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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 27, 2010

Jim Grobe

COACH GROBE: Thank you. We're off this past weekend, and I think that's been good for us physically. I always hate to have an open date after a loss, but I felt like we were beat up pretty good after five really, really tough games against really good teams.
So I think the break came at a good time for us physically. Mentally, I don't know. I think we've got a young football team, so I think our guys are bouncing back pretty good mentally, but we'll find out Saturday. We've got to go on the road and play another really, really good football team in Maryland.

Q. Is there any key aspect that your team worked on in preparing for Maryland during the bye week?
COACH GROBE: We did. We went back to something that you really have problems doing is you get into the season finding enough time to individually work fundamentals, especially with younger players. I think that's something that was hurting us at the first of the year. We were at times in the right place but not playing our techniques and being very good fundamentally. So that's what we tried to work on.
We tried to spend more time with the coaches and their individual position groups. Trying to work through some fundamentals from stance to start to tackling to shedding blocks, all those type things that you kind of lose track of once you get into the season. Because you're spending so much time on your schemes offensively and defensively that you don't work fundamentals, so that was a focus for us.

Q. In your performance against Virginia Tech a few weeks ago, do you see Harris as becoming your primary ball carrier in the back field?
COACH GROBE: Certainly right now I think he's the guy. He's earned that opportunity. We've really not been disappointed so much in Josh Adams and Brandon Pendergrass, of course, Pendergrass is hurt. But we just weren't getting as much production as we felt we needed.
So we felt Josh Harris deserved the opportunity, and certainly had a great game against Virginia Tech. There are always things you can improve on. We want him to be a little better in pass protection and routes, blocking, things like that. But from just a carrying the football standpoint, he gave us a lift. He'll be the starter when we go up to Maryland Saturday.

Q. What are your concerns defensively facing that Maryland offense, and after giving up so many points against the Hokies? How confident are you in your defense?
COACH GROBE: We don't have a lot of confidence, honestly. We've had two games that were just off the charts bad out of Stanford then at Virginia Tech. So, you know, we started four freshmen against Virginia Tech. We could start five on Saturday against Maryland.
So they're young guys that are enjoying playing. They're playing really, really hard, but there's not a lot of experience on our defensive football team. We're just trying to go day-to-day, and do a better job assignment-wise, better job fundamentally, all those type things.
But as many young guys as we're putting out on the field, there is not a lot of confidence right now. But I think the good thing is, I think our kids are playing hard. Sometimes you don't play good defense because your guys aren't really getting after it. That's not been our problem. Our guys are trying as hard as they can, we just are making too many mistakes.
The other thing is too we've played some really good football teams. Some of the offenses that we've gone against in Stanford and Virginia Tech and Florida State and Navy, you saw what they did to Notre Dame this past week. Then Georgia Tech is pretty good offensively. So we've gone against some really good football teams.
But I think from our standpoint, we're not a real confident defense by any stretch of the imagination. But I think we can play better, and that's what we're trying to get the guys to kind of hang their hat on is that we haven't played very well, but we've got five games left and we can play better.

Q. Just wondered, how do you evaluate Tanner Price at had this point in the season? I'm sure he probably benefited a lot from the week off. I know he had a difficult day in Blacksburg, but where is he in his evolution as a freshman quarterback?
COACH GROBE: Unfortunately, I think he's exactly where you would expect a true freshman quarterback to be, and that is in a position where he does some things well and at other times he's very inconsistent.
I think that's our biggest concern with Tanner. He's got a lot of skill. He's got the nice arm strength, and he's a really smart kid and he works hard to do what you're coaching had him to do. But we've been playing some really good football teams. Not only have we played some teams that play really good offensively, but we're playing some teams that are good on the defensive side.
So we're not disappointed. I wouldn't say that we're disappointed in Tanner's play. But what we're searching for is some consistency. He played lights out against a good Navy football team a few weeks ago, and then we went to Virginia Tech and he didn't play well at all. So I think the consistency is what we're looking for with Tanner.
But it's about what you would expect. We're hoping these last five games that he can play a little above what you would expect out of a true freshman.

Q. Also on defense, you said that you might have five freshmen starting. Who is the fifth guy?
COACH GROBE: Well, we're looking at some of the guys on the defensive front as possibly rolling another guy in there, another young guy up front. I think the guys that we're looking at right now are possibly John Gallagher, I think another guy Kevin Smith, has done some really good things for us here lately.
So we're just kind of looking at that right now. My guess would be based on what we've done these first couple days that we'll look at those two inside guys, Souza and Nikita Whitlock as starters. Then possibly at defensive end looking at another starter, and then in the freshman class, whether it might be Gallagher or Kevin Smith.
Then we've got to decide what we're going to do at corner. Both the two corners, both Kevin Johnson and A.J. Marshall are still both competitive to start right now with A.J. being a little shakier than Kevin. But we'll see how today's practice and tomorrow's practice go.
But we've got a bunch of those young guys that are all in the mix to start, and if they don't start, they're going to probably play a lot.

Q. I was looking at a list of the less experienced offensive linemen in the ACC and it's amazing to me how many centers are on that list. Is there any reason for that? You have one of the more experienced centers in the league. Is that a quality you have to have at that spot?
COACH GROBE: Yeah, I don't think there is any question. If you had your druthers, you want your veteran guy to be at center. I think what so many people do, and we did the same thing, for us Russ Nenon was a really good offensive guard when we had Steve Justice here who was a pretty good center. We were able to move Russ out to guard, even though we thought he was a center for us. Then when we had the opportunity, we bump ed him back to center.
I think that's what you see a lot of people do. Where if you've got a pretty solid center, you might have your best player behind him playing guard and tackle for you for a year or two until you can move him back into center, and that's what I think you see a lot of veteran centers in the league.

Q. In your system, does your center call out blocking assignments or does he do any of that?
COACH GROBE: We've done it both ways. We've used the guards to do that when we're in a scheme where we're calling the plays from the sideline. Because the center's got to see the quarterback when the clock's getting down to zero so we don't get delay of game.
Then when we're doing actions off our wrist bands, we'll let the centers I.D. the fronts and do it that way. So we do it both ways. Your center plays better if he can I.D. the calls. That's a little tougher if he's counting on the guards to let him know what the front is, but we do it a little bit both ways.

Q. There is so much shotgun being played these days. Is that a difficult skill for a center to pick up? I mean, it seems simple, but I've seen some teams wreck from bad snaps.
COACH GROBE: Yeah. I think the key is most kids -- now if a kid's a center that's come out of a high school program that's in the gun all the time, I don't think it's much of an issue. But the issue you've got with a kid that's been an under center guy with the quarterback his whole career in high school and he gets to college, now you want him to snap shotgun snaps.
The problem that you get is not really only the accuracy of the shotgun snap. Of Course, he's got to step as he's snapping to block, especially in running situations. But the other problem is the speed of the snap. Because if the snap floats back there, that gives the defensive guys that much more of an opportunity to get there when they pressure him.
So it's a problem for a youngster especially, and the only way you get better at it is through repetitions. And not just repetitions in practice, but I think there is a little more pressure in games. So you're more likely to see that ball going a lot of different places in a game.
Usually, once you get a kid with two or three games under his belt, that starts to settle down. So my guess would be you're probably seeing fewer mistakes this time of the year than you probably did early in the year.

End of FastScripts

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