	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

ROSE BOWL GAME: IOWA VS STANFORD

December 30, 2015

David Shaw

Pasadena, California

An Interview With:

COACH DAVID SHAW

THE MODERATOR: Good morning, everyone. We're going to go ahead and get started with the head coach press conference for Stanford University. My name is Karen Linhart, and I am the Rose Bowl Game media director. I am pleased to introduce our guest this morning, Coach David Shaw. Coach Shaw has led Stanford football for five seasons and is the 34th head football coach in Stanford history. He's led the team through 11 wins this season, and brought the team to three Rose Bowls in the past four years. Please help me welcome Coach David Shaw. We'll open up the floor for questions.

COACH SHAW: Feel free to ask Karen questions too.

Q. Good morning, Coach. A lot has been made, obviously, of the fact that this is Iowa's first game and first Rose Bowl in a long time, and that this is your third in four years. When it comes to actually playing the game, will any of that make a difference?
COACH SHAW: Absolutely not. I think, once again, they've been in two, and they're so special, they're so different. We went to back-to-back years, and that second one, it doesn't matter.

I mentioned this yesterday, midway through the first quarter, for me, I know it will happen again because it's happened twice and it will happen for different guys at different times, it's going to hit you. This is the Rose Bowl. So, it is different. It is special. There's nothing that's old hat. So whether you've been here once or you've been here three times, you feel how special it is on that game day.

Q. As a follow-up, what is the health of your team at this point? Are [Ronnie] Harris and [Blake] Martinez, are all those guys in full shape?
COACH SHAW: Yep, we are probably 99% healthy. I think Ronnie and Blake in particular, those guys, we gave them some time off over the break, did a bunch of rehab. Both guys practiced two days ago. We backed off of them a little bit yesterday, and today we'll get some rest. And tomorrow they'll go full-speed in our short, fast practice and they'll be good to go.

Jake Bailey's a little sick right now. There is something going around, of course, but we'll see how he is by game day. But I think we've got things in place if he can't go. But all indications, he should be ready to go by game day.

Q. Coach, when you guys broke down the film and looked at the Hawkeyes, what was the top thing that jumped off the film as you started to prepare, either offensively or defensively?
COACH SHAW: Well, I'll give you one for each. Offensively, efficiency. I learned a long time ago that's the number one thing you want to be on offense. You want to be efficient. Efficient in the running game, efficient in the passing game, efficient on third down, efficient in the red zone, and you win football games. Other people look at a bunch of other stats, but you see a methodical, efficient offense that takes advantage of what defense does. That's what you see.

Defensively, and I'm the son of a defensive coordinator, you see coordination. You see everybody being where they're supposed to be. That's how you keep the score down, that's how you keep the big plays down. There is nobody out of position. Guys know their jobs and they do it full speed.

It's something that I really appreciate just based on how I've grown up. As a kid watching in the stands, I was one of the few people that watched the defense more than the offense because that's what my dad did. But that's the first thing you see and the first film you put on. Then in the successive month, it seems like, 15 films that you put on, you see the same thing.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about the similarities you guys share with the Hawkeyes this season?
COACH SHAW: Well, I mentioned that in the original phone press conference on that Sunday after all the bowl games were announced. We lost a tough one first game of the year, didn't play our best, had a team that take advantage of it. And Northwestern and Coach Fitzgerald, give them all the credit in the world. They really got after us.

From that point on, we had to go back to doing what we do. We couldn't worry about what the outside world said about us, because none of it was good, and we had to be a tight-together team and work through that and earn our way back to our goal, which was to get to the Pac-12 Championship Game and get to the Rose Bowl.

I mentioned it on that phone call. I look and see what goes around in college football. That's kind of what I do on Sunday mornings sometimes. What happened last night? What happened yesterday? And all year you just watched Iowa find a way to win and no one said anything. Then you watch them again the next week, they found a way to win and no one says anything. They have a great defensive performance and a great offensive performance and a great team performance, and they beat some good teams. And throughout the year, I think both of our teams gained a lot of momentum without a lot of fanfare.

