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ROSE BOWL GAME: IOWA VS STANFORD

December 29, 2015

David Shaw

Pasadena, California

An interview with:

COACH DAVID SHAW

Q. Coach, can you talk about the anxiety level of your squad right now?
COACH SHAW: For us, the energy has been really good, and I think the guys -- because the guys are excited, but we try to use a lot of that energy in practice. We get after it pretty good. We're pretty physical in practice, and we focus on the things that we need to do against a very good physical Iowa team.

Q. With all the distractions and so many things to do, have you had to go overboard or has everything been pretty calm?
COACH SHAW: Not really. We've got a pretty mature football team. We talk about compartmentalizing what we do. When it's time to have fun, we're going to have fun. We're going to enjoy everything that the bowl has to offer. When it's time to work, we'll work. And the two don't meet.

Q. What is it that you are confident most about this?
COACH SHAW: There's more than a couple, but I can give you a couple. Number one, how efficient the offense is. We try to get takeaways. These guys don't give the ball away and they don't fumble it. The quarterback doesn't throw interceptions. He's a good scrambler. If nobody's open, he can take off and get 5 to 10 yards on his own. You know, defensively you can't say that they don't blitz, because their blitz numbers aren't a high percentage, but when they come after you, they come after you. So they do a good job of almost -- I won't call it lulling you to sleep because they're very efficient if their base down defenses, but you get to third down, and everybody's a viable blitzer.

Q. You know what it means, but what about you, what does this moment mean to you personally?
COACH SHAW: You know, the big thing I've tried to relate to the guys is in a big moment you want to make big plays, and in a big game, you want to play your best. Yes, everybody wants to win, but the bottom line for us as coaches is to prepare our guys to get them ready to play their best game on January 1st.

Q. Is this team a reflection of you?
COACH SHAW: You know, that's a hard one to answer because I think I've learned a lot from this football team, so it's not just about the team reflecting me as much as us kind of reflecting each other. These guys have gotten me to loosen up a little bit and enjoy the process more and enjoy the journey with them.

As hard as we've worked and as much as we've pushed and some of the down moments that we've been through, I think we've been kind of in this thing together. I think they're reflecting me to a certain degree, and I'm reflecting them to a certain degree.

Q. Were you a little too uptight?
COACH SHAW: It's just the journey of a coach. I'm five years into being a head coach. I don't have all the answers. Early on, I mean, it was great. My first year I learned a lot, but I was really into everything, and it was really good.

I think over the next couple years, I think the more that I knew, the more I tried to tighten everything down and tried to be on top of everything, I've gotten back to the point of saying I've got great coaches. I let my coaches coach. I step in where I need to step in. I trust my seniors. They've been through a lot, and I try to give to the team as much as I try to dictate to the team.

So I think it's been a learning process for all of us.

Q. You mentioned something that's very important, and that is trust. Sometimes it takes a long time to earn trust, but you can lose it in a split second.
COACH SHAW: There is no question. We've got a lot of older guys that have earned the trust of the football team, and earning that trust is not about being perfect. It's about your preparation. It's about how hard you work. But at the same time, we play a lot of players. We play a lot of players on defense. We play a lot of players on offense. We play a lot of players on special teams. So we try to give out as much trust as we can for the guys that can earn it.

Q. Do you find that there's a lot more responsibility that comes with the more success you've had as a head coach?
COACH SHAW: For me, I've learned that responsibility still goes to the player, each individual player. Not just the group of players, each individual player. And I can't worry about what other people say outside of our program because I've gone from being a great football coach to an absolute moron depending on the result of the game.

The bottom line for me is the guys that I answer to are in the locker room. Am I doing everything I can for them? Am I pushing them to be best they can be on the field? Am I setting a standard for them outside of football for them to live their lives as future husband's and fathers? Am I making sure that they're getting their education and walking out with their Stanford degree and, if they don't go play football, go do something else that hopefully influences our society? Because we're trying to train leaders. And we have to establish that and have our guys understand that's how you operate. If you're going to be a leader, you have to be a leader every single day.

Q. That's one of the great things about sports in general is it prepares you for everything?
COACH SHAW: There's no question. You learn how to win. You learn how to lose, you learn how to prepare and how to work. You learn in the end to look back and say I've been successful and I've influenced other people. And that's sports, school, and life.

