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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 25, 2013Steve AddazioCOACH ADDAZIO: It's great to be back in it playing again this week. We had a bye week. Those bye weeks usually are good for you in terms of getting back to work and fixing some of the things you need to work on and getting a little jump start in your preparation. But we're anxious to get back playing again.  We're certainly excited that we have a chance to play home, and we realize we have a great opponent coming in here. A top 8 ranked opponent in America and justifiably so. Florida State has got a very dynamic offense, as we all know, averaging over 266 yards rushing per game, 280 yards passing per game. Their quarterback, Jameis Winston is a heck of a player. Dual‑threat guy, he's got size, he breaks tackles. He eludes sacks and throws darts. They have a couple running backs, Wilder and Devonta Freeman. Both those guys are dynamic players. Rashad Greene is a wide receiver and Kenny Shaw. So we've got our work cut out for us on defense defending that. On their defense they've got some big, stout guys inside obviously led by Timmy Jernigan, also some great linebacker players with great speed. They can rush the quarterback, sack you, accelerate to the ball on defense. So we've got our work cut out for us. We've been working really hard to develop our team, to improve our team. I think the fact that we had to fly out to California in week three and play USC, which is one of the top ranked defenses in the country can help you from that standpoint getting used to speed. So here we are getting ready to play this game and looking forward to it. Q. To keep that dynamic, as you said, Florida State offense in check, what are the thing that's you need to do to keep this game competitive? COACH ADDAZIO: Well, what we need to do is create pressure on the quarterback and penetrate up front and create a disturbance in the run game and disrupt the flow of the offense. That's what you need to do then get off the field. You don't want to leave that offense on the field. So that's what we're striving to do. Q. Do you need offensive improvement from your last game or how much of that is you're playing a great Southern California defense? COACH ADDAZIO: Well, I think obviously we need to have improvement in execution. What we've got to do is not play in the long field. That's not going to help you. So we've got to not do that. We've got to be able to convert first downs when we have an opportunity to and get the ball in the end zone. That's what we're working on. We need to play physically and play with a high level of execution. Q. Talking about the Florida State quarterback, Winston. What do you see from him? Does he remind you of a quarterback you've already faced this season? COACH ADDAZIO: No. He's a guy that's got a tremendous arm. He's always got his eyes down the field, and he's a guy that you've got to tackle strong if you have a crack at him, because he's strong, he's powerful, he breaks tackles. You can't arm tackle this guy. You've got to get him on the ground, or he'll come out of the tackle, set his feet and throw it down the field on you. So he's a strong arm, he's a competitive guy, a strong runner and I've seen tremendous things out of him. Q. Talk about your quarterback. How is his growth during the first three games? COACH ADDAZIO: Well, I mean, I think chase has improved each week. What we've worked on a lot with him is the ability to take what the defense gives you. If you have a chance to move the chains on third down, you can do that with your feet as well as with your arm. The goal is just to move the chains. If he's been doing that and working on that development and working on being a great leader with our team. So those are things that have to happen. Don't force plays, and I think he's worked really hard at that. It will be a great task for him and a great opportunity for him here at home. Q. I wanted to ask you about something I noticed. You guys are leading the nation, the least penalized team in college football. What goes into that? How do you achieve that? Are you teaching something or how does that work? COACH ADDAZIO: Our goal coming in here was to do the things that take no talent well, because you can control them. You don't want to be a highly penalized them. You don't want to be a mistake team. You want to be a well‑conditioned team and control the things that are within your control. I think fundamentally it starts with not creating penalties, not turning the ball over. So we've got an emphasis on ball security. We've got an emphasis on trying to strip the ball on defense.  We're constantly‑‑ we had the officials a lot during preseason camp to make sure we worked on keeping our hands inside on the perimeter inside. When you try to come in and build a program and you're trying to start with those important things first, building those things, building toughness, and then, of course you're recruiting and trying to bring in more play makers. But there's been a conscious effort to try to control the things of that nature. Q. Is it difficult sometimes though to walk a fine line between being aggressive and avoiding penalties? I remember the great Florida State teams of the 90s were always offsides defensively because they were attacking so much and they led the league in penalties for that reason. Is that something you have to walk a fine line? You want to be aggressive, you want to attack, you don't want penalties? Is that tough to balance? COACH ADDAZIO: Yeah, I don't have a problem with aggressive penalties. So if we get a penalty because the guy is blocking down the field or we get a penalty from a guy flying to the ball, I just don't get upset about those things. Those kind of aggressive penalties are fine. But to be offsides on offense or even on defense when you're on the ball and holding penalties or personal foul penalties, those things, I don't see that. We work hard and talked a lot about that. For a team like us in our infancy right now is we can ill‑afford to hurt ourselves. Q. I know the bye week enabled you guys to kind of get some guys back. In terms of what you've seen from Jake Sinkovec, how excited are you and what kind of impact do you think he might make coming back this week? COACH ADDAZIO: Well, we were laughing about it at practice the other day. It's like fresh legs. He looks fast. He looks good, he's had a good week of practice. We're excited to have him back. He's a big, tall guy that he's got a great set of hands on him, he's good at receiving the ball and he's got decent speed. So it kind of stuck out a little bit how fresh he looked. Q. Did that mean that Bobby Wolford may be stepping back in terms of the number of touches and reps he got? COACH ADDAZIO: I would say that Bobby is a little dinged up too on top of it. So I would think that those guys will‑‑ yeah, Jake's going to take a number of those reps, and Bobby has done a great job. We need them both. We run kind of a physical style of run game and those guys take a lot of shots. Q. Just a follow up with what Hal was asking you with the number of penalties. You look at Southern Cal they had ten penalties for 100 yards and you guys had 1 for 5. When you have an opportunity like that is it imperative to seize upon those opportunities that those penalties might create? COACH ADDAZIO: Yeah, that is the thing that we've got to do a much better job on. When they have those kind of penalties and it puts them in third and long situations you've got to get them off the field and capitalize on that. An capitalize that sometimes penalties can help you with field position. Right now to be able to play a field position game. It's one of those things that I think people don't look at enough. Field position is critical to winning a college football game especially depending on the style of team that you are. So we've got to complement each other, and that is critically important whether you're talking about offense or talking about defense. I mean the teams complement each other. It's so important to your overall philosophy. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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