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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 16, 2011

Al Golden

MIKE FINN: We now welcome Miami head football coach Al Golden. We'll ask for a brief opening statement and go to questions.
Coach.
COACH GOLDEN: We're moving forward quickly here from the Florida State loss. Have another great challenge for us in state in South Florida. We'll take our team over to Tampa on Friday to play South Florida on Saturday.
It's an excellent defense. Impressed with their front seven, most particularly from their defensive front. Grissom, big physical tackle inside, with McCaskill along with him. Both ends are active. They rotate a lot of guys in there. Obviously with 31 sacks, ranking number two in tackles for loss in the country, it's going to be a great challenge for us.
Really impressed with Barrington and Lattimore, the outside backers. Young man inside Lanaris, very active, looks like he runs the show. A veteran group of linebackers. Very physical and active secondary.
So very active group. Only 22 points a game. I think they are 17 in rush defense. So that will be a challenge. I think this is the sixth or seventh top-40 defense we've seen in total defense this year. I think it's the seventh to be honest with you. Another great challenge for us.
On the offensive side of the ball, really prolific numbers. Total number of yards somewhere in the 470, 480 range per game, rushing for 203 a game and scoring 33 points a game. A veteran offensive line. They've had some injuries at wideout.
As of late, some really younger guys have stepped up and made big plays for them. It's all handled by B.J. Daniels there at quarterback. Very poised, very efficient, runs the ball well, obviously throwing it. They're throwing for 250 and running for 200.
Backs are very good even without Scott last week. Murray and Shaw, and certainly Scott is a big back. Excellent challenge for us, something we got to be ready for.
With that, I'll open it up to any questions that you have.

Q. I know last spring, you played scrimmages in three different counties.
COACH GOLDEN: Correct.

Q. Obviously you've been doing a lot to try to reestablish Miami's ownership of South Florida, that area. How important is winning this game as far as taking ownership of the area?
COACH GOLDEN: Again, for us they're all important. Every game is important. Our overall record is important. How we perform in the in-state games is important. Certainly how we perform in the Atlantic Coast Conference is important.
I'm trying to develop a team that approaches things consistently. All these games are important. We don't measure one any more significant than the others. This is going to be a great challenge for us. This is an excellent football team. They're well-coached. I have a lot of respect for Coach Holtz. They beat us here last year.
Again, our team understands the challenge. They understand how talented this group is, how well they played against us a year ago. So they have our attention.
Again, I just think from a recruiting standpoint, we select who we want. We want kids that match our core values, that want to come to the number one university in the state of Florida, a top-40 institution, want to play for a team that has won more national championships in the last 30 years than any other program and clearly want to have an incredible experience here in Coral Gables.
I can't speak for the other universities, what they're looking for, but we have a clear idea what we're looking for here in South Florida.

Q. One of the reasons that Miami/Florida State games are so intense is so many of the guys played together or against each other in high school. Do you get a lot of that in the series with South Florida? Do a lot of your kids know a lot of their kids?
COACH GOLDEN: I'm sure. I'm sure. Again, it's something they don't talk about. To be fair, I didn't talk about it last week. I'm not really going to talk about it other than, Let's stay focused on the game and control the things that we can control and adhere to the process.
Again, they're all sound bytes. Everybody wants to make it into whatever story, whatever direction they're going. For me it's teaching a team how to be consistent, how to prepare week in and week out. That's going to be the challenge here because a lot of the kids do know each other certainly.

Q. When you look at South Florida on tape, is speed a strong suit of theirs?
COACH GOLDEN: Yeah, I think they're a very talented team. On offense, B.J. Daniels can run. He's got size. Really put together. All their runningbacks can run. The receivers are athletic, can make plays down the field, go up and get it. So I don't think there's any question that this is an athletic team that can run.
On defense it's not only a team that can run, it's really physically stout. They're number two in TFLs, number three in sacks. This is in the country, not in the Big East. They're number seven in red zone defense. They have 31 sacks. They're in the top 20 in rush defense. This is a really, really good team, a good-looking team, a physical team, and obviously will be a great challenge for us.

Q. What do you want to do better than you did last week?
COACH GOLDEN: Well, we did a lot of good things last week. What we didn't do well, we didn't execute in the kicking game. We got out-executed in the kicking game. We had too many penalties. We have to make sure we don't have some careless penalties. We had three turnovers and Florida State had none. Turnovers, penalties and the kicking game needs to improve if we're going to beat South Florida.
MIKE FINN: Thank you, coach. We'll talk to you next week.
COACH GOLDEN: Thank you.
MIKE FINN: This concludes today's ACC football coaches teleconference. Next week's teleconference will be on Tuesday due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Thanks for joining us.

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