To me, that's a sign of a well-coached team, but it's also the sign of an unselfish team. There are teams out there that can't handle that. You win four, five, six, seven games in a row, and you don't get the fanfare, and you started to get frustrated. But when you're playing for the right reasons and playing for the guy next to you, and your coaches and players are on the same page, you don't care what the outside world says. You come to the next game and win. And I think that's one thing that both these teams have in common.

Q. I'm curious about the thought process with Christian McCaffrey and how you and the offensive staff came to the mindset of, 'we're going to play this guy everywhere and put him all over the field' as opposed to specifically running back or wide receiver, one or the other?
COACH SHAW: You know, you go back to watching him in high school, and the first time you see him, whether it's live or on tape, you say, wow, that's really impressive. But it's high school. And the next game you say the same thing, and the next game, and the next game. You say, okay, this guy's phenomenal. But can he do that at the college level? Can he return punts and kicks and catch the ball and run the ball?

And then I'll share this one. We don't bring in early graduates, so our freshmen come in over the summer. We don't work with them as coaches over the summer. They're with the strength staff. I give the coaches vacation. They came back off of vacation and we're about to start in a couple days and I remember Ty Montgomery coming by the office and asked him how the summer went. He said, 'Coach, it went fine. I can't wait to watch Christian McCaffrey play.'

That's the first time I've ever been around an upperclassman talk about, man, I can't wait to watch this guy play because he's so intense and he's so athletic, and there are so many different things he can do. So his freshman year, we let him do a little bit of everything. Ty was our main punt and kickoff returner. We let Christian do a little bit here and there. You know, Remound Wright was our starting running back, and we had a bunch of other good running backs. But we kind of spoon-fed Christian as a runner and receiver. And we got to last spring and he started to put on a show. And we said, 'how many different things can this guy do and do them well?' Because everything's up for competition. Then we come back and he's our best punt returner and kickoff returner and run receiver. Okay, if he's the best at those positions, let him do it.

But it wasn't in a way that other guys felt slighted. It was in a way that guys looked at him and said, 'wow, Coach, give him the ball again.' And he had a group of receivers that want to catch the ball, but next thing you know they're blocking as hard as they can because of how special this guy is, and they know they're going to get their opportunities. So you see a guy that works extremely hard and has earned everything he's gotten. He's a great team player. You see Remound Wright score a touchdown, and the first guy off the bench is Christian McCaffrey, the big smile on his face and they do that jumping body high five -- I don't know how else to explain it, which everybody does nowadays. But as much as he gets, as much as he has on our offense, he's a great team player and loves to celebrate what other guys do.

Q. Quick question, you mentioned Christian on Saturday that you group him with the Jerry Rice and the Barry Sanders. Those are two of the greatest football players you've ever seen. Do you think he's just starting to scratch the surface of his potential going forward as a sophomore?
COACH SHAW: Absolutely. I mean, he's 19 years old. I don't know if he's done growing yet. He's going to get bigger, he's going to get stronger, he's going to get faster, he's going to get better. That's what 19-year-olds do. The best thing about him to me is his mentality. He wants to get better. He wants to improve. He wants to push himself. And I think every great player that you're around is like that. They're never satisfied. They never stand still. They never stay with the status quo. The other thing about them is they don't look at their records. They don't worry about their records because they want to go out there and do better next year. So that's been one of the driving forces of our team, having a guy like Christian McCaffrey. A guy like Kevin Hogan who has accomplished a lot in his college career and came back this year and said I don't care about the past years, it's all about this year. You have a group of guys that are like that, you have a chance to be at bowl games like the Rose Bowl.

Q. With Christian being the most Stanford legacy he could possibly be, what was recruiting like with him? I imagine recruiting just never seems like it's easy or a slam dunk. So I imagine there was at least some back and forth.
COACH SHAW: Recruiting is never easy, in particular at Stanford, because what comes first and foremost is the academics, and he's an outstanding student. But unlike any other college in America, before we can get ultra serious, they've got to get admitted. We can't send them a letter of intent. They have to get admitted. They have to finish the application. They've got to turn it back in and turn it back into admissions and we sit there and wait just like they do. Christian, even being the son of two Stanford parents, there are anxious moments because everybody in the nation's saying, 'hey, we've got a spot for you right now. Stanford's making you wait.' Like most of us, as we were growing up, we learned some of the best things are worth waiting for, and Christian and his family understood that. It takes a few weeks for that application to get processed, and I'm checking my phone every ten minutes for two weeks.