Q. You mention the team being together, what is the best thing about (indiscernible)?
COACH SHAW: It's hard to say. But the best way to look at it and try to decide what's the best thing about us is the week of practice after Northwestern where if we had a bandwagon, there was nobody on it. And we had an outstanding week of practice before we played Central Florida. The guys knew that we didn't play our best, that we had gotten outplayed and out-coached and all those things you can say by Northwestern. And no one thought that we were going to be where we are today except for the guys in that locker room.

And we said we are so much better than we played, and now it's our job to play better. It's our job to coach better. And as everybody else left and honestly tried to pull us apart and dissect the coaching and dissect the playing and they can't do this, they can't do that, our guys banded together. And you look at guys like Joshua Garnett and Ronnie Harris and Blake Martinez and Kyle Murphy and Kevin Hogan and all these guys just said: You know what? We're just going to play better and see what happens.

So from that day on, our goal was try to get to the Rose Bowl. Can we get to the Pac-12 Championship and win it and go to the Rose Bowl? And those guys have set their minds on this, and we're here. For some of these guys, a third time, and every time it's been special. But the bottom line is we also want to win.

Q. They say experience is the best teacher, so your club is not in awe, I'm not saying you're used to this moment, but you know how to handle this situation?
COACH SHAW: I would say so, our older guys in particular. Our younger guys, this is a little new for them. All the attention, and the motorcades and all that stuff. But we've got some good guys setting the example that all that stuff doesn't matter. When we cross those white lines to go play, it's football. We've got to play our best.

And we've learned our lesson. You don't play your best, you get beat. You play your best, you have a chance to win. So that's been our approach for everything that we've done.

Q. So there is no worry about them getting spoiled?
COACH SHAW: Not at all. We've got too many guys that have been through -- I mean, once again, you go through that Northwestern loss, you go through the tough loss at Oregon, you go through a couple years ago losing the Rose Bowl to Michigan State, there are a lot of those guys. And I've told guys: When you get scars, keep them. Keep those scars, let them scab over, but you keep them. You don't forget those things.

Those things are great motivators to be successful, to do your best, because there are times when you didn't, and you didn't get the result that you were looking for.

Q. Is it almost like you can play this game more easily?
COACH SHAW: Not quite yet. The one thing I love about this team is the fact that we like our work. We like our preparation. So we're not just in a hurry to get to Friday and play the game. We've got to practice today. There are some things we want to iron out, some things we want to prepare, some things we need to practice to feel great about before we ever get to game day. It's not just about getting to game day; it's about working each day to get to game day.

Q. I've talked to some of the players about your pregame speech. When do you really start thinking about that? Because there are a lot of people who would love to be in that locker room, because some people say listening to you before a game is like fire and brimstone, you really get them jacked up.
COACH SHAW: You know, it sounds so bad because I am such a methodical person in pretty much everything that I do. I don't think about that pregame speech until that morning. I typically don't write anything down. And I just kind of start to think about where we are in our journey. I think about the week of preparation. I think about what point of the season we are, and I tell them what's on my heart.

It's usually not very long, but it's geared towards them. Honestly, sometimes after the fact I don't remember everything that I say, but I convey it with my emotion, and I try to make sure that it's about those guys. And we are focused on the things we need to focus on.

Q. Has this whole year been taxing on you?
COACH SHAW: Not at all. This has been, gosh, enjoyable to the point where we've got so many older players and veteran players that we can lean on. I've told them repeatedly: The best thing about our practices is that you're going to hear Ronnie Harris' voice more than you hear mine. You're going to hear Kevin Hogan get the huddle set. You're going to hear Josh Garnett say something to get these guys fired up. You're going to hear guys on the sideline that don't play yelling at the guys to finish. Because this is the biggest group project you can find. All the hands are in. Everybody's doing their part. It's not just the old head coach standing in front telling everybody what to do. Sometimes it's a fifth-year senior like Brennan Austin who doesn't start who plays a role and him standing up and telling the guys, hey, this is what we need to do today, and the guys are listening to him because he's been there, he's worked extremely hard, and because he's got that kind of respect.

For me, it hasn't been taxing. It's almost been freeing to have this group of guys doing what we're doing this year.

