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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 15, 2010

Jim Grobe

THE MODERATOR: Let's bring in Wake Forest head coach Jim Grobe. Coach, an opening statement and then questions.
COACH GROBE: Thank you. We felt like we were very fortunate to beat a really good Duke team this past weekend. I thought our kids played really, really hard. Game went back and forth for four quarters and we felt very fortunate to come out on top.
We've got another really good challenge this week, going after the west coast and taking on a top 20 Stanford team. So doesn't get any easier. I think everybody we play on our schedule from here on out is going to be really challenging, but our kids are looking forward to the trip.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Grobe.

Q. Coming off that Duke game, I guess defensively where did the proof have to come from for you guys?
COACH GROBE: We've got to limit big plays. We wanted to do that going into the game. That was one of our real keys. We wanted to offensively take care of the football, and defensively limit big plays. And Duke had a bunch of them, so that's disappointing.
I thought in spurts our defense actually played pretty well, and in the second half, if we hadn't given up the big throw with just a couple minutes left, we would have felt like we played a pretty good second half of defense.
So I think in spurts we played pretty good, but I think for us the key is limiting big plays, which is pretty much a key for all good defenses.

Q. I guess on the quarterback side for you guys, do you have a quarterback dilemma now, I guess? Or is this young guy going to start just because the other guy was hurt, I guess, or is he going to start because he earned the job? What is your assessment there?
COACH GROBE: I think you've got a dilemma if you've got two kids that aren't playing very good and you're flipping a coin every week to figure out who the guy is. But I think in our case we felt like until Ted Stachitas hurt his hand Saturday, that he played really well.
Our opening drive was really nice. We went down the field and scored and Ted did a good job directing the offense. After he got hurt, he was limited, and we thought Tanner Price in the second half played really, really well, and of course, we won with him.
So we feel like Tanner deserves the right to start the game at Stanford, but Ted has practiced this week, and I would expect that Ted Stachitas will play also on Saturday.
But I don't think it's a controversy. Both kids like each other, and they have good respect for each other. So it's a healthy situation for us right now both kids have different strengths and weaknesses, but I would expect both kids to play, and hopefully play well this Saturday.

Q. I know big picture you're really concerned about Stanford and probably not the ACC's image, but given what happened last weekend and given that you are playing a ranked team, what does it mean for you guys? Will you even talk about, hey, let's go out there and try to show what the league is about? Or is it more so just, hey, we're playing a really good team in Stanford?
COACH GROBE: I think you hit the nail on the head, Joe. Our focus, especially with over half our football team in the two-deep right now. I think our freshmen and sophomores or right at it. So those guys can't handle any of that outside stuff, and I wouldn't think that the seniors would be good at it either.
But when we started this season, when we opened with Presbyterian and then played Duke this past week we've got so many issues just as a football team involving Wake Forest.
You know, just our blocking and tackling and assignments and all those type things. What we've really tried to do is we're trying to take an approach throughout the season that we just need to focus on the Deaks. No matter who we're playing, we know from here on out everybody we play is going to be really, really good, so we just want to kind of take care of Wake Forest.
The ACC, Pac 10 thing doesn't have anything to do with it. We just need to go play football and take care of the Deaks.

Q. The games I've watched the first couple of weeks, Boise, Alabama, Penn State, LSU, North Carolina, I've noticed teams -- I try to I.D. an offense that they run, and I don't see an offense per se as you call it, "their offense." But I see teams running football plays. They run plays, maybe not a particular offense. In the last two or three years of college football, is it a team so moldable that it's hard to I.D. what they run that they're running just a collection of offensive plays?
COACH GROBE: Yeah, I think in some cases teams are doing that. We've pretty much had to do that for the ten years that we've been at Wake Forest, because our talent changes so much. It's hard for us at Wake Forest to go out and recruit players that just fit a certain type of offense.
We're out trying to find the best quarterback we can find. One year it might be a better runner or better thrower, but we're just trying to recruit the best players that we can find. Once you get them assembled, now you've got to figure out what do they do best.
I think there are probably a lot of teams besides Wake Forest that are in that situation. I do think in some programs they have a system that they're going to run, and they know exactly what they're going to bring in. But I think for some programs if you're like we are, we're just going out and trying to recruit the best players we can find. Then the plays we run will be kind of dictated every year by the level of talent that we have at those positions.

Q. Do you have to keep installing during the year? Can you install more plays? I know you've got a young team.
COACH GROBE: We hopefully have most of our installation done through spring practice and in August. You hate to add too much as the year goes on. That doesn't mean that we won't add a wrinkle here or there, or maybe one year we stumbled on a draw play that was really, really good for us and helped us the last half of the year.
But I think for the most part you hope to feel like you're pretty set going into the season. But I think if you change too many things, you get in trouble. That is the benefit of having an offense that you run year in and year out, nothing changes. So mentally your kids don't make as many mistakes.
I think sometimes if you change too much from week to week or first half of the season to the second half of the season, you can get in trouble because the kids have trouble ruling up their blocking schemes and things like that, and then you make too many mental mistakes. You might have the right play, but if you don't block it and execute it right, it doesn't turn out very well.

Q. I guess Virginia's performance at Southern Cal kind of dismissed the time zone change as much of an issue. But what are you doing this week to prepare for that?
COACH GROBE: Well, I think what Virginia did is smart. They got out there on Thursday. We'll leave tomorrow, and the kids will get all their classes in and then we'll leave after practice and get out there probably about 11:00 o'clock.
That gives you a couple days to kind of get your feet on the ground and get ready to play. Most of the people that we've talked to, a couple teams have tried to do the Friday deal. But if you have any kind of problems along the way, if you have to stop and get fuel that you didn't count on or if the buses aren't there and your transportation gets messed up, then it puts you in a bind.
Of course when we scheduled our trip, we didn't know what time we were going to be playing. That may have adjusted our thoughts a little bit. But you'd hate to go out on a Friday and try to play like a noon kick and not have the time to get the rest that you need.
So I think the big key is to take away the intangibles and things that you don't know about as far as traveling. Try to get out there Thursday night and make sure you get a couple days to get your legs back under you before you play.

Q. Could you just talk about the challenges of playing against their quarterback, because everybody seems to be talking about a lot?
COACH GROBE: They've got kind of a new dimension, something that we didn't see much last year. Andrew's running out of the pocket more than he did last year. Last year they had the big running back last year, and I think they kind of as the season went on, they hung their hat on running the football and put more pressure on the run game than they did the quarterback.
This year with the quarterback, I think there may be even a little bit more balanced. They're throwing the ball of course, extremely well with him at quarterback. What we've noticed is you've got a little more of a propensity to scramble and run out of the pocket. Some of their biggest games are running the football.
He was a big guy to start with, but he's really impressive. His foot speed is better than you think. Watching him against UCLA, his foot speed is really, really good, three or four times it looked like UCLA covered him pretty good and they were in a little bit of trouble. He scrambled out of the pocket for a 15, 20-yard gain.
So I think that's the new dimension. He's the real deal as a quarterback both as a thrower and the way he runs the offense. Now with him, a little more apt to pull the football down and run with it, it really gives you some problems with your defensive front trying to contain him.

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