STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 8, 2022

David Shaw

Postgame Media Conference

Oregon State - 28, Stanford - 27

THE MODERATOR: Opening statement from Coach Shaw.

DAVID SHAW: Thank you. Difficult game. Had a tough game last week. A lot of work this week to get our team ready to play. Commend our players, the way they worked, the way they prepared. Our coaching staff, all the engagement we had with our student-athletes this week to get ready for this game.

What's going to get lost is probably played our best game of the year. Best complete game of the year. A lot of things we've been pushing, harping on, not just the coaches but the student-athletes, players. Got a lot of production from a lot of guys.

Guys played so hard on defense, played so well. Ethan Bonner, three pass breakups down the field. Had an opportunity to finish the game in all three phases. We just didn't do it.

If we got one more first down offensively, we can run the clock down, end the game. Get a good kickoff and cover. At least get them pinned in. Instead, they got too much of a return.

We had an opportunity defensively to put the game away, and we just didn't. It's going to be a rough 24 hours for all of us. We can't afford to spend more than 24 hours on it.

Short week, long plane fight, tough place to play. We got to get ready. Got to take care of the guys in practice this week, make sure we have our legs. I'm not going to just be all sunshine about us playing our best game because the most important thing is we got to finish.

We got a chance to put the game away, but we have to put it away. Going to give the guys some time off, get away from it, get a little bit of a break, come back, get ready to go.

I'll take questions.

Q. Can you take us through the final touchdown for the Beavers, as you saw it.

DAVID SHAW: Yeah, ball went up, we had two guys in the area, and they (Oregon State) came down with it. The ball goes up, we got to be in position, at the corner position. Got to be in a safety position where they're going to take the ball or get the guy down. Didn't do either one of those.

We worked a lot on things like that, and we just didn't make it happen. Did it pretty much the entire game up until that final play. Got to make those plays.

Q. Can you take us through the final offensive drive that ended up as a field goal and the things you were hoping to emphasize?

DAVID SHAW: Yeah, most of it went our way that last drive up until the final couple plays. Second-and-short, thought we had an opportunity to get the first down. Didn't quite get it.

Third down, went to a play that we felt really good about. Didn't get the first down. Wanted to run the clock down a little bit, make sure we were settled on the field goals. That's why we took a timeout as the clock was running down, make sure our guys were ready for the pressure they were going to see. Put the ball through the pipes.

It was a good drive up until the last couple plays, you know? A lot of what we've been emphasizing, finishing the game, finishing runs. Still threw the ball with some success. Tried to go down the field. Got a pass interference penalty. New set of downs. Trying to go back between efficient passes and runs, make sure we keep the clock going, get positive yards and try to put the game away up until that last play.

Q. How do you build on the positives but move on from the negatives that happened in this game?

DAVID SHAW: Yeah, that's been the story of our season thus far. Up until this point, for the last three weeks, the positives have been sporadic. Tonight the positives were everywhere. That's going to be the trick for a bunch of guys that are 18 to 22 years old, being able to handle the difficulty of a loss when you had the game won, but come right back and still look at those positives and believe in those positives, find a way, some way, shape or form to finish a game with a victory.

That's what's going to be. It's going to be so hard for these guys. Fought so hard the whole game. Guys were gassed. We had to roll guys through to keep guys fresh. Our guys battled the whole night, they really did. So much happened tonight that I'm so proud of coming back off a difficult loss. Shows the character of this football team, character of the guys we had in our locker room. Just got to find a way to finish the last couple minutes.

Q. Talk about Tobin Phillips and his performance tonight. Was he due for a performance like this?

DAVID SHAW: He's been close all year. We have about five guys that have three or four hurries each, quarterback hits, right there. Tonight to me the difference was the initial pressure. We had pressure on the edge, which forces the quarterback to step up. So our guys on the edge, if they don't get him, our guys inside do. Like I said, Tobin has been really, really close. We got nice pressure on the edge from David Bailey, Stephen Herron, Armitage. We have a lot of people that were forcing the quarterback. That's what we expect from that group.

I think that the whole group has been hungry all year. It's really good to see Tobin get rewarded like that.

Q. Difficult start to the season. How do you keep the morale up in the locker room? How do you get them ready for the rest of the season?