Q. Coach, tell me where you think you match up well both offensively and defensively.
COACH SHAW: I think the biggest thing about the match-up is that the match-up on both sides is -- I don't know if "even" is the word, but I think "comparable" is a good word. Physical and efficient, that's what both offenses are. Led by a very physical offensive lineman, led by very efficient quarterback play, by two athletic quarterbacks, led by multiple backs, multiple back approach, whereas Christian McCaffrey has his role, Barry J. Sanders will have his role, Remound Wright will have his role.

A group of receivers very similar to Iowa. It's not just one guy that you have to worry about. All the receivers that they have can make third down catches and end zone touchdown catches, and we trust them in important parts of the game.

I think defensively you have two efficient and physical defenses. I'm excited because I think this is going to be a really, really good, tight, close game that somebody's going to have to win at the end.

Q. Does this particular Iowa team remind you of any of the other Pac-12 teams you've played in recent memory?
COACH SHAW: Well, I think the biggest thing is they kind of remind us of us, and I don't want those guys to look at it as disrespectful at all. Not at all. I mean, they play the way that we want to play. You put on the film and you see 11 guys on defense getting after the football. Offensively you see 11 guys doing what they're supposed to do. You see a quarterback directing traffic and being efficient and making plays with his legs and his arm.

And you see tight, close games with the game on the line and somebody making a play to swing it in their favor, whether it's a defensive back, an interception, a guy getting a sack fumble or a running back breaking a tackle to get the first down that seals the game, or a quarterback that maybe hasn't thrown a bunch of passes, but dropping back in a critical moment and firing the ball in there to get the first down to end the game.

Those are things that we have a lot of respect for, and those are things that we try to do ourselves.

Q. Coach, is the excitement still here for this team? Is it as big of a deal?
COACH SHAW: There's no question about it. There's nothing like the Rose Bowl. I don't want to just give you coach speak, but when you pull up to the hotel and you see the roses, you remember as a kid, especially -- I mean, I watched the Rose Bowl every single year -- there is nothing that got in the way of the Rose Bowl, not lunchtime, not other bowl games, not family get-togethers. Our world stopped when the Rose Bowl came around.

And our guys feel that. They feel that energy, and they feel that fire. Especially for this team, and our first Rose Bowl, it was post-Andrew Luck, we don't expect very much. And Kevin Hogan takes us on a great run to get here. The second year there were really high expectations, and we went up and down and fought through those expectations and got here.

And this year, after Game 1, this game for us was in nobody's minds but ours. No one thought we could get here after how we played against Northwestern. So for this team to fight and scratch and earn their way here through a very difficult schedule and a very difficult conference to get back to where we are now has been a great accomplishment. And our guys truly feel like this is special because this is something that no one thought they could earn, and they've earned it. And now we're excited about going to play the game.

Q. Your kicker seems like a character. I haven't met him, but can you describe his personality and especially after the big kicks he hits?
COACH SHAW: An old coach told me a long time ago: There are football players, and then there are kickers. But Conrad is one of those guys that he brings an energy, he brings a life, he brings a passion. But at the same time, he's very methodical. He's very serious about what he does. He wants to be an expert in his craft and he wants to make those big kicks. It's not just because he wants to be a superstar.

He wants to make those big kicks because, unlike a lot of places and a lot of kickers, he's part of our football team. He's in our fabric. Our guys love him, and he loves it.

That's my goal. That's my part to do it for everybody else. They're all doing their part for me, and I want to do my part for them. I think that's what makes him special on this football team that he's not that guy that stands over on the other field kicking the ball until we call for him. He's preparing to do his job for this football team.

Q. Did you think Kevin Hogan was going to have the kind of year he's had?
COACH SHAW: We had very, very high hopes for Kevin because, number one, ultimately, he is extremely competitive. He's very competitive. He's very athletic. We knew he had a high ceiling when he came as a starter, though we tried to nurse him along a little bit. Last year was rough on all of us, on everybody at every position and Kevin both on and off the field.

Then this year to watch him start the season with such maturity and such toughness and be the kind of leader that you want a fifth-year senior to be, it's been great. It's been truly special because we've leaned on him a lot, both on and off the field.

