UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 8, 2022

Drew Pyne

Press Conference

Notre Dame 28, BYU 20

Q. Drew, it's obvious this your confidence level continues to go up. When you think about where you have come from to now, what's going through your head? Your accuracy is probably as good as it's been in your three starts.

DREW PYNE: Yeah, I think it's just preparation and taking every single practice like a game and just preparing really hard. But also, something that all you guys saw during the Cal game, was all my teammates coming up to me when I was down and when I wasn't succeeding. Every single player on the team, offense, defense, special teams, so many guys came up to me and had my back.

Honestly, the reason I'm so comfortable out there is because I love each and every one of the guys that I'm on the field with. They're all my best friends, and that just makes me really comfortable to go operate.

Q. And as a quarterback, the more weapons the better, right? Jayden Thomas, his emergence tonight and what that means to you.

DREW PYNE: Yeah, JT has worked really hard and he has all summer. He did in the spring. He's worked really hard and he deserves that. Just like Lorenzo did last week, Jayden Thomas went out there and made a play. He went out there and made an unbelievable play and I'm so proud of him. We're going to need him to keep doing what he's doing, and he's going to be a big role for us in the future.

All our receivers I really trust, and, yeah, I'm so happy for him.

Q. As far as your accuracy, are you confident you can be a 75% passer?

DREW PYNE: You know, I don't really worry about the stats. I just worry about winning. I have no clue how many -- I can't tell you ballpark how many yards I threw, whatever. I don't really think about that.

You know, play by play. I think accuracy has always been a part of my game that kind of separates me. That's something that I really have focused on ever since I was a little kid.

Q. There were a handful of plays that I don't know how many seconds you had back there, but seems like the receivers were of running their second route by the time you threw it. Take me through those styles of plays, the rules, what you're looking for, and then just what that says about the offensive line, the way they protect it?

DREW PYNE: Yeah, first of all, offensive line was just unbelievable. Those guys worked so hard. Coaches them really hard and shows up during games, and so I'm so thankful for the O-line and those guys are unbelievable.

Kind of when I'm back there and you have a lot of time, I think the most important thing is to not panic. I've had a lot of time like that in my life before and I don't know what to do, whatever. I just don't panic. Keep looking, see the defense, see what's going on, and just find an open guy or have to throw it away, or whatever.

My whole thing is staying neutral and not panicking, you know, being able to just have emotional stability throughout every play.

Q. The flip to Estime as you're sort of being dragged down. I don't know how much you practiced that in the moment.

DREW PYNE: Yeah, I surprised myself. It worked, I guess. It was pretty good.

Q. Michael Mayer, we call him a quarterback's best friend, bu as an actual quarterback who throws to him a lot, especially on third down, what goes through your mind? Is there a point you're thinking...

DREW PYNE: Yeah, I mean, kind of uncoverable. For a quarterback being able to see where the defense is in -- and first of all, Coach Rees gets Mike in such an unbelievable position to go ahead and succeed, and then Mike absolutely dominates whoever is in front of him.

For me having such a great O-line and being able to find Mike a couple times today was unbelievable in big moments, and it adds so much to our offense. He's an unbelievable player and my best friend. Really cool to be out there with Mike and I'm happy he's on our team.

Q. Drew, the difference the last few games on third down for your guys is staggering. Is there a change in approach on third downs that made such a stark change from the first two games?

DREW PYNE: I don't think so. I think it's my mentality going into each and every game. Coach Rees really, really values third down. Values protection, values exactly what we're going into every week. Him and I talk about the calls that I would want on first and third down, and Coach Rees does a really good job with that. In the past two, three weeks, I felt like Coach Rees and I are on the same exact page. I think that's credit to him for getting us ready.

Like you said, really focusing on third down. That's a big component of how he calls a game. We're going to continue to do that.