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BOSTON COLLEGE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 23, 2019

Steve Addazio

South Bend, Indiana

Notre Dame - 40, Boston College - 7

STEVE ADDAZIO: I thought this was a hell of a football game. I felt great about it at halftime, but I thought in the second half we just had a very poor third quarter. It got away from us in the third quarter. More power to them. I thought they executed well and they had some rapid scores in the third quarter on us. We missed some throws and turned the ball over and just never really got going in the third quarter on either side of the ball, especially on offense. And as I said, more credit to them. I thought they played very, very well in the third period and we didn't have a good third period. It got away from us right there. It's a shame because it was a hell of a game going through the first half and into the second half and that's why you play two halves. Now obviously we didn't play a very good third quarter. So got to get back to work and take a look and see what happened, what were the issues there, I think I know what they were, and get them fixed and then got to get going and move forward towards Pittsburgh. Any questions.

Q. In the build-up to this game during the week there was, you talked a lot about the mentality you had to have coming into this, especially given the situation. But in any way, obviously in the first half we saw that energy letdown, but was it surprising to see any kind of a letdown after the break?
STEVE ADDAZIO: I don't think it was an energy letdown. I think it was an execution letdown. We didn't execute well in the third quarter. I can tell you on offense we did not execute well in the third quarter. Made too many mistakes. We had some missed throws, some missed reads, some dropped balls, and a turnover. A couple turnovers. And you can't do that. That's not really who we have been. But that happened in the third quarter and credit them they have a hell of a defense. Statistically they have a hell of a defense. That's really the tale of the game right there.

Q. (No microphone.)
STEVE ADDAZIO: It's a mixed bag out there. Played some man, played some zone. And in that 18-play drive for touchdown we had there we had a mixed bag of man, zone pressure. Kind of what we have all the time. This wasn't the tale of stack box. This was the tale of in the third period, against a really good defense, we didn't execute at a high level. We had some missed cues and some drops and some mis-reads. And then we had two fumbles, two turnovers. One fumble and one interception. And you can't do that. And we did that. And that led to some rapid fire scores in the third period. I thought our defense played really well in the first half of the game and I thought that we put them in some, in a couple of tight binds in the third period. Offensively we put the defense in some tight binds, with an inability to execute enough to get the ball over the field.

I think another critical time in that game, looking back on it, to me, was right before the half we had two minutes 38 seconds, we got the ball over mid field and then we took a bad sack that didn't need to be taken, and that happened then. We gave them an opportunity to go down and, off of a penalty and kick a field goal to get another field goal in there before the half. I thought that was, in the first half, I thought that could have been something that, it was 2:38, getting the ball over mid field, I felt pretty good about us going down and there putting some points up. And that was the first sign of a little bit, to me, of a really poor job of execution right there that didn't need to happen. We didn't need to take that sack. That didn't need to happen. So but it did.

Q. What kind of challenge is Claypool pose?
STEVE ADDAZIO: What's that, now?

Q. What kind of challenge did Claypool and Book pose for?
STEVE ADDAZIO: I thought we did a good job against Claypool today. I thought we played pretty well. I would say I thought maybe Book had too many plays where he got outside of the pocket. We lost contain. And I was worried about that. We lost contain on Book too many times and we missed some tackles on him. I would say, honestly, that I wish we could have tightened that up a little bit because I thought we played well against the run. I thought we did a good job in the back end. But I thought that the quarterback hurt us a little bit by staying alive with his legs and either getting a first down or really buying a lot of time and breaking us up in the secondary and making a play down the field. I thought that he's fast, he's a pretty athletic guy. I thought he used his feet well and I thought we probably could have kept him in there and tackled him better.