So there were, of course, always those tenuous moments, but when a young man gets admitted and is excited about it, and his family's excited about it, that was the big thing, I think. From the beginning, I think Christian knew he wanted to come to Stanford. He wasn't worried about his father's legacy at Stanford, which is significant. He wanted to come and establish his own, which, once again, he's just at the beginning of.

Q. You mentioned Iowa's offensive efficiency, but you guys lead the nation in time of possession. What's been the single biggest factor enabling you guys to do that?
COACH SHAW: A combination of so many things. It's really about the unselfishness of the football team, and when we run the ball on first down, which we do as much as anybody, those receivers going in and blocking and trying to get on the safeties and the determination of our offensive line. Coach Bloomgren has done a phenomenal job with those guys. The growth and maturity of our five guys up front and the athletic ability of our runner, combined with the combination of fullbacks that we've used this year, and turning two-yard runs into four-yard runs and getting us a 2nd and 6, and having a very efficient quarterback in Kevin Hogan, both with his legs and with his arm, and getting us to 3rd and 2 or 3rd and 1, and then Remound Wright coming and converting on third down, and guys understanding that we can be a methodical offense and get ourselves to 3rd and medium and get first downs, we don't have to go for 60-yard strikes to be a good offense. We can move the ball. We can be efficient.

Combined with that, now, has been an opportunistic defense that's been good on third down to get off the field so they don't stay on the field as long. So if you've got an offense that can stay on the field and a defense that can get off the field, you have a chance to win time of possession. Which is not winning the football game, but you have more opportunities to win with the ball in your hands. You get outstanding special teams play like we've gotten this year, get a very efficient kicker that makes us field goals, you've got a very efficient offense in the red zone to where we can run in the red zone and have some big targets in the end zone also to make plays for you and a quarterback that can run, it's all those things working together.

I said it yesterday, each week it could be a different guy that shines. And having a team that's ready for that, that understands that, it helps you keep the ball in. Some guys say, hey, we've had Devon Cajuste in the Pac-12 Championship Game. Doesn't catch a ball the entire game until the game-sealing third down. When guys play like that, you always have a chance.

Q. You've mentioned several times that every Rose Bowl is different, every Rose Bowl is special. One of the guys that has been there now for all three of them over the past four years has been Kevin Hogan. Can you talk a little bit about the leadership that he's brought to this team over the past several years and how that could translate on the field this Friday?
COACH SHAW: Yeah, I mean, it's hard to talk about that whole progression without getting a little emotional. You're looking at a guy who came in as a redshirt freshman, and, you know, in training camp and I'll throw him under the bus here, just barely had any idea what in the world was going on. He was just figuring life out. He's still figuring school out, he's still figuring football out. Somewhere about game two or three the light started to come on. It just clicked. Things made sense to him and we started playing him. One play a game, two plays a game, three plays a game. Because he added something to us. Then he got to that point where, man, this guy's really good. He's really getting it. So we put him in a quarterback competition and he goes in and leads us to four touchdown drives or whatever it is against Colorado and takes over.

And he's that kind of fresh, 'hey, let's just go out there and play.' He's not worried about any pressure. He's not worried about anything. He goes out there and we win a bunch of games and go to the Rose Bowl, and he's happy as can be.

The next year the old pressure comes on the shoulders of the young man, and he handles it phenomenally. He handles it great. He's got Stepfan Taylor, he's got some of these other guys that he can lean on. Just great play from a lot. Tyler Gaffney, all these guys that he can lean on. And we come back and he makes it to another Rose Bowl. And you go to last year, and we didn't play well, he didn't play his best, and you go through a really, really tough season, which happens, you know, with an eight-win season on a team with high expectations. A lot of stuff off the field, family situations, lot of things going on. It was really, really difficult, and I'll never forget. He makes the decision to come back. We get into spring football, and I pass by him one of the early days in spring football and I just looked at his face, and I said, 'you're old.' And he said, 'Coach, I feel old, you know.'

