	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 16, 2011

Frank Spaziani

COACH SPAZIANI: We're headed out to play a very, very good Notre Dame football team in their home stadium on Senior Day. So our guys are ready to practice this week, and we'll see what we've got.

Q. Obviously, Notre Dame has beaten two ACC teams the past two weeks. What is Boston College going to do differently than Wake Forest to have a different outcome this week?
COACH SPAZIANI: Well, once again, we worry about what we can do. Once again, Wake and Maryland -- they played a good football team. They're a championship caliber football team. And we're going to have to play our A-game to play them.
Certainly moving the ball is going to be key. They have a high power offense with a lot of weapons over there. So we're going to have to try and slow them down, and hopefully go out there and get some points ourselves.

Q. Looking at film the last few weeks they get in trouble doing this or they get in trouble doing that. So do you say that's what we've got to watch out for?
COACH SPAZIANI: Well, it's not so much what they've done to anybody. These guys have a very good plan. They have a very good plan on all sides of the ball. Kicking, defense, and offense. They know how to execute.
Coach Kelly has done a great job out there. They have weapons to execute. So they carry the ball, they run the ball. They keep you off balance. They pose a lot of problems.

Q. I could ask you about Luke Kuechly every week, but I thought I'd bring it up since he's about to take the ACC career tackle record if he has one of his normal games this Saturday. Can you talk about that and the magnitude of doing that at the end of his junior year with still another year to go?
COACH SPAZIANI: Well, I wasn't aware of that, but I'm aware, obviously, of his stats weekly. Nothing surprises me with Luke. Once again, he's just a fantastic football player that just gets to the ball and makes plays.
I don't know where our defense would be without him, really. He's a special player. I'm sure he's not even concerned or aware of it. He just goes out and plays one game at a time and one series at a time, really. He's well-focused. You combine that with his talent, and this is the end result.

Q. It must be gratifying as a coach to see a team that was in such bad shape in mid-October kind of rally back and win two out of the last three and start playing better. That must say something about the kids from what they're doing?
COACH SPAZIANI: Yeah, absolutely. It says our players understand what the task at hand is every year. They understand that it's what we expect of them. They are what they are. Players playing as hard as they can.
Once again, we have no excuses for anything. Given your maximum effort is just the way it's supposed to be. So we're really proud that they've been able to do that. Having said that, they're going to have to muster that up again here this week.

Q. Notre Dame is one of the storied venues in college football. You've been there before. What is the atmosphere like? What's it like to play in that environment?
COACH SPAZIANI: Well, you're right. It's a storied environment in a lot of ways. With their history and tradition. There are great people out there. They know how to run a big league program. It's just a great venue to take a football team into. It's not always the best venue to bring a football team out of, but it's fantastic. It's a great place, obviously, because of their tradition and what they've done. They seem to have rekindled that.

Q. Do you talk to the team at all about what they're going into and seeing the Golden Dome and that whole business? Obviously they've got some tough places to play in the ACC, but I just wondered if you say anything to them about that?
COACH SPAZIANI: It's interesting that you say that because once again, Notre Dame is, for us guys that have been around a little bit longer than some of our players, has a little different meaning. They're back. They're back to where they were when we used to go out there a few years ago.
We mentioned to them what the tradition is. I think they know and understand it. But when you have a lot of young kids on your team, you never should assume anything. So we make them aware of that. But once again, it's the players that they need to be aware of.

Q. I wanted to ask you about your take on Tommy Rees and how he's doing with the Notre Dame running back no-huddle offense?
COACH SPAZIANI: I think Tommy is really a fantastic quarterback. He's accurate. He has a tremendous understanding of what they want him to do. I'm quite impressed with him, really. I think they don't skip a beat with him. Once again, from my perspective, he's a very efficient, and very accomplished quarterback.

Q. This is a little off topic, but I'm wondering if you've had any contact with anyone over at Penn State with everything that's been going on lately?
COACH SPAZIANI: No.

Q. I know a lot of the fan base considers Boston College a very big rival. Do the players feel like this is a rivalry game? Do the coaches? Do you guys treat it that way?
COACH SPAZIANI: I think there are so many common threads that run through the two universities. It's hard not to appreciate what both of you have to do to field good football teams along with the academics and the structure that you want.
Once again, I don't know. We're once again to allude to the earlier question, there's a school with tremendous tradition and our guys take notice of it. We like playing the game.

Q. Any sort of -- I guess I'm trying to think of the word. You guys are a private Catholic school. They're a private Catholic school. I'm wondering how many of your players get recruited by them or maybe even overlooked by them? That sort of thing.
COACH SPAZIANI: I don't think we have many players on our team that were recruited by them. Not that I'm -- over the years, I don't think there's many of them.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297