Q. Coach, what impresses you most about Kirk Ferentz?
COACH SHAW: Well, in this day and age -- and it sounds small, but it's not -- longevity. That's the hardest thing in major college sports now is longevity. To be at one place to where your message never gets old, to where your ideals don't get diluted, your program goals don't get diluted, to where you can have a great season followed up by an okay season and everyone says we love you and we want you, your players play extremely hard for you.

It's always been that way at Iowa. As a coach's kid, that's the way football used to be. That's why I have so much respect for Coach Ferentz as well as for Iowa, their athletic department and their school, to say there is something that we believe in, and this coach exemplifies it and he's going to be here because this is our guy. This is who we want our young players to play for and learn from. And that's high praise in today's major college sports.

Q. Given how fickle the college (indiscernible) and bounce back for the "Coach of the Year" award. As a head coach, what do you think when that happens?
COACH SHAW: It gives you hope that people out there are watching, honestly. Once again, I'm talking like a coach's kid who has been through a lot. I've packed my boxes at seven years old in my room because we had to move because everybody got fired because we had one bad year, all those things. I've been through that.

But it gives you hope. And people look at it and say: That's the way to do it, the way that Iowa does it.

Hopefully at some point they say that about Stanford. David Shaw has been there for so long. That's the way you do it. They stayed with him through a couple of lean years, but ultimately the program goals haven't changed because that's the way you do it. Because that's what you said about Bobby Bowden, Tom Osborne, about all those great coaches, Bo Schembechler, and that's what is going on at Iowa.

I think when it's all said and done and Coach Ferentz finally retires, and hopefully he'll be in the College Football Hall of Fame, because he's one of those guys, he's the icon, and that's a tough thing to do, to be an icon following an icon.

I was a huge Hayden Fry fan. Once again, growing up as a coach's kid, I loved the fact that the tight ends stood up. I love the fact that they played hard-nosed, tough, physical football. That's been maintained there. Just as a football enthusiast and a coach's kid, I have a lot of respect for what he's done at Iowa and for the way that Iowa has supported him.

Q. With the respect you obviously have for Iowa, what do you use as an entry point for the motivation to go out there and give the best you have?
COACH SHAW: To be honest, my guys have heard me say stuff like this: If your motivation is external, you're in other people's hands. Our motivation has to be internal. It has to be about us, it has to be about what we want.

I liken this all the time for guys. I coached against my own father. There is no disdain, there is nothing. I love my father. But on game day, we're trying to win. It's not about disrespect. It's not about having to put somebody else down. It's about what we have inside of us about trying to be the best that we can be.

As long as your motivation is internal, you can be successful in football. You can be successful in school, you can be successful in life because you don't look for outside sources to motivate you.

Q. Coach, how concerned are you that Iowa ate 600 pounds of prime rib?
COACH SHAW: Not concerned at all. Big guys eat and hungry guys eat. No, that's great. It's such good food and such a great event. Once again, not that it's gotten old hat at all, but our guys have been there a couple times. Some of our guys have made some mistakes in the past about eating too much, so I think we operated last night with a little caution.

Q. [On remembering what they did to come back after the Northwestern loss...]
COACH SHAW: I remember it very well because, once again, we didn't play well against Northwestern. We came back and played a really good second half against Central Florida, and we were still not playing as well as we were practicing. Our practices were phenomenal. Our guys were making plays on both sides of the ball, and the kick game was great.

So I wanted to put the responsibility back on the guys to play up to your ability. You know, we've got guys that accomplished a lot, and we need to walk around and act like it. It's not about arrogance, it's not about too much pride or anything. But it's about, hey, we've been in big moments before and performed extremely well. Let's go do it again.

We have that recall. Yeah, I played in that Pac-12 Championship game at Arizona State. I played in that Pac-12 Championship game against UCLA. I played in those Rose Bowls. I played in those nationally televised games. I need to go out there and perform like I have in the past.

I think it was just that idea of this isn't new. This isn't something different. But it's also what we want. We want to play in big games, so let's not shy away from it. Let's go play our best.

Q. How much do you see winning games giving the team confidence?
COACH SHAW: It was a combination of a couple of things -- the guys realizing that we've accomplished a lot and we can accomplish even more. But we also had that rallying cry from Northwestern. You know what, hey, if we get beaten, we're going to get beaten playing our best football, not playing below our abilities.

So it was a combination of those two things, I think, that helped continue to drive this football team.

