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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 31, 2011

Frank Beamer

FRANK BEAMER: We're getting ready to play this week a team that certainly knows how to win, a team that expects to win, a team with some outstanding players. Their quarterback is very, very good. They've got a wide receiver, Quick, that will probably be an NFL guy, ranked very high last year offensively. They've got a couple guys back that was hurt last year that I think certainly is going to help their defense. They've got an excellent kicker.
So this is a big challenge for us here this Saturday.

Q. I read online on the blogs that you showed your guys some clips of the JMU game from last year. What was kind of the point behind that?
FRANK BEAMER: Well, I think we showed them a couple things. The James Madison game was a game that -- I think people sometimes, because you play at a certain level and you're in a certain league, you associate -- you think things are going to turn out a certain way, and that's just not the way it is. It's how you play, and this is a really good football team coming in here. They're not in the same division as we are, but they could play in our division. They certainly have the capabilities of playing in this division.
I just thought it was an appropriate thing to do.

Q. Would you talk a little bit about the difference in preparation? This is week one, last year that JMU game was a short week coming off Boise. How different is your preparation for the opener than it was a year ago with JMU?
FRANK BEAMER: Well, our preparation is very much the same as it was for Boise State, which was our first ballgame. And then for James Madison last year we played on Monday night and came back and played on Saturday, so things were just quite a bit different. We were the traveling team, so we didn't get back in here until about 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning after the game. So I think from the time standpoint, it's much different.
But really it's the very same preparation as we made for Boise State last year.

Q. Last thing is just your take on playing these 1-AA games. It's kind of viewed as you have nothing to gain and a lot to lose if you end up losing the game. Do you like scheduling these?
FRANK BEAMER: Well, it's just you schedule who you can schedule. A lot of times it's not who you like to schedule, it's who you can schedule. As I prepare for Appalachian this week and see how good they are and how hard they play and how well coached they are, this is one that you didn't particularly like scheduling, but they're a fantastic program. Coach Moore has done a great job. And they're a good football program, really good football program.

Q. I'm curious if you had any reaction to the NCAA's statement on Miami yesterday, and more specifically, you've been in this game a long time. How as a head coach do you not worry all the time about what third parties may be doing when you can't keep eyes on recruits and kids 24/7?
FRANK BEAMER: To answer your last question there, I think your responsibility is to educate your kids. They know what's right and wrong, and they're responsible for their actions. So that's the way I think that situation goes.
And after that, you know, I don't have a reaction to the other. We're too busy getting ready for this Appalachian State crowd. They've got our attention right now.

Q. You mentioned a minute ago scheduling who you can schedule. Forgive me for not knowing this, but was there another team that was originally on the schedule for this year that was dropped for some reason, which is why you ended up with four non-conference teams not against someone from a BCS conference?
FRANK BEAMER: I'm not sure exactly. I'm not sure exactly how that came around. Jim Weaver and John Ballein does our scheduling for us, and they talk with -- I'm not sure exactly how this schedule did come around the way it is. I know we go to East Carolina and we go to Marshall. That's not the exact schedule you'd want, either.

Q. But if you were to have your choice, if you could script it out yourself, would you rather play at least one BCS team in there somewhere?
FRANK BEAMER: Well, normally each year we do schedule a BCS team. That's normally how we do schedule. So I'm not quite sure how we ended up with this schedule like it is.

Q. I'm working on a story about place kicking, and just the fact the ACC is in an era of tremendous success, last year led the nation in field goal accuracy by a wide margin, you've been in a cycle of having a lot of fifth year seniors come in and kick for one year. It's obviously worked very well for you. Chris Hazley did a great job last year. What's your situation this year, and are you comfortable with changing kickers every year like that?
FRANK BEAMER: Well, just the way it ended up. I think all those guys, you look at them, they've been around a lot. We have competition just about every day out here kicking, so they've been in a lot of competition. They all were smart kids, very mature kids, so as a result they all kicked well and didn't get the job until their senior year.
This year we plan to start a guy, Cody Journell. I think he's a sophomore, red shirt sophomore. That's a situation that's such an important part of your game, and your druthers would be to get you a young guy and have him kick and have him around for three or four years and take that worry out of it. Every year you start out each of those years -- we started out with a question mark. We'll feel good about our kicker but he didn't kick in the game.
Until they get in there and kick you don't really know how they're going to perform. We're fortunate they turned out well, and hopefully Cody is going to turn out well this year.

Q. You've been in the game a while. Last year the ACC kickers converted 80 percent of their field goals. From inside 50 you expect to make it now. That's got to be a change from 10, 20 years ago, isn't it?
FRANK BEAMER: Well, I think just the ACC had a great run of kickers. Just about every team had a guy that was really good. I think it does run in cycles a little bit, too.
But I think -- I would look at kicking quite a bit and game planning, and every week you're looking out there, and hey, you're getting ready to play a great kicker. That's just the way the ACC was.

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