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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 27, 2010

Billy Hite

COACH HITE: Obviously, we have a big game coming up on Thursday. What we're doing right now we met with the kids on Monday at 6:45 and showed them the film from the Duke game. Then we did our special team meetings Monday afternoon.
We practiced yesterday and we're going to practice today. Then obviously they'll be off Thursday and Friday, and all of our coaches will be out on the road recruiting.
I know Coach Beamer has a plane scheduled. We'll be at Hargrave and Fort Union on Thursday to see them practice. Then the rest of the coaches will be in their area of recruiting.
Of course Saturday becomes Monday for us and everything we do on a Monday practice we'll end up doing on Saturday, and then Sunday obviously becomes Tuesday. So we'll be on a crazy schedule here until next Thursday.

Q. I'm curious how Ryan held up after getting back in action for the first time in about a month. How is he doing health-wise and what do you expect to get out of him come next Thursday night?
COACH HITE: I was very pleased with Ryan. He didn't rush for a lot of yards, and he was always on the short side of the field and down on the goal line.
My big concern was, number one, I wanted him to get back in and get some playing time. I wanted him to get knocked around a little bit and that's exactly what we got. I was more worried about conditioning. When you miss 35 days of practice, and you have the hamstring he had, you can't do much conditioning work. So that was the big concern that I had.
I told him I was only going to give him 10 or 12 plays. I believe he ended up getting 11 plays. And on the goal line, he did score a touchdown, and he had a couple of broken tackles, made a guy miss one time. And I think Ryan's back to his old form right now.
He practiced well yesterday, at the end of practice we conditioned and he ran his sprints very well. And I told him the next couple days when we're not practicing, he needs to get out and do some running every day just to try to get in a little bit better condition.

Q. I was wondering, you guys are riding this six-game winning streak. This bye week, for it to come right now, is it a good thing to kind of get some rest and have a little extra time to get ready for Georgia Tech, or is it not such a good thing because you guys are pretty red hot right now?
COACH HITE: Well, I personally feel it's a good time. I think it's not only good for our players, but I think it's good for our coaches to get a little bit of a break in there also, even though we have been meeting quite a bit. And it's good for us to get on the road for a couple of days and go recruiting.
It's very important that we're in the high schools and visiting with the coaches. At the same time, we've been a little bit banged up, but I think everybody's going to be -- except for D.J. Coles, is probably going to be ready for the Georgia Tech game.
Whitley last week didn't play, and I think he's going to be back and ready to go, and just all the little nagging things that you have. It gives your players a chance to get healthy again, so I think we're, from a standpoint of unless something happens in practice, I think we're going to be -- I think everybody on both sides of the ball will be ready to play.

Q. Is there anything that you guys feel that you need to work on this week with the extra time?
COACH HITE: There is no question about it when you're facing the offense of Georgia Tech. I know Bud Foster's in there, and they're pulling their hair out.
They're so well-coached on both sides of the ball. Of Course, you know I'm very familiar with Coach Groh. He coached at North Carolina when I played there, and he's got a great defensive scheme that you have to prepare for.
Then, of course, their offensive scheme is just absolutely unbelievable. The big thing is I think whoever controls the football in this game is the one that's going to have the opportunity to win. That's what they ended up doing to us last year.
Our offense, I thought we didn't score well in the first half. I thought we played pretty well and moved the ball from the 20 to the 20, but we didn't get any points out of it. Then in the second half, we couldn't stop them and they controlled the football. You know, so we have a lot of preparation to do on both sides of the ball.

Q. Last year there was some talk about alleged illegal blocks in the Georgia Tech-Virginia Tech game. When you broke down film of Tech so far this season, have you seen those types of blocks or is everything looking more clean, I guess, for lack of a better phrase?
COACH HITE: I'm on the other side of the ball, so obviously, I haven't seen their offense. But I have not heard -- I have not heard anything said from our defensive coaches so far, so I would imagine some things changed.
I think the rules the way they are, I know it's been addressed I think really what it boils down to is two really good football teams going after each other. I know the illegal chop block, somebody did say it's only been called twice this year, so I don't think that's an issue in this football game.

Q. Lastly, because you are so familiar with Coach Groh, how much of an advantage is it when you're preparing to go against his defense, even though it's with another team?
COACH HITE: Coach Groh does such a great job. He's scheming us, and we're going to try to scheme him. He's a veteran at this. He's been in the business a long time. I think he's doing -- I think we're seeing more things out of his defensive scheme than we've seen in the past. I think he's done a great job there. He really has.
You know, a lot of the things that we've done in the pass, I'm sure we'll do. We're working on a few wrinkles also right now.
I know our guys -- it was a tough loss for us last year. I know our guys are really excited about having the opportunity to play.

Q. I wanted to ask you, you talked about Ryan a little bit. This Georgia Tech game sounds like it will be the first time in almost two months now that you'll have basically all three of your running backs at your disposal. You were talking to me a little bit a few weeks ago about Dave Wilson and Darren. But now that you've had a break and a chance to step back this week, how would you rate their performance with Ryan out of the lineup for four weeks?
COACH HITE: Well, I think Darren Evans has done an outstanding job in every aspect of our offense. He's caught the football well. He's obviously ran hard and broken tackles and scored touchdowns and made big plays for us. And David, overall has done the same thing.
David's going to be a special guy. He's still learning. He's still having a little trouble at times reading his blocks where he ought to be running inside, but he's running outside. We'll get all that corrected.
I think the big thing with having all three of them back, all it does is make each one of them better. The competition out there on the field in practice, when they get into the games, they want to try to outdo the other one at the same time.
They're each other's biggest cheerleaders right now. They communicate well on the sideline. When they're not in the game if they see a certain blitz that comes, they tell them what they see. They're paying attention. I really like the situation that we're in right now.
Obviously, Ryan is very special. Now that he's back and 100% full speed, obviously, we need to have a big game out of him against Georgia Tech.
Last year he played and he had a couple of big plays against them, but he had the flu last year. Had a fever of I think 103 and still ended up playing pretty well for us in that ballgame.
But, again, I've been very pleased with the other two that have taken Ryan's place in his absence with the hamstring.

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