Q. Have you changed your opinion on the rule at all of bricking in a guy?
COACH SHAW: My opinion has been very, very out there. I'm as open as anyone. I think it's a great rule. We've only benefited from it once, but over the last three years we've had a lot of guys transfer out. I've told people, how can I sit here for a guy that's been in my program for four years and done everything that I've asked him to do academically, gotten to the point where he's graduating and says, "Coach, I could go someplace else and play more," how can I look at that young man and say, "No, come stay with me and play less"? I think that's wrong.

I applaud these guys. I'm happy for, gosh, all of our guys. We've had four guys leave last year to go play. Charlie Hopkins went to Virginia. Patrick Skov went to Georgia Tech and got a lot more carries at Georgia Tech than he would have gotten here.

So I can't help but be happy for those guys. They've got a chance to get their Stanford degree and to go to a situation where they had a bigger role for all those teams that they played for. So I think it's a great rule.

Q. [On red zone tactics...]
COACH SHAW: We've always done that. And some people look at it as a negative, and I look at it as one of the most positive things about our football team, which is we have guys that play roles. We've got three offensive linemen that have very specific roles in our short yardage and goal line. We've got multiple receivers that come in and play their role for our offense. They're not, quote/unquote, starters, but you look at Rollins Stallworth has had a phenomenal year coming in and being a blocker and making some big catches for us. And we needed that role. You look at Remound, who started for us last year, and he's got a knack. He's got a knack for breaking tackles. He's got a knack for getting low and jumping and getting underneath guys. He's got a knack for being that guy that can get you those tough, difficult yards, usually after those touchdowns. The first guy off the sideline to congratulate him is Christian, to where they look at each other as a combo package. You know. And they complement each other.

So I think it's been one of the more positive things on our football team.

Q. [Continued...]
COACH SHAW: There's no question, we have guys that have their specialty roles. I tease the guys. We get tackled inside the 5-yard line, and I say bring out the specialist. We're going to the bullpen. And Remound has been phenomenal. He understands that's his role and it's a huge role for us. And we've been as efficient as anybody in the nation in short-yard situations and goal-line situations, and he's a big part of that.

Q. Iowa has a pretty good defense secondary?
COACH SHAW: Oh, there's no question, he, and I think you have to understand what both corners are and who they are, and how well they play. Their safety play in particular in the running game but also in the passing game and how they get back behind you and can bat balls down or pick them off.

But there's no question. I mean, 43 is everywhere. He's all over the place. He plays with a passion and an energy that makes you respect him.

Q. [On Josey Jewell...]
COACH SHAW: I think that's hard to say. I think he's a great football player. You look at the season tackle total, and that's what it tells you. When you watch the film, he's not just making the plays that come right at him. He's sideline to sideline. He's in the back field. He's making them on the far left sideline and far right sideline. He's just a really good college football player.

Q. What is the toughest challenge of facing Iowa?
COACH SHAW: As all great defenses, the biggest challenge is no one's out of position. Some defenses you look at and say, okay, we can take advantage of this guy or take advantage of that guy because we think we can get him to go the wrong way, et cetera. These guys know where they're going. They hit their marks full speed. They know where their gaps are. They hit them full speed, and if they're hitting their gaps full speed, you better be buckled up because they're going to smack you. And our guys understand that, and our guys have a lot of respect for that.

Q. How would you describe your play at quarterback?
COACH SHAW: I'm the first person to tell you this, that when you look at quarterbacks, you look at two things -- you look at wins and you look at efficiency. You don't look at yards and touchdown passes and all those flashy things. Does a guy win football games? Does he turn it over? On third downs, does he make the third down throw to get you the first down? Can he scramble to get you first downs? How good is he in the red zone as far as making the touchdown pass or the touchdown run? How good is he at directing the protection to make sure it's a proper protection? That's what good quarterbacks do. And for Beathard, he checks all the boxes.

Q. [On preparing for Iowa's defense...]
COACH SHAW: It's just getting ready for their scheme. Because anybody they put back there, number one, you know they're good runners; number two, you know they're extremely tough and physical.

Whichever back is back there, we have a lot of respect for them. We have to make sure we hit our gaps and we're where we're supposed to be because they can bring up some big runs as well.

So for our guys, we have to make sure we know what we're doing, and we do it full speed.

