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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 13, 2010

Mike London

COACH LONDON: Appreciate the opportunity to be here with everyone. Guys are looking forward to a very historic game. One that has yearly been anticipated. We see people on both sides, fans on both sides looking to rebound and bounce back and play a game that's representative of the type of team that we have.
So we're excited about our opportunity to play. It's homecoming, an evening game, and all the things that come along with that, so we're ready to go.

Q. I know it's still pretty early in the week. How quickly do you think you'll settle on a new rotation on the offensive line and your lineup there?
COACH LONDON: Well, you're right. It is pretty early in the week, with Wednesday being the second day of a work week where we're padded up and things like that.
So I would say shortly, right after today's practice, you start to get an idea of who is going to be doing what. You want to be consistent with how you're practicing. So our guys are doing a nice job.
Yesterday was probably one of the better Tuesday practices we've had since we've been here. So we'll have another one today, and we'll look at the tape and check the mental errors and things like that to see if we have guys in the right position.
But we're going to have to play a couple guys, more linemen than we've had in the past, which may be a good thing for us, so we can get some guys in the game.

Q. I wondered what your impressions are of Johnny White, the North Carolina tailback, certainly coming off a big game. What kind of defensive problems he causes.
COACH LONDON: I tell you what, Johnny White is a very, very good player, very accomplished player, very athletic, because you can see he's played different positions. Wideout, DB, running back. So they've captured his skills and the thing that's he's done and put him in the running back position where all those other positions he's played have benefited from him.
He's a threat to run the ball. He's a threat coming out of the backfield to catch the ball. In fact, I think he's like their second leading receiver. So there are a lot of challenges he presents and you're going to have to have team pursuit, team tackle and things like that, because he does a good job with Coach Shoop's offensive system when they want him to touch the ball.
Like I said, very good player. Very impressed with his skills and the level of energy and passion he plays with.

Q. How much pressure does that put on your defense when you have an accomplished receiver coming out of the back field that can do a lot when he catches the ball?
COACH LONDON: It puts pressure on any defense. I'm quite sure the match-ups they feel with the running back coming out of the backfield with the outside linebacker or whatever it may be, they have an advantage there. Even on an angle route, catching the ball underneath at the check down. He does a great job of that because he can catch and make you miss.
Like I said, you have to play your defense. Know where you fit, where you drop in your zones, if you're playing manned coverage. Just all those things that you've got to hone in on.
So we're spending a lot of our time not just with Johnny, because he's an accomplished player in his own right. But they've got other play makers, too. Their tight end is the leading receiver on their team. He's a very good player. They've got skilled wide receivers that can stretch the field.
They've got a good plan offensively, and we've got to play well defensively to give ourselves a chance.

Q. After playing Georgia Tech and watching him film, were there any plays Georgia Tech ran offense that you book marked and said that's something that might work for us in the next few weeks or next season?
COACH LONDON: Other than the eight plays over 20 yards that they got, there are some plays that you can look back. But like I said, it's a system that they run, that Coach Johnson runs, that they've been very successful at it. The adjustments that they haven't seen and their running backs. Everyone that touches the ball is adept to, if you do the line stunt, then the holds going to be here. So they execute that well.
It's always a learning process when you get an experienced offensive line and experienced backs that you've been together for a while, how you want to run things. How you want to hit downhill. How you want to block things.
So they've done a nice job over the years of doing that, and it shows. We're a team that's looking to get better and improve what we do offensively , particularly the running game and how we block. Even the offense or defense may move or shift. The benefit that they have being together and having a system that they've done for a while is being able to do exactly that.
With time, everyone hopes, every head coaches, their offense can do something similar. But they've been very productive in what they do.

Q. You might not be adding any option to your offense?
COACH LONDON: I'd like to add some players that we have that they have, you know. Like I said, their scheme fits exactly what Coach Johnson wants to do, and they've been doing it for a while. When you've been doing something for a while and you've had success at it, players understand that they fit and they have to do based on whatever the defense is doing.
You'd like to have some plays over 20 yards-plus running and things like that, but only thing you can do is take care of what you have, coach the players that you have. Hopefully, we do a good enough job that as our guys get older and acclimated to our offense, our schemes, our blocking schemes that we'll have success in the long run. So my hat's off to them.

Q. You mentioned a couple minutes ago that you were looking at playing more offensive linemen. On Monday or Sunday I think you said you were looking at playing Will Hill and Jake Snyder on the defensive line. And I'm just curious whether you feel your guys are getting more down at all or are they just young players that need to get in the game and get experience?
COACH LONDON: I think offensively we've addressed that with Landon being out and with Morgan Moses and Sean Cascarano, and Lou Bowanko you know, on the flip side defensively, you're at the midpoint of the season.
Guys have been in practice. They've gotten reps. They've lifted, they've run. The only way you're going to get a young players and young team ready to move on is to get them some game experience. So those guys will have to play, we want them to play, they will play to help bring them along also.
I don't want their development only having been in a couple plays this season, I think the whole defense is coming back. I just want them to be developed right now as we go along in competition because they are doing a nice job practicing, and they deserve to play also.

Q. You've mentioned North Carolina's tight ends. I may be forgetting somebody. But this seems to be the first team you'll have faced this year that really features its tight end in the offense and goes to him that much what kind of challenge does that present to your defense? And who does that fall on mostly?
COACH LONDON: I think as we were implementing our own offense with the tight ends and things like that that you see the benefit of a tight end that can block, a tight end that can stretch the field and catch. With their tight end, he's a leading receiver, which means they get the ball to him.
The match-ups whether it's man or zone, you have to be alert and aware to where he's at. As I said, the challenge for us is the first couple of snaps first quarter of the game, and you look around and they've got eight different receivers catching the ball.
So Coach Shoop does a great job spreading the ball around and getting it to different people. But over the course of the season, their tight end has emerged as being the guy with the catches.
Having the tight end, the guy that can block, catch, stretch the field, that's what you want to do. That's what we want to do. We're recruiting tight ends and bringing tight ends back into the fold for us offensively. Again, Coach Shoop has been around their system for a while, he's done a nice job with them. And you can see the benefits having such a good tight end as they have.

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