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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

April 21, 2011

David Cutcliffe

COACH CUTCLIFFE: As Mike mentioned, it's been quite some time since we've been on the practice field. I like what we've got accomplished. Really still a very young football team particularly on defense.
But we have enough starters back that we got started quickly. We have seven days, excuse me, eight days prior to our spring break, and finished with seven after spring break. I thought we came back after spring break absolutely looking like a different football team.
We have quite a few off-season surgeries and people that missed spring ball. It's going to be really critical that those guys are back. I think they'll all be back and ready to go hopefully in August.
So looking forward to getting a little more athletic, little more talented football team back in August.

Q. I wanted to ask you about the dichotomy that you're returning a pretty veteran offense with proven players spread all around. And contrast that with the defense where even when you get returning players there are guys that still have to prove themselves at this level. Can you talk about that split and how that shapes up for this year?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: I think there are a number of things you have to look at in that regard. Defensively we've got new leadership there with Jim Knowles coordinating the defense. Totally moving into what we've wanted to do with his package this year and that's going to take a little bit of time.
Couple that with extremely young and particularly certain spots. Up front it's no secret where we've struggled at times. 10 of our 15 defensive linemen on scholarship will be either freshmen or red shirt freshmen. So got a big job in that regard.
We do have some good football players we can run. I think what we'll do in that regard is we're going to focus on doing what we do well. I think Jim did a great job of that in the spring. Getting people in the right places.
I'm excited about what I think we can do defensively, because we're going to be the fastest we've been since we've been here.

Q. One of the big problems that you had last year was generating a pass-rush. Do you see that as an area where you can make significant improvements?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: We can. And it's one of the things that I am excited about is that we have someone on one pass rushers. We've had to try to either blitz, or we've tried to zone. We've tried to create pass rush with more than four, which ends up with you burned in certain circumstances.
We're not where we need to be, don't get me wrong at all. Our coverage is not as bad as it has looked at times. But because our four-man pass rush has been so poor. It's one of the big emphases this past spring.
I really believe that we have some individuals, Jordan Ondijo, Kenny Anunike when we get him healthy, Jamal Wallace (indiscernible) now a sophomore, looks like a different guy. Just individuals that are going to create pass-rush opportunities for us.

Q. From what you've seen of your quarterbacks this spring, how will that influence how you might play them in the fall?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: (Indiscernible) I've certainly seen our starter and returned some throwing for 3300 yards, and he had a great spring. He was really, really special. You could tell the top of his level is way up, his skill level is up, and his knee as well, very confident now.
With that said, all three of our back-up quarterbacks have good springs, but Brandon Connette specifically did and he's going to play some. But Anthony Boone has challenged that as well who is an extremely talented red shirt freshman.
We're tinkering with a few things that I think are going to be fun. The biggest thing I want them to do is continue to challenge Sean and makes us better. They're playing at the highest level that they can possibly play, and that makes us a better football team.

Q. When you say tinkering, are you finding away to get Boone and Connette both on the field?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: There is no question you're going to see them some. We'll have a little fun with some things so looking forward to that.

Q. I wanted to ask you about the timing of everything, because you did finish so early. I think this is the second year that you've done it like that. What are the guys doing? Is there any concern that there's too much of a lull between the last day of spring and the first day of summer?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Not at all for me, Heather. We get a little off-season conditioning after spring practice which gets us more prepared for the summer.
The summer, whether you're finishing now or whether you finished back at the end of March, is a ways away. So those guys get out and throw a lot just routes. Then they do the seven on seven on their own.
So everywhere in college football kids are throwing and working all summer long. This really lets us know a little more about what we need to do in recruiting. Spring recruiting is so critical. We get a lot of time to prepare for it.
If we do have an injury where we need to repair after spring ball, which we had a couple of those, then we know we're going to get them back in August by going early.
So we just felt the benefits far outweigh -- only difficulty we had was getting ready to head out there so quickly after recruiting. But it's proven to be good for us.

Q. You mentioned the extreme youth you've got on defensive line. Those situations are ones, as opposed to skill, that you're going to want guys with experience. How do you sport of mask that inexperience that you've got? Is it a scheme thing? Do you just kind of cross your fingers and hope for the best?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: We'll do some things schematically to help take pressure off those guys and move them into the one gap. We're also trying to play a lot of people. When you become a veteran you get guys that understand you want them to compete for 60 plays. I don't think we had that except for Charlie Hatcher who is our nose returning.
I'd like to see us, and we can see a 7, 8, 9-man rotation up front which I think is going to help us be much more consistent.

Q. You mentioned two-thirds of your roster is underclassmen. How does that happen? Is it a quirk in scholarships or turnovers?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: We are red shirting a lot of players. When we came in, they were players that either didn't stay or moved on. So one year we recruited 27 in a class. We were under the scholarship limit. So you could count two back the previous year and 25 forward.
So we have signed I think it's 60-something players in our three classes that we've signed. And we've red shirted such a large number that 67% of our 84, and we'll be at 84 right now. 67% of that 84 will be freshmen and sophomores by classification.

Q. Wondering how your running game has looked or how did it look during practice? If you've seen some strides made there?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: We're better on the offensive line. We've returned four starters on the offensive line. I like what we're doing there. I think we've got a good plan running the football.
Our backs are all returners, Desmond Scott our starter, but Juwan Thompson and Jay Hollingsworth, and Josh Sneed and Patrick Kurunwune. All had significant carries a year ago, so we're better there.
Absolutely excited about what I think we can do offensively. Another rusher we have is certainly Brandon Connette and parts of our offense. Of Course, he's back. So there is no question we'll be better than we were a year ago.

Q. You talked about the youth on your defense and Glover was a rising junior. Can you talk about how his departure will impact the depth linebacker?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: I think anybody that you lose that's an upperclassman, you don't replace him with an incoming player. But what we're doing our numbers are okay. Certainly right now the three leading candidates to start at linebacker would be Austin Gamble, Kelby Brown, and Kevin Rojas, and that was the case regardless.
And so we may look at a couple of young guys coming in. C.J. France had a great spring, so I feel good about our line in regard to that.

Q. A couple years ago you told us you thought you guys were at the point where you could be bowl eligible. That is the big hurdle after 16 years of getting to that level. Is this team potentially at that level? What has to happen to put you at that level?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: I don't think it's a question that we're at that level. We're a team that won three games a year ago and lost five ACC games, three of them by five points, one by six, and one by ten. We actually led the one by ten in the fourth quarter and threw a pick six going in, which just destroyed us.
We are a team that we don't have a huge margin of error just yet. Not anybody does for the most part. So we'll have to play well. We've got to take care of the ball better than we did a year ago because they have a very dynamic offense and a lot of weapons, but we stopped ourselves too much.
Defensively, not just stopping people, but we've got to create turnovers. We've got to be a little bit more aggressive in that regard defensively. I think we're on target there with Jim Knowles and what we're doing, we just have to go do it.
But we're much more athletic. We're much more capable. We've just got to raise that confidence and energy level to the point where we're going to go win games in the fourth quarter.

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