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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCEAugust 28, 2013Jim GrobeJIM GROBE: I think we have had a good August, we really liked the way we came out of spring practice. Kids kind of picked up. We had a lot of recall from spring practice, and I like where we are right now. We are like everybody else, we are to the point where we won't know much more about our football team until we play a game, but we are looking forward to getting started. Q. Wanted to ask you about Michael Campanaro and his value to the team. Seems like it set your passing game back when he went out midseason for a while last year. Can you talk about what he brings to the table and what makes him such an exceptional receiver? JIM GROBE: Well, you're right, last year, when Mike was hurt, he was our best player by far. He's the guy that on every snap, we wanted to try to find a way to give him the football. When he was out of the mix, broke his hand against Duke and hurt his ankle later in the year and missed some games. So he was just key to us. I think this year, going forward, he's a big part of everything we want to do. You've got a that's as good a player as Mike, you just can't find enough ways to get the ball in his hands. The problem is, he's not really had a healthy season since he's been here. So we would like that ‑‑ hope that he could go through senior year and be healthy all year, and it's hard to measure how valuable he'll be to our football team if we can keep him healthy and get 12 games out of him. Q. What makes him so exceptional? It doesn't look like he's an overpowering athlete in terms of size, speed, that kind of thing. What makes him such an effective player? JIM GROBE: Well, he's not the biggest guy in the world, but what he does, he catches the ball effortlessly. Of all the kids we've had, I don't know that we've had anybody that catches the ball better than Mike does, and when that's not a problem for you, you know, everything else seems to be a little bit easier. He's a little bit faster than most people think and he's a very elusive guy. He's hard to bring down one‑on‑one, and you know, just runs routes great, all those kind of things. He's got all those intangibles. But I think the thing that I think he probably does as well as anything is he catches the football and that's not a problem for him. So many receivers have a great ability, but they really have to focus and struggle to catch the ball. That's never been an issue with Mike. Probably as much as anything, he's just a really good athlete. Q. Just wondering if you've seen a renewed attitude out of Josh or anything different about him since he was able to get reinstated? I saw he's full‑on as your starter, but just wonder if there's anything different about him now. JIM GROBE: Well, he's certainly a guy right now that appreciates a second chance. I don't think there's any question about it. I think most young people take their ability and playing football for granted but when it's about to be taken away from you, it tends to be a good wake‑up call, and I think it's been that way for Josh. He's been nothing but great, his effort, his attitude. Just seems to be a guy that's really having fun right now and that's a good thing. Josh Harris has never been a bad kid. Josh has had some problems with injuries in the past, and that's his expectations for himself are very, very high and he's missed some playing time because of injuries and that's contributed to him not maybe achieving as much as he thinks he should, but he's got a lot of ability. I think right now, he's feeling good to be back in the mix and having a second chance. It's been good for him so far in August, so we'll see how we do during the season. But right now, I couldn't be more pleased with Josh. Q. Was the Harris situation any distraction early in camp? JIM GROBE: I don't think so. I think probably the potential for distraction was when he came back. Because we have got three other kids we had been working pretty steadily at running back, and they had done that the first couple of weeks at August. And then when Josh gets back in the mix, and honestly, we weren't counting on that happening. We were prepared to move forward, and so when Josh came back, that had the potential to be the most distracting part of it. But Josh was great. He came back and just worked his way back in the mix, and I think our players accepted him and it was just really never a big deal for our football team either way. I think they were ready to move on. Certainly would feel sorry for Josh if he couldn't be a part of it, but when he came back, I think our kids were happy to have him back and I think more importantly, he was happy to be back. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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