Q. [On Shaw...]
COACH SHAW: I hate to say the guys got me to loosen up, but that's kind of what happened. Not that I was ever this overbearing tyrant of a coach, but I think that these guys have shown me that they can have fun and prepare and be physical and be hard-nosed and do what they're supposed to do.

So I've been trusting that leadership. I've been trusting Blake Martinez and Ronnie Harris. And you know what? I can loosen up a little bit and laugh with them and talk with them and flip it right around two minutes later and say, "Make sure you get your jobs done," and they say, "We got you, Coach."

We can have that kind of relationship where I don't have to be overbearing and on top of them all the time, because they're on top of it, and those guys are coaching the young guys as much as our coaches are. Which is a big part of having a really good football program.

Q. He also mentioned that -- okay, so the defense. The whole talk has been about the offense, the offensive line and McCaffrey. You guys have returned two people. Can you speak to the defense, and what they've done? You need defense as much as you need offense to win games.
COACH SHAW: There is no question. First I have to tip my hat to Lance Anderson who had to account for all those veterans, all those older guys walking off this team and graduating and moving on and finding roles for these guys, and Blake stepping up and Ronnie Harris stepping up and our veteran safeties stepping up and playing a role for us as well as getting our young guys to come in and play. And Alijah Holder is a first time starter. Alameen Murphy coming in and playing a significant role for us.

It's been the combination of all of those guys to have each other's back, right? Because team defense is about every single guy doing their jobs, and that happens when the guys trust each other, they like each other, and they don't want to let each other down. And that's a lot of what's happened on our defense this year.

Q. [On leadership after two losses...]
COACH SHAW: Oh, there's no question. You don't get to big bowl games without leadership, and we've had as good of leadership this year as we've ever had. As far as that week of practice after the game at Northwestern was just -- it was tough, but our leaders pushed us through it and kept our standards high and pushed each other and pushed the young guys.

One of our many mantras we have: It's not about what happens to you, it's about how you respond to what happens to you. And our older guys understand that. And we go back to work.

And that's been the one great thing about these guys is when we lost, we went back to work. When we won seven in a row, we just went back to work. There is no question in our work. There is no change in our process. The results are what we're pushing for, but what we're responsible for is our work that leads up to those results. Our older guys understand that. So it's been a testament to our leadership that we are where we are right now.

Q. Can you talk about the Pac-12 itself?
COACH SHAW: Oh, yeah. I mean, every week in our conference is a different type of offense, a different type of defense, and I think we're one of the few conferences where really anybody can beat anybody on any given Saturday. So you better come with your best game.

You know, I don't think enough has been said about the coaching job that was done at Washington State. I mean, they were hard. They were tough to beat all year. With the coaching job that was done at Washington, I mean, how many guys left that team in the first three rounds of the NFL draft? And for those guys to come back and play such great defense. I mean, nationally ranked as a defense.

So every week you're playing somebody difficult. You're playing somebody tough. You're playing some of the best quarterbacks in the nation and some of the best athletes in the nation. For our guys every week to come back and fight and scrap and try to find a way to win, once again, is a testament to our leadership on this football team.

Q. What's been the key to your success?
COACH SHAW: My way of looking at it is the biggest thing that I'm in charge of is the environment. That's what I'm in charge of. I'm in charge of who is in the environment. Our coaching staff has been outstanding. The guys that we found fit Stanford University as a football team, but Stanford University as a university also.

And the culture that we've developed is a culture of excellence. It's a culture of achievement. It's not a culture of wanting to get patted on the back all the time. It's a culture of what do I need to do to achieve my goals and how hard do I have to work in our guys understanding that? For me it's about surrounding myself with great people and letting them do their jobs.

Q. [On motivation...]
COACH SHAW: I think especially initially. No question about it. We've been on both sides of that spectrum. Just kind of like the last question I was answering, you know, if the culture is right, you can respond to both the right way, right? Because we've come off a Rose Bowl win and flying high into the off-season, and having to remind guys that there is a way that we got there, and it wasn't about smiling in the media and patting ourselves on the back. It was about putting that trophy in the trophy case and coming back and working hard for the next thing that you earn.

But then again, we've come off a difficult loss at the end of the year, a difficult loss in the Rose Bowl and come back and said, okay, now our job is to try to get there again and play better and play a better game and try to get the best possible results.

