|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 23, 2010David CutcliffeTHE MODERATOR: We now welcome Coach David Cutcliffe. We'll start with an opening statement and then go to questions. COACH CUTCLIFFE: We're real proud of our seniors and what they've accomplished. It's been a difficult year in that regard to play as well as we have played at times. And the record still be what it is. But I appreciate the contributions that our seniors have made to us, and certainly it's a big ballgame to finish their careers on playing a rival team that sits so close to us. Got a big challenge in front of us, playing an extremely talented team. And we'll have to play as well as we can play to be in the ballgame. With that, I'll take your questions. Q. How do you measure the areas of where you've made progress this year? COACH CUTCLIFFE: Well, I think you look at your team, not statistically. I think you look at your team and the consistency that it has played over the last half of the season. We really played a couple of bad ball games, which were, I hope, aberrations that go away quickly. But we are certainly a team that has played some consistently good football. I also look at our practices and the level of our practices, the competitive level of our practices. So rather than measure it statistically -- and I'm not talking about records. We've got some people with some nice statistics, but I think it's more important to measure that the culture of the program has changed. The expectations of the program has changed. And certainly the habits of our program have changed in a big way. Q. If you could win this last one, is that the kind of thing that momentum can carry over into another season, or is there so much time between the end of one season, the beginning of another that what you did at the end of the last one doesn't mean much? COACH CUTCLIFFE: I think we all as coaches know that the last game you play, whether it's hopefully a Bowl game, always leaves a little taste in your mouth that lasts. You're going into recruiting, you're going into your offseason program. Holiday season. Spring practice, all that stays pretty fresh in your mind. I don't know next August that it makes a difference, but it certainly kicks off the offseason the way you would like it to be kicked off. Q. Coming off those back-to-back wins, looked like the program was really onward and upward there but obviously now you followed it up with two straight losses. What's going to happen to get back to this week how you were playing before this recent -- COACH CUTCLIFFE: Well, you just keep playing the way we've played. We've played consistently over the last month, the two wins and the two losses. There's a lot of good football played. So, as I said, you're not really measuring yourself externally as much as you are internally. And you keep striving for excellence, which is what programs have good habits do. So you call on all the things that are good that you're doing and build on them. Q. What do you need to be doing better than you were the last two weeks to kind of get back? COACH CUTCLIFFE: Obviously turning the ball over and giving up big plays on defense have been our nemesis. Even in these close ball games. We're to the point that we take a little better care of the ball, and we don't give up big plays. Georgia Tech has 11 yards passing at the point in the game that they throw basically a hail Mary, a jump ball, they come down with it, and a 79-yard touchdown pass follows. Without that play they've done much of nothing. And we throw a pick-6 for over 80 yards. That's just a perfect example of how you get yourself beat. Q. I was wondering, in this series, you have the victory bell which goes obviously to the winning team. Carolina has dominated the series. Do you all talk that much about the victory bell? Do you bring that up? It's not like you need a whole lot more motivation for your team, but is that something that comes up for you this week? COACH CUTCLIFFE: I think without question these guys know, but unfortunately none of them have really had firsthand knowledge with it. It hasn't been much of a rivalry in recent years. So it's become a fixture over there. But, yeah, I think that's the carrot, so to speak, that you use in terms of just what it means to beat a team that's 10 miles away from you. But I certainly think the victory bell is very symbolic in our guys' minds. I don't think there's any question about that. I think it's a great tradition, one of the better traditions in college football. We just need to recreate a rivalry by playing well at Duke and winning a few of these ball games. Q. I asked Butch: Do you ever ring it? He said absolutely. When you guys win, beat Carolina at some point, would you ring it yourself? COACH CUTCLIFFE: For sure. It's better to ring while you can ring in this business. So you take advantage of those opportunities while you can, and certainly I think any coach and player would be proud to do that. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|