STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 5, 2024

Troy Taylor

Postgame Media Conference

Virginia Tech 31, Stanford 7

Q. Just talk about utilizing Micah Ford a bit in the passing game, he threw a touchdown pass, talk about how that came to be.

TROY TAYLOR: Yeah, we just felt like we tried to utilize him in this game as one of our weapons. He's a versatile guy, obviously can throw it and run, smart kid, so we thought we'd try and expand (our offense) and give ourselves a chance.

Q. It looked like Micah limped off a little bit there at the end. Any update on that?

TROY TAYLOR: Yeah, I haven't gotten any information. Looks like something on his leg, but other than that, I don't know. Sorry.

Q. What were some of the challenges in the passing game today, and how tough is it when you're one-dimensional?

TROY TAYLOR: Yeah, we just never had any big plays, really. If you look down, it was kind of trudging along, and we took shots. Part of our plan was to be able to run the football. We knew that was going to be important and then be able to take shots down the field.

We didn't connect on those shots, so we either misfired or didn't catch the ball or didn't protect well. You're going to have to have big plays against a team like that. It's going to be hard to go six, seven, eight yards at a time, and at the end of the day, we didn't do enough offensively to create some space and some big plays.

We had some opportunities there, but we didn't play well enough in all three phases. I know the defense did some good things, but really all three phases they outplayed us.

Q. How do you feel overall about what Justin did today as the starter?

TROY TAYLOR: I think Justin is a gritty, tough kid. He'll give you everything he possibly can. I know he didn't play probably his best, but I thought he gave it all and left it all on the field.

When you come up short, you certainly can sense that we needed to play better in all three areas. He would have liked to have played better, but I thought he was tough and gritty.

Q. What do you make of the big picture so far in your ACC play?

TROY TAYLOR: Yeah, it's a really tough conference. Syracuse, obviously is a really good football team, and then Clemson is always one of the most elite teams in the country. This (Virginia Tech) is a good football team, and they could have easily been undefeated. It's a tough conference, it's a tough schedule, but that's what we want. We've got to lick our wounds and then go to South Bend and play another great football team.

It's a challenge, but we love being in the ACC. This is a great conference.

Q. How close was Ashton today, and if he can't go next week --

TROY TAYLOR: Yeah, he was available to go. He didn't really practice much, to be honest with you, and I just didn't feel like it was the right thing to do to put him on the field without practice. We want to try and give him a few more days -- if you get on the field and you haven't practiced and you're trying to move around against a really good defense, things can happen.

Justin has worked really hard, so hopefully he should be ready to go because like I said, he (Ashton) was available if we really needed him, but we just want to make sure he's completely healthy and 100 percent so he can protect himself back there.

Q. Obviously you're calling time-outs at the end of the game and running a two-minute and Micah goes down it looked like pretty bad. How do you balance --

TROY TAYLOR: Yeah, you want to compete, and we talk a lot about mentality and not quitting, but you also want to be cognizant of keeping your guys healthy because it's a really long season. Yeah, where we are at a program, we need to compete for four quarters and create that mentality that we just don't stop. But in the same sense, you don't want to lose anybody, so hopefully he's okay.

Q. Overall what was the biggest challenge that you felt Virginia Tech posed on both sides?

TROY TAYLOR: Yeah, I would say on defense, they're very athletic and physical and we didn't maintain blocks, so we had times where we'd have a little bit of space and then we wouldn't maintain the blocks and they're a good tackling team. So consequently we weren't able to create any big plays in the run game, and like I said earlier, we just misfired in the pass game. We had opportunities there and matchups that we liked, and it didn't happen.

I think being inside the 5, we really had an opportunity to score there, and we misfired. That was a tough one.

Then on the other side of the ball, the kid was really efficient. We didn't really force him to make any mistakes, real physical guy, and then special teams, they outplayed us in that area, too.

Q. Obviously really hot out today. How did you cope with the temperature?

TROY TAYLOR: Yeah, both teams had to deal with it -- it was right overhead, so there wasn't much shade until the very end, but it was definitely warm. We had our guys hydrated well. I'm sure they (Virginia) did, too. But both teams got to play (in the same heat), so it wasn't a factor.

Q. Tiger Bachmeier has been doing some good things in the punt return game and kick return game. What's gone into his ability to be efficient in that area?

TROY TAYLOR: Yeah, he's a fearless guy back there, so he doesn't like to fair catch, and he'll try to make a play for us. I thought we did a good job of creating some space for him there, and you've got to make the first guy miss typically on punt returns, and he's done a really good job of that.