STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 25, 2023

Elic Ayomanor

Postgame Media Conference

Notre Dame 56, Stanford 23

Q. Just how would you personally kind of evaluate this season? You just completed here as a redshirt freshman?

ELIC AYOMANOR: I would say there is a lot of ups and downs. I think I showed a lot of potential, but at the end of the day I think I need to be a lot better for our team to win more consistently.

But one thing I do know is that I attack my weaknesses very relentlessly in the off-season. I doubt those weaknesses will persist in the future.

Q. You've kind of evaluated your performance. How would you evaluate the team's performance this season?

ELIC AYOMANOR: Yeah, I think the same thing stands for the team. We showed a lot of promise at points, and sometimes when we execute things look beautiful, but we need to continue to get better and just raise the expectations and that level of execution.

One thing I will say is that every single man on this team would fight to the end, and I'm happy to say that they all did fight until the end. That's one thing we have to be proud of.

Q. If you could, just what does an off-season look like for a football player? How much time do you take off? What does that regimen look like?

ELIC AYOMANOR: Yeah, I think it's different for everybody. For me, the off-season has already started. I'm already evaluating myself, seeing what I need to improve on. I think I already do know a lot of those things.

You watch the film back, watch the season back, you see exactly where it is that you had missteps and you make sure those things don't happen again.

Although the season is in the past, you can't forget those emotions that you had when things didn't go your way, and you use those emotions to fuel you in the future.

You never forget those and use it you push you forward into the next season.

Q. Obviously been a lot of really great receivers and pass catchers to come through the Stanford program over the years, and you're the first Cardinal since 2018 to have 1000 receiving yards in a season. What does that mean to you personally?

ELIC AYOMANOR: Yeah, I wouldn't say it means a lot. Like I mentioned earlier, I need to be a lot a lot better for this team to have continued success.

I think maybe people on the outside might think that's a significant thing, but when I watch back the tape -- there are moments that I'm proud of, and overall I need to be a lot better, and like I said earlier, I will be a lot better because those weaknesses will certainly not continue to persist.

Q. Just on the game itself, thoughts on Notre Dame's defense, what you saw from them and what made them a difficult defense to go up against?

ELIC AYOMANOR: Yeah, they're a very good and very talented team and very disciplined team. They play a lot of man coverage and they blitz a lot, which sometimes at times can be hard to pick up. They're very good man coverage DBs, so they live and die by that and obviously tonight they lived by it.

But I think when we get the opportunity to face them again we will capitalize on those matchups and we will have this loss in the back of our minds for a long time.

Q. This is my last one: Just thoughts on the ACC, early thoughts on that. Going to be playing cross country. Early thoughts on joining that conference and what that is going to be like.

ELIC AYOMANOR: Yeah, I hope it'll be a little bit colder. I do enjoy these cold games being from Canada. I haven't really been keeping up with any of the teams in the ACC, but like I said, the off-season starts right now, so I'm looking forward to just seeing what those teams bring to the table and how they'll challenge us and how we'll be able to attack them.