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STANFORD UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 21, 2013David ShawARIZONA STATE – 28 COACH SHAW: First of all, I'm not going to apologize for winning a football game. I could care a less about style points; I could care a less about what it looks like. We played one great half and a solid third quarter and a bad fourth quarter. That's bottom line. I didn't give the guys fire and brimstone out there. There are teachable moments, and we have some teachable moments. It was not for lack of effort. It wasn't substitution. We substituted minimally. Guys earned the right to play. We had guys that were out of position, and it wasn't necessarily guys that we substituted. Some of it was just the guys that were in the game. We were out of position offensively, defensively. We didn't make as many plays in the first half as we did in the second half. Third quarter wasn't terrible. It was above average, I would say. Still came away with a 10‑7 edge. You know the team's going to get it going. The quarterback's going to get it going. I have the most respect in the world for the kid, because the kid comes back and fights. I've seen that from him two years. I watched him last year. I love the kid, love his fight. We knew they were going to come back and score some points. That's just who they are. As far as our side of the ball, or our side in the second half, the fourth quarter in particular, we didn't play well enough. Questions? Q. You mentioned teachable moments in that fourth quarter. Does that help you going forward? COACH SHAW: I sure hope so. I believe that it will. As I told them in the locker room, if this is the team that I believe that it is, then, yes. The coaches shouldn't even have to go to the Monday meetings. The players should be able to lead it and tell each other exactly what happened and where guys were ‑‑ that they were and where they were supposed to be. Against a team like this with a quarterback like Mr.Kelly, as I call him, you better rush the passer, you better keep contained, you better get to him on time. If you don't, he's going to throw the ball. He's going to throw it accurately. If you leave the deep one open, he's going to hit it. If you're too far away from your coverage responsibilities, the ball's going to get there before you get there. So I give him a lot of credit for the second half. Coach Graham and his staff, those kids fought all the way through, and thankfully we had enough of a lead at the end of the game and then lengthened it in the fourth quarter. Q. Sometimes is it possible that sometimes you played so well in the first half that maybe it was too perfect that you kind of like ease up in the second half a little bit? Because everything went your way in the first half and you just completely dominated. COACH SHAW: Absolutely. That's human nature. That is the coach's responsibility to fight human nature. Human nature says we're winning by a lot, let's back off. I'll take some heat, and I'm fine. I'll take some heat for switching the quarterback. The quarterback wasn't the issue, okay. We got the ball in the fourth quarter. The same looks that we had before that we blocked, we didn't block, bottom line. You've got running backs running hard. Took out Wilkerson, and put in Remound Wright who was running extremely hard, but we didn't block well enough in the fourth quarter. Their same guys were going against our same guys up front. They outworked us in the fourth quarter. So, for us, we're going back to our mantra, playing 60 minutes of Stanford football, and today we played about on 40. Q. Josh Mauro had a huge first half. What are your expectations for him this year? COACH SHAW: He's a great football player. A great football player. He plays with an attitude. He's athletic, he's strong. He does everything we need him to do, and he's, you know ‑‑ the only thing I'm really proud of for him is he's matured unbelievably over the last three years to the point where he's not a captain, quote/unquote, but he's a leader on this team and that starts by how he plays. He plays the way we're supposed to play. Q. Can you talk more about the fourth quarter when he came in here? Do you still feel they were playing pretty well your team the way they showed up in the first half? COACH SHAW: Absolutely. I mean, we came out with the attitude that this was going to be a heck of a football game against a deservedly top 20, 25 team. Now some might try to take them out of the top 25, but there is no question in my mind this is a top 25 team. They've got superstars in all three phases. They're a great football team. They're extremely athletic. We took it to them in the first half; they took it back to us in the second half, and that's what we're going to have in our conference. If you have a team down, you better keep going because the team's going to come back. Once again, they have play makers, great receivers, good tight ends, good backs and one heck of a quarterback. So to think that we're going to shut him out was never in our mind. We knew they were going to come back. We just had to make sure we scored more and stopped them at