DAVID SHAW: These are Stanford guys. We find challenges. Our guys respond to challenges. So right now the challenges abound. Road game against Notre Dame on national TV. Opportunity to turn some things around. The challenge between the ears of looking at the positives from this game. Right now none of them feel the positives.

I'm not going to let us come off the best game we've had so far this year and throw that away because we can build on those positives. There's an opportunity for us to really turn the season around.

So many good things, so many good things. But at the same time we also have to correct the correctables and we have to be able to finish games.

We were in a position we haven't been in this year in our conference play, which is being in the fourth quarter with a lead. What it takes to put a team away, a team that's going to fight you till the end.

So that's where we have to grow now. It's hard. It's going to be hard for our guys. I'm already picturing how difficult Monday is going to be. We're going to look at the positives, and the guys aren't going to want to look at it. They're going to want to harp on the loss.

There's a delicate balance from my position of making sure we build on our positives and take those into next week, and now really look at it about being how close we are, right?

No one looks at this the way that we do. That Oregon State team worked till the last drive of the game. Really outplayed Utah last week from start to finish. This is a really good football team with a lot of dynamic athletes. We held them down for 58 minutes, 59 minutes.

Know we got to build on these positives and have the mentality of having a lead in the fourth quarter and finishing the game with the lead.

Q. Talk about the performance of Brycen Tremayne, getting the two touchdowns, and how it feels to see him getting back to where he's been before.

DAVID SHAW: Yeah, Brycen is a special, special talent. Those downfield balls, the sideline catches, he's been doing it for three years, just amazing. We just got to give him an opportunity. He and Tanner worked to make sure we are on the same page there. It really showed up tonight.

He has such uncanny body control and ability to make those catches with guys all over him. We're going to need a lot more of that going forward.

But proud to see him coming back from his injury, being back to where he was before.

Q. Did you maybe get a little too conservative at the end? Do you feel you should have been more aggressive? Talk about some of the decisions at the end there.

DAVID SHAW: No. We marched the ball all the way down the field. We took most of the clock. Third down, we ran a play that we really feel strongly about, that we had an opportunity to make.

So I thought we did what we were supposed to do towards the end of the game except that last play. If we got a little closer and got to a fourth and one and a half, yeah, I'd probably go for it. But we didn't have that opportunity.

I don't think we were conservative all night. I thought we mixed it up. I thought we did a great job. I think Coach Pritchard really pushed on some of those play-action passes, some of the things we worked on over the week, great communication between run and campus and personnel usage.

Tanner made, like, four unbelievable throws, two going to his left, that probably only three guys in college football can make. Like I said, we fought all the way till the end. We were aggressive on both sides of the ball like we wanted to be. We just didn't finish the game.

Q. Do you guys plan on changing anything up in practice this week to stay away from the melancholy of the loss?

DAVID SHAW: If we change anything, it will be what these guys need physically. The last couple weeks, because of the ridiculousness of playing games into middle of the night, all the travel, we've had to shave off some things we did on Monday so the guys have a full 48 hours to recover.

I mean, it's after midnight right now. I don't know that we'll have a single guy getting to bed within the next hour. Finish treatment, getting back to their dorms, getting some food.

That's the big thing, is that playing these really, really late night games, which I have been harping on the last couple weeks, because it's been ridiculous, to get back to our campus at 4:00 in the morning. Now to know that we've got a long plane flight this week, which takes a lot out of you anyway.

So that's what we'll be shaving things off to make sure our guys have the legs they need to come back and fight for a 7:30 p.m. game on the East Coast. That's what we'll do, take care of the guys' bodies.

We'll get them back, they'll come back. We've got great leadership. Monday is going to be tough, but we'll have them back ready to go by Tuesday, I'm sure.

Q. Aside from the last play, the defense, looks like you made some strides and got some stops. Talk about how you felt the defense performed as a whole, what you can continue to build on.

DAVID SHAW: So much effort. That was the key. Effort and execution. They're a good team. They're going to make some plays. They made plays on Utah's defense, USC's defense. We knew they were going to make some plays.

By and in large I thought we played well. Still don't like the explosive run that happened late in the game. We needed to be in that gap. Like I said, so many things to build on, TFLs, quarterback pressures and sacks, pass deflections. They tried Ethan three times down the field. We did a great job staying with their guys.

It's all about finishing. So we're going to build on those positives, point out those positives, and get the mindset that we got to finish games. We can't play 58, 59 minutes against good football teams. Got to finish the game.