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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 8, 2010

Mike London

MIKE FINN: We now welcome Virginia head coach, Mike London, whose Cavaliers will face Southern California, ranked 16th in the AP poll this week. The game will be played in the Coliseum in Los Angeles, and will have a 10:30pm kickoff, and will be televised to FOX Sportsnet to a national audience. For that, we'll bring on Coach London, ask for a brief opening statement and go to questions, Coach?
COACH LONDON: Yes, thank you. Had a great opportunity to win a home opener. It's something we hadn't done in a long time here. I know the players were excited about the opportunity, but now we're moving on and getting ready for a great USC team down in California. But the players are looking forward to the trip and the venue out there.
MIKE FINN: Questions for Coach.

Q. Yesterday I was a little confused by something you said. At least your quoted as saying, "It's likely that Rodney McLeod will be available," or did you mean unlikely?
COACH LONDON: I said unlikely.

Q. And that will be a game-time decision again?
COACH LONDON: Yes, he's moving around pretty good. He's running and cutting and doing all those things. So we're just watching him day by day. It happened to him last year, I believe, in practice, Anthony Poindexter was telling me, he was out a couple of weeks and back . So we'll see how he responds come Friday, Saturday.

Q. For you as a coach from a preparation standpoint, what kind of challenges does the overall talent at USC possesses, what kind of challenges is that for you as a coaching staff and you individually? And in your time as a head coach, is this the toughest opponent that you've had to prepare for?
COACH LONDON: The challenges are obviously that they year in and year out have one of the top recruiting classes in the country. They have documented success, you know, with the National Championships and recruiting classes.
Then there is speed and athleticism at all of the positions that they play, so that always presents a challenge as far as you doing the right things, being in the right gap, making the right throws, making the right reads. So you're going to have to do things that they're going to call on you to be technique sound and technique perfect.
We've played in a lot of games, but this is a team that's a very good team that is going to cause you to have to play your best football. Not in particular if it's the best of the best, but what I'm saying is that they are from top to bottom the guys that they put in the game, they are guys that have had high school success and have won championships and continue to play players that are said to be the best in the country.
We just have to worry about what we do and execute from our standpoint and not get caught up into the venue and all of the things that are going on right now.

Q. A lot of the players on this team are guys you saw early in their careers, a lot of people on the Virginia team were guys you saw earlier in their careers or when they were being recruited. I guess, Aboushi is a guy you hadn't seen before you got there. What had been your impressions of him this fall? Could you talk about the game he had Saturday?
COACH LONDON: I tell you, he's surprised me and also been very interesting the way that this young man goes about in preparing himself for a game. He played some last year, and he was one of the players that I said going into it that although he had been a young player, this is his developmental year. This year is a big year in terms of him being able to play and compete.
He's an aggressive player, he loves football, and he wants to do well. He's going to try to do everything he can in the weight room and all of that to make sure that he can compete at the highest level.
So he's playing, but at the same time he's trying to catch up, get bigger, faster, stronger as he plays. But I'm very pleased with his progress at this point. It started from training camp all the way down until last week's game.
So with that, he's going to have to now, like I said, all of us, he's going to have to play his best game because he's going against some really good football players.

Q. I asked you about Colter Phillips and his catch the other day. He missed, I can't remember how much it was, at least a week, maybe ten days of practice. How was he able to make up all that lost time by the end of training camp and where is he right now in terms of where you want him to be this season?
COACH LONDON: The situation, the tragic accident that happened, required Colter to be with his family, and rightfully so, and focus his time and energy on his family and what was going on. When he did come back, sometimes you lose a level of conditioning, and you lose -- obviously you lose whatever the installation was over that time span.
But Colter is a smart young man, bright, very bright. Was able to kind of on the run pick up things that he hadn't been taught or hadn't been gone over. So he's put himself back into a situation where he understands the offense, he understands. He's caught up to things from the learning curve from the systems that required him to, and he's getting caught up to the physical conditioning part also. He's very close to that point.
I expect him to be 100% both from the mental standpoint and physically being able to play when called upon.

Q. I was just curious what you thought of the new color combination that they'll unveil Saturday with the orange and blue pants? What are you looking to do this year? Will you change from game to game or what sort of plan is there?
COACH LONDON: I liked it. I thought they looked sharp. The captains and the players chose the combination. We talked about doing that early on when it was available that we had these different color combinations.
The big thing for us is trying to connect with our fan base and our students is that early on home games that we'll get with the student body and people that can get the message out about it. Maybe the next game it's all blue, or maybe it's blue tops and orange bottoms or whatever it may be.
But the thing is just to have fun with it, but also get people involved with it and see the stands, you know, hopefully buying into what we're trying to get done. It's been fun, and we hope that it continues.

Q. Talked a lot about Keith, but how nice is it to see all of your backs have some success back there, not just one? You talked about your versatility back there since the spring, really.
COACH LONDON: Well, the biggest problem that you have is about giving guys the amount of touches. But these guys, all those guys are not selfish. They're team players. And I think it's indicative of the fact that Ray Horne will return kickoffs. Don Wallace will probably be back to returning kickoffs also, special teams.
Dom Wallace is on punt-rush, punt-block teams. Initial burst, fast, athletic. Talked about he played linebacker when he was in high school and he wants to be involved. So it is refreshing to have talented running backs who don't care who gets the credit and are willing to do other things on the field to help the team.

Q. My question is about depth. You're going to take this long flight, time change, climate change, against a team that probably has two deep, maybe a three deep. What about your roster, coach? Do you have the depth necessary? Do you have the two deep? Are you comfortable with your two deep for a game like this?
COACH LONDON: Well, that always provides a challenge when you're traveling, as you said, on the road, the time change, things like that. There is a rotation that we've gone through in the early part of the hot August practices that we're going to have to incorporate.
During the Richmond game we had some rotations with guys up front. But we'll have to put some guys in and they may have to play instead of five, seven, eight snaps during the whole game, they may have to play more snaps than that in strategic times when maybe it's coming out or first and second down. Maybe the guy would come in for another guy. We just have to be smart about who we put in.
But we're taking, I believe, 67 on the trip. You know, that's two-deep plus special teams guys, our specialists. So we're going to need everybody that's traveling to have some sort of input and an opportunity to contribute for this game for sure.

Q. It seems like you have the depth for a game like this at tailback. Is there an area where you perhaps are worried about the depth on this football team?
COACH LONDON: I'm about the depth of -- no, I think we've got good players on the front line. There's maybe a key reserve that can play. You look at our secondary and I know that everything's talking about Rodney and Ross being down, but Chase Minnifield and Michael Parker and Devin Wallace, those three guys they make up kind of like a rotating unit. Then the next guy in the game will be probably a younger guy.
When you have guys like that that we'll find out what happens with them on game day; if they are down then the three of them that played in the game for us, the corners that played and our safeties, you may have to play a young guy.
But that's football. That is the way it is. Football is a game of people get injured, they get dinged, pulls, all those things like that. You've just got to deal with it on a game-by-game basis and be ready. But we'll be ready to play regardless of who is in there.
MIKE FINN: Thank you for being with us today. Good luck this weekend.
COACH LONDON: Thank you. Have a good day.

End of FastScripts

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