some point in the fourth quarter. Q. When you allude to the fact that the quarterback wasn't an issue, did you have any second thoughts (Indiscernible)? COACH SHAW: That's what I said. Next question. Q. You talked candidly in training camp about the production of receivers (Indiscernible) and through three games he's shown that. What is different this year about him? Why is he now‑‑ COACH SHAW: My dad, who is my biggest influence in this profession, says it all the time. For years, freshmen couldn't play football, right? There was freshman football and varsity football, freshman football, junior varsity and varsity football. This is a junior‑senior sport. Sometimes you have kid who is athletic and talented, but you get them in early. But most of them come into their own in junior and senior years. This is to Ty's junior year. He's grown up; he's aggressive; he knows what to do; he's confident and making plays for us. First time I saw him when he came to camp his ninth grade year, he's got a chance to be a difference maker at this level and the next. Q. In the fourth quarter, was it composure? COACH SHAW: The composure wasn't the issue. It was the technique. It was the specifics of our positions and our job. Guys doing their job, jamming receivers, guys staying in their lanes, safeties getting enough width on deep balls, you know, and let's not take the offense off the hook. We didn't get it ‑‑ until we put Kevin back in at the end, which everybody's going to say because Kevin went in‑‑ Kevin didn't block a soul the whole game. Evan Crower didn't block a soul the whole game. Evan Crower handed the ball off and the running back got hit. So what it is is we played better when we put Kevin back in. Up until then, we didn't play well enough on offense because we didn't get first downs. Q. In the first half, we would never accuse you of sand bagging, but it seemed like there was a lot going on on both sides of the ball. Is this kind of a coming‑out party for who you guys are going to be this season? COACH SHAW: The biggest thing for us is we want to be diverse. Offensively we want to be diverse. We want to run it physically. We want to use our personnel. You saw the play with Kelsey Young and Ty and Devon making plays down the field. You saw us spread it out and run it, spread it out and pack it in and throw it. We want to do a lot. We have a lot of personnel groupings. I'd love to see if anybody in the nation is playing as many guys as we are. Talking about playing five receivers and three tight ends, and seven or eight offensive linemen and three backs and three fullbacks. That's our goal to be as deep as we can be and as diverse as we can be. Q. Blake Lueders got a lot of reps tonight. COACH SHAW: Just more of a spread nickel team. He's a heck of a pass‑rusher, so we rotate our outside linebackers as pass‑rushers. Blake's, as I said before, you know, Blake's earned the right to play. The battle for the starting position was really tight all the way through training camp. James Vaughters did a heck of a job. But Blake Lueders is going to play and play a lot, particularly against teams that spread us out and throw it a lot. So we're going to rotate our ends, and I feel great about anybody that's in there. All those guys do a good job. Q. Your thoughts on Reynolds ejection (Indiscernible)? COACH SHAW: Absolutely. We'll see if it's upheld.  From the naked eye, I agree with the officials. We'll go back and look at the film. They'll go back and look at the film. I'll communicate, of course, with the head of officials and the Pac‑12. From the naked eye, it looked like he ducked his head. There is no question about it. That is an ejection. That's the rule. We don't complain about the rules here. The rules are what they are, and we're going to abide by them. Q. Could you explain how you (Indiscernible)? COACH SHAW: Every which way you can think of. We cut them from the back side. We trapped them twice. We double teamed them. We single blocked them, and we're going away from them. We tried to block them as many different ways as possible. We slid to them in pass protection, and even when we slid to them in pass protection, our backs, before they checked out, they still looked at them. And that is the ultimate respect from us. A player like that, you've got to block them a bunch of different ways, and he's earned that with the production he's had in the last couple years. Q. In the first half you talked about (Indiscernible)? COACH SHAW: Just he was on point. He saw what was going on. He saw what they were doing. He moved safeties with his eyes. He played more like a veteran quarterback which is great to see. He didn't stare down receivers. He looked them off. Just like the things we've been working on in practice. Big play to Devon down the middle. We saw two high safeties, quick play fake. He's got to get his eyes to widen the safety. He widened the safety and came back and hit the big fellow over the middle. It's plays like that that you start to see his growth and development. Still got to teach him how to slide. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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