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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 17, 2010

Randy Shannon

THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by Miami head football Coach Randy Shannon. We'll ask for a brief opening statement, then go to questions.
Coach.
COACH SHANNON: Thanks.
This week we play Virginia Tech, which has been a powerhouse in the ACC over the last couple of years. It's been great knowing Coach Beamer and his staff that we've played them over the years. Watching Virginia Tech on film, like always, their defense is a solid defense that plays hard. They create turnovers and are also able to stop the run.
Offensively, Tyrod Taylor is probably the best player in the league at this point in time. He does a tremendous job of throwing the football downfield. He also doesn't get turnovers. He's more of a quarterback to make the offense run.
Special teams is one of the trademarks of Virginia Tech. They do a tremendous job on the punt block team and also the kickoff return team. They try to win the field position battle by playing special teams.
It's going to be a big challenge for us as a football team to make sure that we come up with our best game to play our last ACC game of this season and our last ACC game at home, which is great for the seniors to have on this football team who have been here a long time to get where we're at as a football team.
THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Randy, when you have a true freshman like Stephen Morris at quarterback and you have a team that likes to put pressure on the quarterback and is very successful like Virginia Tech, they have a linebacker and a defensive end who are in the top 10 in sacks in the league, how does a young quarterback handle that kind of pressure that he probably didn't see in high school?
COACH SHANNON: Well, the thing we do tell Stephen is, You just got to manage the game. You got to make sure you do your part in this game, not do something that's not expected of you. The pressure is on the offensive line up front, learning what blitzes are coming. His job is to gets the hot, the hot guy he's reading off of. Once he understands that, he gets the ball away. Everybody else has to do their job to protect him and make sure he gets the opportunity to throw the football in the right spots.

Q. On film have you seen anything? Tech has a linebacker Bruce Taylor and Steven Friday combined for about 12 sacks. Anything about them that stands out?
COACH SHANNON: I think totally the whole defense stands out. They do a great job of mixing and doing things they want to get accomplished. That's always been Virginia Tech defense. Coach Foster is the defensive coordinator. He's done a tremendous job over the years. When you watch them on film, lost some guys last year, but it's the same thing. The one thing you always notice, they got a lot of fifth-year seniors on their football team. They've been in the system a long period of time. Those guys really understand what they're trying to get done. They put a lot of pressure on the quarterback, on your offense. They stretch your offense as much as they can. Also they're trying to create turnovers. I think that's the one thing they strive on, is creating turnovers to give their offense a chance of short fields.

Q. Anything you're doing to change in your game plan in preparing for Tyrod Taylor this weekend?
COACH SHANNON: No. The one thing you got to understand, they got great skilled athletes on their offense. They got runningbacks, they got receivers. Tyrod is probably the best player in the ACC conference right now. They've got weapons around him that makes him so dangerous.
I think the thing we have to do is make sure we execute what we're trying to accomplish on defense. If we have an opportunity to get some sacks or some hits on Tyrod, we do it within the system and be able to hit him.
It's like anything, they're going to run the football and they're going to try to run it till you stop it. If we put them in third down and long situations, we feel like we have a chance.

Q. I know a lot of media outlets are trying to play up a quarterback controversy once you have two healthy quarterbacks there. Is a healthy Jacory still your top quarterback?
COACH SHANNON: Yeah, if he was healthy. But Jacory is not healthy right now. We don't worry about those things right now. Stephen Morris is our quarterback. He'll play in this game against Virginia Tech. That's what we see till our medical staff fully clears Jacory, Stephen will always be our quarterback.

Q. Frank Beamer said earlier that quarterbacks like Tyrod Taylor don't come around in a program very often. When you come up to defend a guy like Tyrod, I was interested in your assessment of Tyrod and what he brings to their offense.
COACH SHANNON: If you look at it in the past, what has been there at Virginia Tech, because I've faced them a long time, playing Virginia Tech for so long, young man Randall, they had Vick, both brothers, and you have Tyrod. When those guys were at Virginia Tech at that time, they were a tough offense to face and devastating because of what they can do. Smart young men, they can throw the football, but do a tremendous job also of running the football if you're not careful.
We have to be sound in what we're doing at defense to have a shot at Tyrod because he's such a phenomenal athlete but also a great arm as a quarterback.

Q. Coach, I wanted to ask you a general question. There's kind of a controversy after last week's Cal-Oregon game about players faking injury and maybe even coaches coaching players to fake injury to slow the tempo of the offense down so they can make defensive adjustments. Without getting into specifics, in general terms, have you ever run into anything like that? What's your reaction as a coach to that kind of tactic?
COACH SHANNON: I think you look at the rules within the book. If any young man is out, injured out, you have to be carried off to the sideline and then the medical staff goes back, and reading it in the rules book, the medical staff has to come back and allow you back on the field and ready to go.
I don't get into who's faking injuries and anything like that. I know anytime a young man goes down, there's really severity that something is wrong.

Q. The Virginia Tech tailbacks, they seem like your tailbacks. Miami can keep running good backs in the ballgame. With Darren Evans and Ryan Williams, now it looks like David Wilson, who is big in special teams back, your thoughts on that threesome?
COACH SHANNON: That's what I said earlier, they got great athletes around Tyrod Taylor. That's why you can't say I'm going to take Tyrod Taylor out of this football game. Their tailbacks are really, really great runners. You look at Georgia Tech. They won the game on a big kickoff return with two minutes left to go in the game, which was a big, big uplift for Virginia Tech.
They use their runningbacks like we use our runningbacks. They can be special teams guys, runningbacks, receivers. They're going to use them any way possible to get them a carry. When you play kickoff return, that's a carry for you. You may get two to three carries in that special teams, two or three carries in a football game.
I think they have a great tandem, guys are doing a great job, and also they're physical and tough runners.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks for being with us. Good luck this weekend and we'll look forward to talking to you next Tuesday.
COACH SHANNON: Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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