Q. You've been in this bowls before. You've had seasons where you had bowls wrapped up in October and now you have one shot to do it. What, if anything, what challenges does that bring this week in terms of focus, urgency, circumstance?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Got another game. Last game of the year. Got to go play it. Got to go win it. Got to get bowl eligible. That's it. Get to work. These guys, we talked about it last week, we talked about a 10-day run. We had a 10-day run last week. No matter what happened here, win/lose we had a 10-day run. And I reminded them, we're still in that 10-day run, and we're battling our ass off and fighting to go get that, fighting to go get that bowl game right now, and continue to develop our team and continue to develop some of these guys that have had limited playing experience and play at a high level as we go to Pittsburgh.

Q. Is there any sense that, like you said, 10 days, two opportunities, one win, but is there any sense that like, hey, we know this one, a great opponent, on the road, tough environment, all the attention that comes with the game, like, is there any chance that's all right man, this one we go out we do what we got to do but we still have another opportunity?
STEVE ADDAZIO: You know what, I just think that, honestly, I can only tell you, I think it's a one week, one game at a time deal. Honestly, like, it's just we prepared our tails off for this one, okay. And I thought we gave, I thought we played with great energy, great, again, I'm very disappointed in our third period right now. And now we're going to go do the same thing and go do it again at Pittsburgh. I mean, that's what it is. And it's going to come at you week-to-week, beginning and middle, and I'm excited to get back and find out where our problems were, get them fixed, and get moving and get ready to play a great game. That's it. Hey, this one's over, on to the next one. That's the way college football is and I'm looking forward to it, to be honest with you.

Q. And just for you personally, I know that you're probably not thinking about it in the thick of it, especially, like, after the game, but what is it, five of six, six of seven, you've only missed one bowl game. You didn't get a chance to actually play in one last year. Where does this fit for you in terms of just, one, getting to one that you didn't get to play last year and also like, this is something that you, that has been consistent for you over your time here is getting to the post-season.
STEVE ADDAZIO: You know what, it's not about me. It's about, what it's about is our players and it's about our team and it's about our program and it's about continuing to grow and develop and drive and we got another game and let's go win that game. We're going to go with everything we have. I don't really think about anything other than that, I just think that's the nature of the beast, man, here we go. I think that is the nature of the beast. Here we go. Let's go. We got a big game ahead of us, we got to go play, we got to practice, we got to come out a hundred miles an hour. And you can't ride all the roller coaster rides of a football season because there's a lot of them. Some in your control, some out of your control. Injuries, all kinds of things, man. You just kind of keep dealing with it. You just keep going. And it's exciting. It's why we do what we do. And sometimes it's smooth sailing, sometimes it's a little rough seas and you just keep going, stay the course, keep going. And that's what we're into right now. Let's go focus and go get our sixth win at Pittsburgh. That will be a tough game. They're a good football team, and we want to play four quarters of good football in Pittsburgh next week.

Q. Duff second game back?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah, I thought he played some really great plays. It was fun to see him back on the field I thought he did some really good things out there. You felt him out on the field. I felt him from the sideline. That's the most football he's played, so going to have to see how he feels after all that.

Q. Hurries early, the pressure on.
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah, I mean he's an accelerator. That's what, it's like, boom, with him, and he's not even near, he's not even near where he had left off. But he's going there and so that's fun to watch him play, I thought he did a really good job, I thought john played really hard in the back end, kind of going back to the safety role from the SAM backer role, I thought Nolan played a pretty steady game back there, there's some young guys, Eliza playing corner out there, I thought he did a pretty good job out there against a good player. So you saw a bunch of young guys back there that got a lot of quality playing time here and I think that a guy like Dennis can really learn from this game as well. I mean this was one of those games that I think you can grow from at the quarterback position as well.

Q. Brandon, you got to figure out -- Sebastian -- he had a shoulder thing.
STEVE ADDAZIO: He's had that. This has been ongoing for him and he's been gutting it out and we'll have to evaluate if it's any worse or the same. But I mean he's played with quite a bit of discomfort and he's been playing with it and more credit to him.

I thought he played pretty well tonight as well. So any ways, I thought we played hard and so we'll go back to work and we'll go take a good long look at that third quarter and see just exactly where we kind of got sideways.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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