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BOSTON COLLEGE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 28, 2019

Steve Addazio

Boston, Massachusetts

STEVE ADDAZIO: Seems like an early time of the year, but it's exciting. Love rivalry games. We're traveling up to the dome, which is a tough environment. I've spent enough years there myself, whether it be here or when I coached there. So that's always a tough place to play and has a different feel to it.

But we're excited to have a great week of practice and continue to grow and develop and go on the road and play this game and have an opportunity to get a road win.

So any questions?

Q. Steve, I understand these days are in the past, but how important is it to teach kids to not let Clemson beat you twice? Just move on right away?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah, and that's my mindset. We're on to Syracuse. You already got home at 4:00 in the morning, and there's a real fatigue to that whole concept and then go back on the road and play an early game. You're managing the physical part of this. So you certainly can't waste a lot of time on the mental part of that. You've got to get going. That's just the way the schedule falls and TV falls and the way it goes.

Our focus is having a great morning and a great practice in the morning tomorrow and getting rolling.

Q. Tommy Devito, I feel like he's played a bit, especially when Dungey went down, but now that he's the full-time quarterback at Syracuse, what does he kind of offer you as a defense? How is he unique in that offense?
STEVE ADDAZIO: I don't know about per se that offense or any other offense, I think he throws the ball really well. I mean, I think the guy throws the ball well, and I think he's tough. He's taken a few hits, and he keeps rolling. He's a tough guy. He throws it well. He's pretty athletic. I mean, I know the kid pretty well. We were involved with him here. I think he's a heck of a football player, I do. He's probably taken an inordinate amount of shots, but to his credit, he's right in there.

So talented guy. Certainly, with the combination of their receivers and his ability to throw the ball, they can get it down the field on you.

Q. Is it something that they do just in their scheme? Because I know they love to go faster than fast. But is it something that they do when they get the ball out quick or try to make different end cuts or something like that with the receivers?
STEVE ADDAZIO: I just think it's that 50-50 ball down the field that they're going to throw. It's a big part of who they are in their offense, and tempo is a part of it. Every game that thing's going down there. It's by design, and they're good at that. They practice that. That's their deal.

They have a couple of quality receivers. The kid that transferred in from Michigan State, I think he's a helluva football player, I really do. He's a really, really talented guy, Jackson. I think Riley is talented too. They have two good receivers.

Q. Something outside of the box here, shifting gears for a second. The league plays nine Friday night games this year whereas the SEC had just one on a Thanksgiving weekend. We're asking the coaches about this. Is there any feedback, whether it's an advantage, disadvantage, high school recruiting, on Fridays, things like that. Have you heard anything?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Those are decisions made by the TV and by the university, and there's a lot of factors that go into these things. I've just kind of gotten the opinion that it's not my deal to worry about. I try to worry about the things that I can control, and that's not one of them. I wouldn't say I have a strong feeling about that one way or the other. Trust in the fact of the university's feelings, how it affects academics, and I trust where the conference offices and TV contracts are and just kind of move forward.

A lot of guys get caught in those debates and stuff like that. I'd just rather probably choose not to just because those are decision that's are made for different reasons.

Q. You never hear from high school coaches saying --
STEVE ADDAZIO: No, I don't, not up here. I can't tell you I've been in any of those conversations at all, yeah.

Q. I ask every week, but with four games left, is Isaiah ready to come on?
STEVE ADDAZIO: He dressed last week, I don't know if you saw that, down at Clemson.

Q. I didn't know that.
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah, he dressed.

Q. Ready to play?
STEVE ADDAZIO: I don't know that he's officially been cleared to play yet, but I think he's certainly right there. I think, if you ask me that question at the end of the week, I might have a more accurate answer for you.

Obviously, he's right there. He's right there now. Could you see him this week? I think that's certainly very, very possible, but I can't definitively tell you that other than I can definitively tell you he's right there. He's really, really close.

As much as I hate saying that and you hate hearing it, probably equally the same level. We'd like nothing more than to have him cleared right now, trust me. He's one of the best players on the defense. That would be a wonderful thing. And as he does come back in, that would be a little bit of a process as well.

Q. You have four games left in the redshirt. Now that you've had a year to also handle it from last year to this year, is there anything you can work through to look at some other guys and maybe not lose the year of eligibility?
STEVE ADDAZIO: We meet on this every Friday. I don't know if you saw -- I know you saw -- Patrick Garwo, we inserted him at the end of that game. That wasn't just something we did. We put him in there. He's still got two more games left to go like that. So we have a very strategic mindset with what we want to do with him, as we do all the other guys.

Some guys we've determined they're just going to play. I'd say there's about three guys probably that we're still managing that. If the right injuries occur, boom, you trigger it. If they don't, you're trying to manage it. And in a perfect world, you maintain a redshirt year and be able to maximize portions thereof -- four games, four games, pieces of four games, plus you have a bowl game.

So in a perfect world, you're trying to manage that, you know what I mean? So we meet on that. I have a participation count board, and really, try to really pay attention to where guys are. So, yeah, it's that time of year, you know.

