|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 30, 2013Jim GrobeJIM GROBE: We're disappointed that we came out of Miami with a loss. I thought our kids played really, really hard, and Miami played really good down the stretch and got us. But I was proud of the way our kids played. Now we've got to try to regroup and go up and play a talented team in Syracuse that's very well coached and another road game for us. We've got a big job in front of us and are disappointed that we weren't able to make it happen down at Miami. Q. Coach Shafer was just talking about some of the numbers as to touches that Mike Campanaro gets, and I was curious whether you've ever worried whether you rely on him too much. It sounds like if you ever do, you've moved on. JIM GROBE: Yeah, I worry about it. I think one of the keys to being a good football team is having a little balance, and you typically think of balance as being run‑pass balance, but I think also as much as we're throwing the football right now, you need some balance in who you're throwing it to. That's one of the things I think Syracuse does a nice job of. I think they've had 16 or 18 kids catch passes for them. For us I think going forward the next four games, and none more important than the one we're getting ready to play up at Syracuse, but I think having a little bit of balance‑‑ we had a little bit of that, a little better balance, I think, at Miami with Tyree Harris stepping up. It looks like we may not have ‑‑ Tyree got hurt in the Miami game but had a great first half, and we had Jared Crump stepped up a little bit and caught some balls for us. I think if Matt James, Brandon Terry, some of the guys that have kind of been in the shadows would step up, it certainly would help us. But we're happy to have Mike Campanaro, we just can't expect him to catch 14, 16 balls every time out. We've got to have somebody else help us out. Q. Obviously coming into October you guys weren't looking too good, but obviously you played much better this month. Why? JIM GROBE: I don't know. I think we got embarrassed down at Clemson, and I think that was probably kind of an important point in the season for our kids, especially our seniors. I think we went down there expecting to play well, and we didn't. And I think coming back, I think we just got a little bit more energy. I don't think we're taking any games for granted. Hopefully won't do that going forward. But I thought early in the season we really didn't have much of a sense of urgency, and I think we've got that now. But going forward we're going to have to have that because we're playing four really good football teams here at the end of the season. Q. Talk about Syracuse; what have you seen on their video? I know they've been having an up‑and‑down year, so what have you seen? JIM GROBE: Well, they're just a very well‑coached football team, and they've got a lot of talent. They give you a lot of problems from a defensive standpoint. They pressure you from a lot of different areas. They like to blitz. They like to mix their coverages up. So that's going to give our offense problems. And then I think their offense, they've got a very talented quarterback, actually a couple kids that play good for them, and I think they're a physical football team. They like to run the football, and they like to throw off the running game a little bit. What I like as a coach, we're really more of a throw team trying to find a way to run it, where they run the football and then can hurt you with their passing game off the run game. And then they're very well‑coached in special teams. So I think just balance‑wise, I think they're like every other team in the Atlantic Coast Conference. You've got to play every week out, and we're just very impressed with what they've done so far as a football team. I think you've got to throw out the Georgia Tech game. Any time you play a wishbone team, anything can happen. Especially playing a wishbone team on the road. Aside from the Georgia Tech game, we see a team that has been very competitive and very well‑coached and good talent. Q. How do you rebound from the tough loss to Miami? You guys had them for three and a half quarters until two minutes to go. How do you tell your players to get back in the swing of things for this weekend? JIM GROBE: Well, I wish I knew the answer to that. I could probably tell you Saturday night after we play up at Syracuse. But it's not easy. Our guys, really for three games now, have played really, really hard, and we were able to get NC State and we were able to get Maryland and then had a great chance to get Miami and didn't get it done. We've got a team that any time you've got a team that really plays their hearts out and comes up short, your biggest worry as a coach is being able to get them back up again. But we have to. We're not very good if we don't play with a lot of emotion. Hopefully we'll be able to get them back. I have not seen any problems in practice so far, so if practice is any indicator, I think our guys are working hard again and they're trying to prepare the right way. Whether or not we can bounce back, we won't know until after we play Syracuse. Q. You touched on how you have to leave that game behind. In some ways it might be easier to bounce back from losing by three or four touchdowns than to have one slip away from you like that. Does that kind of spread throughout the coaching staff, as well? What do coaches do to put a game like that behind them? JIM GROBE: Yeah, I think it's hard. Seems like the kids always bounce back quicker than the coaches do. I don't know why that is, but it seems that way. I think in some ways it's tougher to get the kids emotionally back up. After Clemson we were embarrassed and it was a little easier to bounce back, and I think now being that close to beating a good football team on the road is somewhat, from an emotional standpoint, harder. But I think the one thing that we've tried to do is not try to completely forget about it because there were some mistakes that we made in the kicking game, on offense and defense that really kept us from winning the football game. So I think part of you wants to move on as quick as you can and put it behind you, but you've really as coaches got to focus on the things that we could have done better, and so I think that's what our coaching staff has done. I think rather than trying to get it behind us as quick as possible, we've really tried to use it as a teaching tool, and even though it feels really, really bad, there's some things that obviously we could have done better. I think we know that we lost to a good football team, but at the same time had we done a few things better in all those three areas, I think we could have won the football game. And then I think going forward if we can improve, if we can keep getting better each week, then I think hopefully we can play good football here down the stretch, and we really need to play good football this Saturday because we're playing a very well‑coached, talented Syracuse team. Q. Coach Shafer was saying that he just enjoys watching Nikita Whitlock play. How is that for you? How much fun are you having watching him this season? JIM GROBE: Well, it's been good. You know, I think last year he went through a tough year because he stayed banged up most of the year. He's been relatively healthy this year, and he's kind of a guy that we need him to play well every week to be a good defense. In a 3‑4 front like we play, we have to get really good play out of our front three guys, and it starts with him down inside. When Nikita is play well, it really, really helps us, and I think in the last four games we certainly need our seniors to play their best football and hopefully he will. But we're playing a very talented center with Syracuse, MacPherson, a really good center, so I think Nikita has got his work cut out for him Saturday. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|