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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 17, 2010

David Cutcliffe

COACH CUTCLIFFE: We've got obviously a big challenge going on the road and playing the defending ACC champions. Another opportunity and another challenge to play an option team. It's late in the year pretty banged up, but our guys are motivated.
I've been real pleased with our practice coming off a disheartening loss to Boston College. Our guys have continued to bounce back all year long and are doing that just this week. So we're looking forward to the challenge and the opportunity of going to Atlanta and playing a good Georgia Tech team. Questions?

Q. I wanted to ask about your offensive line. When you first got there you talked about you really thought guys needed to be in their third, fourth year before they started to make an impact on the offensive line. You're playing right now with two second year offensive linemen and a third year guy. Is that old enough or are they still growing?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Oh, they've got a lot to learn. We're pretty thin there as of right now. It's a big year in recruiting for us in that regard. We've red shirted a couple of scholarship offensive linemen in this class.
Yeah, you'd like guys to really be with you three years and really kind of soak. But there are certainly great players that come in and play well early enough in the offensive line.
But Matt Luke's done a nice job. We have two freshmen and a sophomore and then a junior and senior that are doing the starting and most of the playing.
We're going to try to play another freshman, John Coleman, some who has earned it. A red shirt freshman, but still a freshman. So it is what it is. I'm really pleased though with the progress in that area.

Q. You said something Sunday night about when you looked at the film of the Boston College game. Though you didn't run the ball well in that game, you were encouraged by some of the battles you saw. Can you elaborate on that?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Yeah, I can. Really after watching the tape -- and we ran the ball okay at times, just gave up some bad plays. We got some lost yardage runs and then gave up a couple of bad sacks that we didn't need to give up. It cost us more lost yards than we've been having.
We matched up better than I thought. I thought Boston College's inside guys were the best we've played against. Kuechly is certainly the best defensive player we've played against. Just over and over we were one technique away or one block away from being consistent in what we're doing.
I think Boston College is one of the most physical teams in the league, and we matched up against them much better than I thought. That's the short story of it.

Q. I know that Georgia Tech runs their system regardless. But I just was curious if Kevin Washington brings anything different at the quarterback position for them?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Well, they lost a great player in Josh Nesbitt, by the way, which I hate for him. He's had a tremendous career certainly over the last three years running the option.
Tevin Washington is a very similar player to him, a very talented athlete and excellent runner. A strong runner just like Nesbitt is and not easy to tackle. But nothing really different than Nesbitt.
He's a little less experienced, but they seem to be gaining steam with him. He got his first start under his belt, and I think they're pretty wide open back to what they do. So he's obviously pretty accomplished in his knowledge of the Georgia Tech option system also.

Q. Anything that he can do to get a young quarterback rattled a little bit or anything?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: The problem is trying to get to him. You hope that we do enough to make some of the reads a little tougher. He's like any quarterback whether you're reading the option or whether you're reading coverage to throw the ball. If you can deal with a little bit of confusion, it helps. He certainly doesn't have the number of snaps that Nesbitt had in the past.
The problem is in that system you've got to stop and defend everybody. You can't just focus on that quarterback. But we'd certainly like to bring as much pressure on him as we possibly can. You just have to be careful when you do it.

Q. We were just talking about the offensive line, but let me ask you about the young guys on the defensive line. How are Sarmiento and Hazelton, two guys that really haven't played before this year, they're playing a lot, what kind of job are they doing?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Well, Sidney Sarmiento is a starter. Kind of a different level than Curtis Hazelton. Sidney is playing 60 snaps, which you don't want any defensive lineman to do. He plays our three technique. He's a big, strong guy that's going to be a really good player. He needs some help in there.
We're playing three guys. Hazelton on a limited basis, Charlie Hatcher and then Sidney. I'm really pleased where Sidney is as a red shirt freshman. Hazelton's a red shirt sophomore. He's a guy that's continued to get better. He's much better this year than he was a year ago, but still limited to some degree.
But in spring practice, we've red shirted some big guys, some big, strong guys that weren't quite ready. Hopefully that will help Sidney a great deal when he has somebody to share that load of snaps. Guys inside don't need to play more than about 35, 40 snaps when they're playing a lot in my opinion.

Q. I was going to ask you about a bunch of red shirts. You did have a large crop of DL's. Are you happy with what you've seen in terms of potential from those guys?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Yeah, I am. I'm extremely happy with where they are at this point: The problem that you run into, you don't play in a bowl game which is really frustrating. You get less time with those guys.
Now we've got a 15-day spring practice, three of them in shorts, one's a spring game, a couple are scrimmages. So you don't get that many teaching days. Before you know it, it's next August and you're still evaluating those guys.
So a lot of work to be done in that regard. But there are some big 300-plus pounders, and they're moving good. They're fit for the first time, and I like where we're headed there.

End of FastScripts

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