him. So that when it comes crunch time and he has to make a kick late in the game -- kickoff, punt, or field goal -- that he's still in condition to do that. So working a lot of technique with him without overdoing it during the week so he's ready to go for game day.

Q. At the goal line, Cameron laterals it to K.J. What's going through your mind at that point?
DAVID SHAW: I don't know that I can sufficiently answer that question in mixed company? There was a play on the Minnesota Vikings way back when. Randy Moss did that. It was an instinctive thing that happened, and I understand why, but we will not be adding that to our offense. That should not happen again.

Q. You mentioned Simi a couple times. Is this kind of the breakout you've been expecting from him?
DAVID SHAW: Yeah. It's happened a couple times this year. He's made some big time plays. Against Washington, had a great game. But this has been coming since the first time we saw him his sophomore year in Utah in high school.

The young man is tall, he's long, and he's got a sneaky stride to where you don't think he's running as fast as he is, but he ran a 4.30 for us in the spring, for a guy that's 6'3-1/2", 6'4", whatever he is. If you play underneath, he's going to get over the top. And then when you're up on him, he's also got a big time vertical, big time basketball player. So much like J.J., he can go up and make those big time catches too.

So we got a single coverage down the field, we're going to take that advantage. Got a safety that cheats over to his side like happened one other time, we're going to go back to Colby. Colby made a couple of big time plays as well. Just really excited about the way our quarterback played and giving all those guys opportunities to make plays. Spreading the ball around a bunch. A bunch of guys making plays. That's when it's fun. That's when it's fun.

Q. Coach, I think this is right, that Austin Jones got a pretty good increase in snaps today. What did you see from the freshman?
DAVID SHAW: Well, we've got four backs in a kind of a row for all four of those. Dorian Maddox went out, had to leave the game. So we had been planning anyway to get our two young freshmen, both of them, more opportunities.

David Yankey was our honorary captain today, and he talked a lot about trust. He talked about earning trust, and that's when those two guys have done for us. We have two older running backs that do everything right, and these two young guys have been working really hard to earn the trust of the offensive line, to earn the trust of the quarterback, to earn the trust of the coaches, which is why you've seen both of their reps and their opportunities increase, and you could see both these guys have big play ability.

I mean, twice -- for each one of them actually, twice they could have been tackled by the first guy, and the first guy didn't get him and the second guy didn't get him. Watch, as we continue the season, for those two young guys to get more opportunities.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297