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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 20, 2010

Randy Shannon

THE MODERATOR: We now welcome Miami head football Coach Randy Shannon. We'll ask for a brief opening statement and go to questions.
COACH SHANNON: Thank you.
This week's opponent is North Carolina, which is another coastal conference opponent. It's a big game for us. I think it's a big game also for North Carolina.
As everybody knows, Miami's 0-3 the last three years playing against North Carolina. It's going to be a pivotal game for us, the program, what we're trying to get done this season.
North Caroli na has done a wonderful job on offense with Yates, orchestrating the offense, getting his completions, ratios down, interceptions down. They're running the football well, causing turnovers. I think they've done a fantastic job of playing within the scheme what they're trying to do both offensively and defensively, giving themselves a great chance to make big plays on offense, but also not giving up big plays on defense and causing a lot of turnovers.
It's going to be a big test for us, which when you play inside conference, every game is a big test, because you're always trying to reach the end of the season something that is very special.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Shannon.

Q. Randy, is there anything in particular over the last three games against Carolina that you have done that you would like to do better this time around? Any trend in those losses?
COACH SHANNON: Well, you know, watching the last three years of playing North Carolina, the turnovers have been a big factor in the games. Every time we played North Carolina at North Carolina, we've turned the ball over a lot. Also coming home, we've turned the ball over a lot. I think those things are playing a big significance in this game.
We have to make sure we don't turn the ball over. They've created turnovers this season, and in the past, too. I think that's going to be a pivotal part of this football game.

Q. Also, I wanted to ask you about the progress of Seantrel. How do you think he's done so far this point? What has the toughest thing been for him to grasp?
COACH SHANNON: Anytime you play as a freshman is always difficult. As far as the way he's prospered, learned, doing some great things for us, is really see freshmen do that well. He's big, very athletic. He's got a lot of things that's positive.
Like anything, he has to still learn and keep going because of so many different defenses that you see, different ways to try to attack you. I have to expect that North Carolina will do those things to confuse him.
As far as what he's done this season and also what he's done last week, playing an entire game, I thought was tremendous for him and also tremendous for us as a program to have a young man come in and do those type of things to give you some stability at that position but also some depth.

Q. Coach, Miami seemed to take a lot of heat after the Florida State game about its lack of leadership, but played well against Duke last weekend. Any particular player or group of players that have stepped up and taken on that leadership role?
COACH SHANNON: That's like two, three weeks ago, Florida State. Anytime you play Florida State, I hate to bring up the past, but those games always go and come. We have had some tight games. I've been part of a situation. As a freshman at Bynum, I was a player. We got beat in the Orange Bowl 38-3.
Anytime you play in those games, you always go back and you say to yourself, What you can we do to get better? I think the guys responded by coming back at Duke and playing well at Duke, defensively causing turnovers. I think offensively we went down the first play of the game, we had a fumble, offensively came back and scored 14 points.
We put ourself in a bad situation. Our guys responded, didn't go in the tank. I think that shows improvement of what we're trying to do, where we're going with this football program.

Q. With UNC starting off a really key of coastal division games, the team's morale, their upbeat spirit seems to be good going into this weekend's game?
COACH SHANNON: Yeah, very upbeat. We have had two great practices. Guys are very physical this morning. We've had some physical toughness, some hitting going on. The guys have responded with a lot of enthusiasm. Anytime you can have a practice with guys flying around, having a great time with each other, but also being physical with each other, you can enjoy watching those things develop as a football team.

Q. Randy, coaches over the last four or five years have become very sensitive to what I call 'competitive secrecy' among each other, among teams, not wanting people to watch practices, that type of thing. Do you think some of that is eradicated when you play a guy who knows you as well as Butch Davis?
COACH SHANNON: I do think so. But also it's different because in the old days, you could let people watch practice because you didn't have the Internet, phone cameras, those type of things. In this time and age, you want to get some kind of special insight on something. Maybe if you can get a snap count by an offense, a checkoff by a defense, hand signals in practice, something like that before the game, that plays a big part.
I think that's why the secrecy has come up on it because we've never had to face it now in the past. So much now with the Internet, YouTube, the cell phone things, can put you at a disadvantage, especially when you have two guys that know each other like myself and Butch do.

Q. That part I understood about cameras. I'm curious, is some of that not as important because you and Butch know each other so well, what tendencies and likelihoods are?
COACH SHANNON: Not as much, but you still have to be careful.

Q. With Virginia Tech sitting at 3-0 in the league, can you address how important it is not to get that second loss this weekend.
COACH SHANNON: I mean, it's always important. Everybody besides Georgia Tech and North Carolina, everybody else has to play each other within the conference. Ourselves, we're looking at this as a game-by-game challenge. North Carolina is a big challenge and step for us. We figure if we can take care of the things we have to get done this weekend, we'll look to the next opponent.
Our total focus has to look at this game and you can't look too far ahead because bad things happen when you get too far ahead.
THE MODERATOR: Coach Shannon, thanks for being with us. Good luck this weekend. We'll talk to you next Wednesday.
COACH SHANNON: Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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