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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

April 21, 2011

Jim Grobe

COACH GROBE: I think spring went well for us. We avoided any major injuries, which is always a key for coaches, I think. But I think at the same time we got a lot of work done. I think our kids had a lot of fun, and nice to see some of these guys growing up. A lot of the kids that were in spring last year never thought that they were going to play last year, and all of a sudden they were thrown into in a lot of cases starting roles, so this was a little more focused spring for our guys. I think more the younger players this spring realize that they might be asked to not only play a lot next year but maybe be in a starting position. So we just, I think, had a better energy level this spring and had a lot of fun.

Q. Can you comment on the level of improvement Tanner has shown in the off-season?
COACH GROBE: Well, he's improved in about every way you could imagine physically, bigger, faster, stronger, all that kind of stuff. But I think probably the best thing for him was to get a spring practice under his belt. You know, last year we threw him in the mix without a lot of preparation, and so I think this has been a great spring for him. He's obviously improved physically, but I think by the end of spring practice he was starting to really feel comfortable with all the decisions that he needed to make and just seemed more like a veteran quarterback rather than a wide-eyed rookie.

Q. And it is probably Tanner's job to lose, but how close are Ted and Brendan in competing for the starting job?
COACH GROBE: Well, I've got to tell you I was impressed with Ted Stachitas this spring. Now, we weren't light on our quarterbacks, and one of Ted's biggest problems has been durability. He's been hurt a lot his whole career, two shoulder surgeries on his throwing arm. I think this is the first time I felt really comfortable with him being healthy. I think he didn't have any arm problems this spring, actually threw some deep balls and looked really good. And then of course runs the option very well for us. You know, Ted has worked his way into a position where we feel like he could go in and help us win a football game.
I think Brendan and Pat Thompson are a little bit out of that mix. I think there's obviously a top two and then the other guys are going to fight it out for that third spot. But right now I would say Tanner Price and Ted Stachitas are the two guys we're looking at going forward.

Q. You've got some new defensive coordinators. What kind of impact have they had and how different might your defense be looking in the fall?
COACH GROBE: Well, we were really thin on linemen last year, so we had to get into a three-man front. We've been playing four-man fronts for quite a while, and just by necessity, about four or five games into the season, we just had to go down to three, and actually five of those top six guys were freshmen last year, so we were really, really young and thin up front.
But this spring has been good for us. Those young guys have grown up a little bit. They've gotten a little more size to them, and they feel more comfortable. And one of the things that's really helped us is being able to bring Brian Knorr back over to the defensive side of the bar. I hated to lose Brad Lambert, but bringing Brian Knorr to the defensive side has really, really helped us. As you know we're going to use both Tim billings and Brian. They're two kind of veteran guys on the defensive side of the ball, and let those guys coordinate the defense together.
But I think Brian is a 3-4 guy that's -- he was my defensive coordinator at Ohio University and we ran a 3-4 there. So he's probably got the most experience in a 3-4 scheme. So he's really, really helped us there. And I think Tim Billings has given us a lot of good thoughts. He was the defensive coordinator when Marshall had all those really good teams, and he's given us a lot of experience there.
And then one of the things I think has really helped us, we moved Steve Russ back to the secondary, and we brought Steve here -- he was the defensive coordinator at Syracuse. We've got three really veteran coordinators on the defensive side of the ball, and those guys all work really well together. We don't have any problems with egos and that kind of stuff. So I think the combination has worked out really, really well for us, and I'm excited going forward to see how these guys work in the fall. But right now our defense is just playing with a great energy level, and I really like what we're doing scheme-wise.

Q. I wanted to ask kind of a general question. You guys were on a nine-game losing streak but you ended the season with a pretty strong victory over Vanderbilt. Going into the off-season, does winning that last game after a bad season, does it help? What kind of influence does it have in your off-season preparation, workout, that kind of thing?
COACH GROBE: Well, I think it really helped us. It especially helped the young guys. It was kind of a -- for the handful of seniors that we had, it was nice for them to go out with a win. But I think more than anything else, about halfway through the season we basically started spring practice. We had 13 freshmen last year start at least one game for us, and at Wake Forest we just cannot do that. We've got to play more mature, veteran players. But I thought from about halfway through the season when we started really continuing to work fundamentals and grinding our guys about toughness and things like that, I thought by the end of the year we took a really young football team into Vanderbilt and beat those guys. So I think that really gave our kids a lift going into the winter. We had great energy from 99 percent of our kids in the wintertime, and then this spring has just been a different spring. And I think while I couldn't put too much emphasis on the win over Vanderbilt, it certainly gave our kids a little bit -- especially our young kids, a little bit of satisfaction knowing that the real, real hard work that we put in last fall, kind of never-give-up kind of attitude, was that we were able to win at the end of the year, so now they feel a little bit better and know they can win, it's just a matter of getting the job done.

Q. I wanted to ask you about your kicking situation where you talked about Jimmy Newman. Do you have any update on when he might return?
COACH GROBE: Well, not really. I think certainly we feel like he'll be full speed and ready to go when we come back in August. You know, we're getting ready to go through a period here where we'll have no contact with our players at all. We can't be in the weight room with them, we can't be out on the field with them. You know, they're basically going to go through about three months without any supervision at all other than what they get in the weight room. So our doctors are telling me that the best thing that we could do for Jimmy was give him rest, and I'm not real comfortable with that, as you know.
I kind of don't like the rest philosophy. But that's all we could do. He just was not healthy enough to kick. It's kind of one of those deals where a little bit like a bad back with a kicker; he's got a hip problem, and there's no real pinpoint thing that you could go in and fix right now, so it's just a matter of seeing if rest was the answer.

Q. And then just to follow up, might he also punt for you, and how did you find a punter from Australia?
COACH GROBE: Well, we feel like Jimmy could be our punter. He's got really a great leg; not a good leg, a great leg. He was really poor kicking off last year because he was sore, but he broke our consecutive field goal record, and he's got the same kind of leg that Ryan Plackemeier has punting the ball. He just booms them out of sight. His problem was it made him sore to punt, and he wasn't very good mechanically, took too long to get the ball off, and so that's why he wasn't our punter.
But as far as leg strength, both kicking and punting, Jimmy has a gift. He just really can kick the football. He just hasn't been healthy enough to be consistent.
Billy Mitchell came down to me one day back during recruiting, and he said, Coach, you've got to come and look at this. So we had a film that we obtained on a kid in Australia that was just out on a home video kind of deal, punting the football, and had been playing Australian rules football. He was just punting the ball, and the ball never came down. He would punt it and we never saw it come down. We were getting it at over five seconds hang time. We were like, wait a minute, what's going on here.
So we called one of our friends with the recruiting service -- not a recruiting service but a kicking service, he runs the Ray Guy kicking camps, and asked him if he could give us any more information. So he checked, and he called back, and he said, he's not punting the ball with helium in it, he's not punting a Nerf football and all that stuff. So one thing led to another and we were in need for a punter, so we brought him in and really, really liked him. He's a smart kid. He could get right into Wake Forest, and so we'll see.
He's not punted before. He's never -- I don't even know if he knows how to put a football uniform on because he's been an Australian rules kid. But he's a neat kid, a smart kid. He's got good character and all those kind of things. He's obviously got a great leg.
Now, can we put him in a uniform and get him to take a snap and get the ball off on time, mechanics, all that kind of things, but just from pure ability level, this kid has got a big-time leg.

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