So either way, you have to find that motivation, and the motivation also has to come from the locker room. The guys have to want it also. They have to be willing to work to get there. I think we've done a really good job with our training staff in particular, Coach Turley, our coaches and our older guys understanding that.

Q. [On Shaw...]
COACH SHAW: Absolutely. When it's all said and done, absolutely. I'm the guy after the game, after the big wins, after the Pac-12 Championship game, my wife and I went to Chick-fil-A and went home. I mean, that's great to me. That's a great night. I like being methodical. I like the guys knowing and expecting what I'm going to do and say it. I like that. They trust in my consistency.

For me, I want to be one of those guys that does his job and goes home to his family. There is really hopefully not much more than that.

Q. You said a couple years ago that you wanted to influence other schools to take on academics more. Do you think that's happened? Do you see any evidence of that happening at other schools?
COACH SHAW: I'll answer it this way without giving anybody up. I've gotten a lot of emails and phone calls from a lot of people at a lot of different universities that saw that TED Talk and really appreciated it and have tried to do different things at their own universities to help support the young men in their academic pursuits as well as post-graduation.

So without saying yes, I see it everywhere, like anything that lasts, I think there are baby steps to get there at different places. I don't see wholesale changes. But I feel good about having some influence on some people that have tried to make things better at other places.

Q. [On his place at Stanford...]
COACH SHAW: Gosh, the easy answer is there's a puzzle cutout, and there's only one piece that kind of fits in there, and when it fits, you put it in there and you leave it in there, and that's how I feel.

As far as the area, my wife and I loving the area and all the things that we do with our family. As far as the university itself, both being alum and also being in line with the pursuits of the university, I love what the university has to offer.

I'm not one of those guys that tries to fight the administration, trying to get more of this or more of that. I love what we stand for and how we do things. I know that not everybody that we recruit is going to get admitted into school, and I appreciate that fact. Because our admissions has been right. They've been right, the people that they've admitted. So I appreciate that aspect of it.

Then day to day, I love our guys. I understand our guys. I don't know that I would have that same camaraderie at a different place with a different group of guys. I'm so in tune with this locker room and what it stands for both as a group of football players but also as a group of guys that are going to go off and do other things also, it's hard for me to think that I would have that connection anyplace else.

Q. Is it true you negotiated your own contract in 2012?
COACH SHAW: Absolutely.

Q. Why? Did you know what you wanted?
COACH SHAW: Because it was personal for me. It wasn't about -- actually I'll say it this way. When I shook Bob Bowlsby's hand when he offered me the job, I let him know the thing I'm looking for is longevity, however we need to accomplish that. So it's not just about maxing out my contract and getting the most money I can get. That's not what this can be about. There are a lot of places that you can go do that, and this is not the place that I want to try to do that. This is the place I want to set my assistants up so they can be successful and hopefully guys can move on and be coordinators and head coaches. But it's a place I want to make sure that I put some roots down and continue to do what we've been doing, which is winning football games and graduating our players.

Q. [On coaching longevity...]
COACH SHAW: That's one of those things that's out there that I look at. But, once again, being a coach's kid, those are the guys I looked up to. I looked up to Tom Osborne, I looked up to Joe Paterno. I looked up to Bobby Bowden and Bo Schembechler. Those guys were the coaching icons.

For me, that's the way it should be. I was answering a bunch of questions earlier about Kirk Ferentz and his time at Iowa. That's the way it should be. The head coach should be there for a long time, should have a lot of success. When you have a blip in your tenure, like we had last year, everybody rallies around you and says we believe in you and we believe in the program and what you're teaching these young men.

That's what college football's supposed to be. Hopefully I get to be part of one of those programs that people look at and say that's how you're supposed to do it. Like you said about Iowa. Like you've said for years about Penn State. Hopefully you continue to say about Alabama. They're going to keep their coaches for a long time. They do a great job, and we believe in what they're doing. So, yeah, that's a goal of mine.

Q. Are you going to work for ESPN again during the playoffs?
COACH SHAW: I didn't do that last year.

Q. With the draft?
COACH SHAW: Oh, yeah, NFL Network. Most likely. Most likely. I enjoy doing that. As I call it, that's my NFL fix that I get once a year.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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