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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 27, 2010

Randy Shannon

COACH SHANNON: You know, this week is another game for us on our road trip. And playing Virginia is another ACC Coastal opponent. Just watching Virginia on tape, Coach London has done a great job by watching film with those guys, playing hard for the whole entire 60 minutes of a football game.
Offensively they do a great job of running the football and also using the short passing game. Between the sticks they have been doing a great job of getting a lot of yards. As you watch them, you know they can be a team that can score points.
Defensively they're going to lineup in a nine-man front. It will be very hard for us to run the football. We have to have an opportunity that our passing game has to evolve and try to loosen up their nine-man front.
It will be a difficult game, tough game like always when you go on the road. And when you play up in Charlottesville, it's always a tough place at Virginia always tough to play.

Q. When you watch film of an opposing offense, do you tend to look more at the offensive line as a unit or do certain players stand out? The reason I'm asking is if you ever notice the other team's center?
COACH SHANNON: Well, we watch and try to evaluate what we're seeing on film. You evaluate the scheme and then the defensive line coach goes to evaluate the offensive line what he thinks, as a staff what they think who is the strong points and who is the weak points of their offense. And we try to always evaluate that all the time.

Q. So the reason I'm asking is I didn't know if Virginia's center had done anything that might have grabbed your attention at this point or that kind of one of those nebulous things?
COACH SHANNON: When you watch them, they play together as a group. They play hard. It's not just one guy. So I think that when you watch them, you make sure you see what they're doing when they're running their scheme. I think that's the one thing you have to continue to watch is what they're doing to get better as a football team. And when you watch them, they do some good things up front, like I said, and they're running the football pretty well right now.

Q. When you're playing on the road, what is your preference as to a game time?
COACH SHANNON: You always want to play early because you want to have enough time for recovery time on Sunday to get back in town. And I think most coaches will say they want to play earlier than night time games. We've had both, so it just depends on how you feel and what part of the season. Preferably you want the earlier game, like I said earlier.

Q. Such a good performance you guys had against the heels and the team playing really well throughout all three phases of the game. Does it feel like your team's coming together at the right time, especially with the slate of games that you have coming up?
COACH SHANNON: We feel like we're doing okay. We feel like we've still got a lot of improvement to go from our football team. We've given up too many big plays in the run game early in some games that we've played early this season, and we've got to be consistent.
Offensively we've had some big runs that were taken away from us because of holding calls or illegal procedures. As a team, you want to get better, and you want to make sure that you eliminate those mistakes if you want to have success down the road and down the year.

Q. In the game there against North Carolina, it looked like some of the defensive players were getting into it on the sidelines with some of the offensive coordinators -- I'm sorry, against Duke. Rumor has it that you and the players had a players' only meeting last week basically saying screw the coaches, screw the crowd, screw the press, we're going to play the rest of the season for ourselves. Was that altercation sort of an extension of that players' only meeting?
COACH SHANNON: I don't know anything about altercations or what you're trying to insinuate. Players always have players' only meetings just to make sure they understand what we're trying to get done.
As far as altercations or anything like that, that was never said or anything like that. So I don't know where you're getting your information from.

Q. I think maybe to an earlier question or interviewer you talked about consistency. Do you think your team has been as consistent as you would like this year or has it been a little too up-and-down to suit your taste?
COACH SHANNON: We've been up-and-down. We haven't been consistent at all. I've been saying that the more consistency we are as a football team, the better football team we'll become. We know we did some great things at certain times in the game, and then sometimes we'd have some lulls or sleepless moments and those are things that we've got to continue to stress and make sure that we correct those things.

Q. Do you think all teams are like that, and most seasons are like that or do you think it's really something that it's something that you can be consistent?
COACH SHANNON: I think every year everybody's different. Every team has their own identity. This team has their own identity. They start to come and develop a lot of things for themselves and for this football team what we're trying to get done and you can see them develop.
I can't compare this team to any other team that I've coached or been along with because it's different.

Q. The Pac 10 has gone for championship play to let the team that has the best record host the game. Considering the challenges that the ACC has had with its attendance at its title games, should the ACC do that, let the team with the best record host the game?
COACH SHANNON: I don't know. I don't know. When you have conference games there is some success when you look around the country of people playing games at a neutral site.
So it just depends on I guess that league or that conference on what they're trying to get done. I don't think it's a disadvantage or advantage at any point in time. It's just what the crowd and how much the crowd's going to come to the game in that specific area.

Q. So you don't think it would make much of a difference?
COACH SHANNON: Of course, home-field advantage, you get the home-field advantage, of course that is a big difference. You play best record play at home, you're going to have all the fans. That's home-field advantage.
I'm just saying when you look at the Southeast Conference and other conferences that play championship games, like I said, those people are getting a lot of crowds. It doesn't make a difference which teams show up. It's just the fan base for the ACC have to travel.

Q. So should the ACC do it?
COACH SHANNON: No, I think what we're doing is great.

Q. What is your evaluation of UVA quarterback, Mark Verica? Do you guys think you'll try to heat him up and try to force mistakes?
COACH SHANNON: No, we're just going to stick to our game plan and what we're trying to get involved as a defensive unit. We can heat somebody up and just to be blitzing someone and not be able to get a chance to run our defensive scheme.
If it calls for a blitz, we'll blitz. If it calls for us to play base defense and our front four to get out, we'll do those type of things. He's been doing a great job of orchestrating what they're trying to get done on a new system, which is always different. I think that's why they're running the football.
Their running game is very big for the success of their offense, because they've got some potential, what I call, big backs. They've got some big backs that can pound the football and they rotate them.

Q. Did I understand correctly that you challenged some of your receivers to make plays? And if that's the case, it looked like Travis Benjamin stepped up and made some outstanding plays.
COACH SHANNON: No, there are a lot of rumors going around these days about the University of Miami.

Q. Sorry about that.
COACH SHANNON: No, every day that you go out, every player's getting challenged, not just receivers, but the whole football team. Challenging players I think that's their job to go out there and perform to high standards and things like that. We challenge them in practice every day, and we're trying to get them to do the things that we need them to do in practice to be successful.

Q. I know Hankerson had been making some great plays at a great game, I think it was against Clemson. But Benjamin really seemed to step up his game against North Carolina. Can you address that?
COACH SHANNON: You know what, it's something that happens. We look at our offense and Hankerson had a great game against Clemson. But then you go back and look at Travis had a great game against Pittsburgh and he had a great game this week. LaRon Bird has had some great games.
It just depends on what the offense is trying to take out of our offense. If the defense is trying to double team Hankerson, the other guys have to step up. So those are things we've been seeing a lot of different things of, and Jacory has to recognize in game situations who they're trying to take out and things they're trying to get done.

End of FastScripts

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