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STANFORD UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 23, 2013David ShawStanford – 63 COACH SHAW: First of all, I'll start off by saying, of course, very proud of our guys, in particular our fourth‑ and fifth‑year seniors, to not just be able to bounce back today, but to bounce back Monday, have a great Monday, and focus on the axe, not focus on what went wrong last week. Our guys showed a lot of maturity all week about how hard they worked, about preparing for this football game, about coming out here and keeping the axe. That's what this was about. This was about our conference, keeping the axe. Our guys did that today. I'm very proud of them. Q. Were you expecting to pass the ball like this or was it just the way things developed? COACH SHAW: We prepare for it every single game. When a team drops the safeties down into the box and leaves Ty Montgomery and Michael Rector one‑on‑one, we're going to take our shots. Last week, some of them panned out, some of them didn't. This week most of them panned out. That is just built into our game plan. Safeties drop down in the box, we have to take advantage, that's what happened at Washington State as well. When we can do that, we make ourselves a very balanced football team. Q.  At what point were you aware what was happening down in Arizona? COACH SHAW: Not until the fourth quarter. Had no idea. Wasn't thinking about it. I'll tell you the truth. Richard Sherman told me. He was on the sidelines, passed by me. Our game was in hand, that game was in hand. Thought it was okay for him to share it with me. He just tapped me on the shoulder and didn't say anything, showed me his phone, which had the score on it. Of course, I was a little bit shocked, thought I was seeing it the wrong way. Once they made the announcement in the stadium, that's why I love coaching at Stanford, that's why I love our guys. Our guys said, We don't care about that game, we have to keep the axe. After they announced the score, everybody went crazy. The guys in the huddle said, This is about our field, our game, let's finish this game right. Q. Do you still have to send Rich a text thanking him then? COACH SHAW: No. We have too much going on. We have to invest in the season right now. We got a big game against Notre Dame. We'll worry about that next game when that next game comes. Right now we have a tough opponent coming in here. We got to be ready for them. Q. You mentioned they drop the safeties in. Was there anything in particular in your game plan, did you see Montgomery having this kind of game? COACH SHAW: To be honest, we see this with Ty every game. If he gets one‑on‑one, we're going to give him opportunities. We're not the type of offense typically that's going to take a whole bunch of shots down the field, but we're going to take our measured and calculated shots. If teams continue to give us a bunch of opportunities, we'll take those. A couple of those were not really deep shots, Ty just made them big plays because of his ability. Michael Rector, his job is to change field position. We put him in run plays, he goes out there and blocks really well. Same thing, if he gets one‑on‑one, we're going to take our shots with him as well. Q. Kevin's numbers weren't that well the past few weeks. Did he need this game for his confidence or was his confidence still solid? COACH SHAW: One thing I love about Kevin, Kevin's steady. Kevin's steady. He never gets too high, he never gets too low. After this game he'll come back Monday and he'll be upset about the three or four things he didn't do right. That's just how he's made. That's what's going to help him be successful both in football and out of football. He keeps his head down, he keeps his mind on what is important, he'll come back and be ready to fight against next week. Q. Can you describe the morale of this team right now. I can hear how they're feeling, but can you describe what's going on in the locker room. COACH SHAW: They're really excited. Of course, combination of things. To get back in the driver's seat in our conference, which has always been our goal, nothing else, getting back in the driver's seat in our conference, then playing extremely well today in all three phases. That's what you hear in there. The guys are real excited about how well they played, the fact we played together, it was a bunch of guys that made plays, not just one or two guys. We played extremely well together. And the fact that we are back in it. We're back in the PAC‑12 championship game. Now the fact is what are we going to do with this opportunity. That's the question. Q. Had a lot of former players back there today. What sort of boost was that? COACH SHAW: It really started about two years ago where a lot of our NFL guys started coming back and spending time here. Last year off‑season was the same thing. Now we had a bunch of guys in the NFL. Anytime they get a bye week, we see guys come by. That shows not just that we're a good team, it shows that the guys love it here. It shows that the guys appreciate being here. It's not just for them, not just for us, it's for both. They get a boost when they come back and they get around the guys. They come back during practice, they are high‑fiving guys during practice. They come back and watch the game the sidelines as proud alums as they are. It also gives our guys a boost, to know that these guys love it so much, that these guys will come back, they'll spend their week off here. See Zach Ertz, Levine Toilolo, Richard Sherman out there on the sidelines fired up and excited for us. That gives us a boost. That says a lot about our program, where we are. We're going to put guys in the NFL, they're going to keep coming back here being proud alums. Q. Any of the former players provide a pep talk before the game this week? COACH SHAW: No. Just Tank Williams. Tank was our honorary captain. He was outstanding last night. He talked about the energy you have to play with, the fire you have to play with. He talked about the fact he kept the axe for the four years he was here and he's looking for the seniors to do the same thing. Q. Health‑wise are you looking pretty good? Amanam was banged up. COACH SHAW: Usua was fine. He went back out there. Henry came off. But he's fine. If he needed to go back out there, he would have gone back out there. Someone else came off too. We held Graham Schuler, but that was just precautionary. He'll be fine for Notre Dame next week. There's one other person that came off that I can't think of right off the top of my head right now. I think we'll be ready for next week. Q. What is the state of this rivalry in your mind? COACH SHAW: I will say this, I hope you're listening closely. I think Cal has hired the right man. I think Sonny is going to do a great job there. They're building. But they knows it's going to be a process. They've got an outstanding young quarterback. They've got good skill positions. They're working on the offensive line. They've got some personnel on defense, but they've had a lot of injuries. This rivalry is going to pick back up very soon here. Q. Did Williamson get tired with his feet after kicking so many extra points in the first half or did you just want to give Conrad some work in the second half? COACH SHAW: We talked about it. After he went through Thursday's kicking and looked good and felt good, we said we're going to give him a half. No matter what the score is, no matter where we are, he was going to kick the field goals for the half, but at halftime we were going to pull him just so he didn't get to the point of fatigue. He finished the half. He felt great. He could have kept going. But we made a decision to pull him so we can have him rested and fresh for next week. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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