Q. And coming out of the game, I know that those first two times with Dennis, the Louisville game, you came out, chuck it, did a good job of that, and then you didn't need to chuck it as much in the second game. With the Clemson game, without belaboring it too much, but how do you respond to facing this challenge that's kind of the first time?
STEVE ADDAZIO: I think it's a good question and a reasonable question. I mean, I evaluated all that myself yesterday. He didn't really have an unbelievable opportunity, opportunities. Very strange how the thing went down. The first series was a third and three, and he put the ball on the money. We dropped it.

He made some very good throws -- one in particular, Hunter Long down the field, very good throw. I think, when you take this sample size, it's hard to say. I wouldn't draw any conclusion one way or the other other than the fact that he had great management of the team on Saturday in a tough environment.

He's a 1 1/2, now 2 1/2 game starter. Went down on the road in a very, very tough environment. We played the National Champion. I'd say it was the best game they played all year. It was a homecoming game at night, Saturday night, Death Valley. I mean, they were humming. And that kid went in there, and we did not have any procedural issues. We weren't offsides. We had one penalty in the game. It was a holding penalty.

Those are the things you're looking at. None of those issues, no communication issues. Threw a couple of nice balls. Probably threw a couple of risky balls, but in the course of the first half of football, we didn't touch it a ton. They didn't punt in the first half. So I want say it was too high, and I certainly wouldn't say it was too low. I think it was somewhere in the middle. So I'm anxious to see how he plays this week.

Q. With Syracuse, I know I ask you this every year when you play them, but how important is it for a program to have a rival like that that's geographically based? I know you have experience with Syracuse as well, but just having that up here in the northeast and throughout the league having something like that?
STEVE ADDAZIO: I think it's huge. I think Pittsburgh should be on our side. I don't understand all that. Honestly, I don't get it, but I'm big on the geographical deals. Even when we play out of conference, those games to be geographically based. Probably part of it is I got brought up, when I was at Syracuse and the Big East, and I'm used to that kind of thing. It's good fan interest. It's good player interest. It's good recruiting interest. I love it. So the more of that, the better, to me.

But, again, that's not in my control, any of that stuff. Since I've been here, we've tried to play nonconference games with regional flair to it to the best of our ability and hope we'll continue to try to do that. So I think these are important. That's the pageantry of college football. It's critical.

I can remember when I was a young coach and I was starting at Syracuse, and we'd talk about the BC game, the West Virginia game, the Pittsburgh game. We had trophies for them. It was just -- it was fun. That piece of it was tremendous. And, you know, back at that time, everything was kind of paralleled. We were all kind of the same -- there was no have/have not kind of issues. We were all kind of facing the same challenges. It was a different world.

But I'd love to see our conference look at making some of those changes. I just think it's stuck in the same divisions to me. I say it openly. I think that should be revisited. But it doesn't matter what I say.

Q. We've had a chance, obviously, to ask A.J. about setting the mark.
STEVE ADDAZIO: I should have answered that to start out. What a great, great honor for him and well-deserved and hard working. He's done a fabulous job. I think he's just having a heck of year -- the way he's handling his business, the way his work ethic is and preparation. Fantastic mark that he's set and will continue to grow on. I should have brought that up to start with.

Q. How big of a stamp is it too with the fact that in your time you've had both him and Andre in there one-two?
STEVE ADDAZIO: I think it's great. I think they're talented guys. More power to them. I think it's a testament to the fact -- you know, I haven't seen this week's, but we've been the No. 1 rushing here in the conference and one of the top six rushing teams in America. I think -- I don't see us not continuing to be a very, very outstanding rushing team.

So I think that is great for them, for us. Nice award, nice honors.

Q. Did you get any kind of reaction from other running backs or other coaches since you've had success at that elite level with two running backs, that this is kind of a home for runners?
STEVE ADDAZIO: I hope so. Recruiting certainly -- I mean, we've got David Bailey here. We've got Patrick Garwo here. I mean, Patrick's an elite player. He understands that he came to a place where they not only want to run the football, know how to run the football, and will put it back in a very advantageous formation to do that.

So there's a reason why I think we've got some very, very talented players at that position, and hopefully we'll continue down that same path.

Obviously, if you're not putting that at the forefront sometimes, it's hard to recruit those guys at some places, but it's not always the way you want it.

Q. How did Zion Johnson work his way into the starting lineup? I know he's been getting regular snaps.
STEVE ADDAZIO: He's earned it on the field, on the tape, grading the tape. He's played really consistently. We have a number of really good offensive linemen. We've got a bunch of guys we feel like we can play with. We're pretty deep, and knock on wood, we're fairly healthy, but he's earned to be a starter and played well.

I thought our offensive line played pretty well on Saturday, to tell you the truth. We averaged over four yards a carry at the running back position. We actually ran the ball pretty well.

I think we need to convert a little bit better on some of the third downs. Some were third and longs, but field position and everything else is a factor in all that.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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