He's a guy that's been through the highs of the highs and the lows of the lows, and he's gained perspective and he's gained wisdom. That leadership has shown up every time that we've needed it throughout the year. Tough moments, difficult moments, tight games, I mean, he's the main reason why we've been up by two scores in games and we keep playing well. There have been games we've been down by two scores, and it's his steadiness, and his belief and his energy that keeps the guys fired up and ready to go. Down two scores, third game of the year at USC, it's a tough place to be down two scores with that crowd going, and he led us back on a bad ankle. Down two scores to Washington State, the defense is playing outstanding, and we can't complete a pass and we can't run the ball, and he has three long runs, basically, that help us stay in the game and have a chance to win it at the end.

So his leadership, whether it's as a runner, as a passer or just as an experienced player talking to the rest of the team, it's really shown up when we've needed it.

Q. What do you expect this atmosphere to be like when you hear over 50,000 Iowa fans applied for tickets for this? They're pouring into LA and Pasadena right now?
COACH SHAW: I think it's going to be great. I think there will be a few Stanford fans there too. But it's one of the really cool things about the Rose Bowl, and it's different. I mean, we love coming down here every other year and playing UCLA because it's such a great environment. But the Rose Bowl is a completely different environment. There's an energy in the air. There is an excitement in the air. There are clear lines of delineation based on the apparel of which side is for which team, and both sides are energetic and passionate. Still, run out on the field a couple big games before, and there is still nothing like running out on the field at the Rose Bowl. The people cheering and the energy and the environment, it's just awesome.

Q. I just want to ask you about this senior class. If you can summarize what they mean to you personally. Certainly the most winningest class, I should say, and also a class that's led your graduation success rate in the 99 percentile, the best in college football. On both sides of things, what's that mean to you in their success and their leadership and what have they done for you personally?
COACH SHAW: You know, the best thing that they've done for me is that leadership. It's the leadership through tough times and the leadership through the good times. There are a lot of teams in a lot of different sports, collegiately and professionally, that cannot handle success, and these guys have done a great job of handling some success. They've done a great job of handling the dips in the road. And as what I've learned as a coach is that I can't carry the team by myself. I have to share that leadership with the guys on the team, with the older guys, the more experienced guys. I have to. Because the locker room leadership is always as, if not more, important than the coaching leadership. The guys will respond to their peers, and to have this group of guys to be so accomplished but then also love practice and teach guys how to practice and how to prepare. You're out there practicing and you hear Ronnie Harris from the sideline pushing the DBs to do everything right. You see Blake Martinez, senior linebacker, going into the NFL, All-Conference, blah, blah, blah, and you see him running full speed and tagging off every play with a smile on his face. Josh Garnett pulling out there and yesterday running 40 yards on a screen pass as fast as he can to keep up with the running backs. That kind of energy and that kind of effort every day in practice helps set the tone for who you are as a football team, and I can't say enough about particularly these fourth- and fifth-year seniors that have been through so much positive and a little negative, and they still bring the energy and the passion that you need to be a good football team.

Q. Obviously there were some growing pains at the beginning of this season. But at what point did you kind of take a step back and say, 'wow, this team's special.' This is a Rose Bowl-caliber team?
COACH SHAW: That's the first time anybody's ever asked me that, and the guys that know me, I'm going to answer it. The first time I said that was probably about a week into training camp. About a week into training camp when I watched this team practice and compete. And there's a difference between some of those teams that compete and it feels like we're fighting, it feels like we're pushing. These guys competed and they flew around and they supported each other and they pushed each other. I honestly thought at that point this has a chance to be a really special football team.

We went out to Northwestern and laid an egg, and my thought process didn't change at all. We came back and the guys that cover us a lot know what I said, I said the same thing I said to the press that I said to the team. We didn't play well. We're capable of so much more. We just need to go out there and play better and play like we're practicing, because our training camp preparation was phenomenal, it was outstanding. We had to help and we had to find a way to get that to translate to the field. The first half against UCF we played well defensively, didn't play well offensively. And the turning point being that flea-flicker to Michael Rector, and for whatever reason everybody just kind of relaxed and started playing, and we didn't worry about where we were ranked. We didn't worry about what anybody else was saying. We just went out there and started playing like we practiced and really started to show what kind of team we're capable of being.

Because I think our team felt it too, and I wouldn't say there was a frustration, but there was a, 'gosh, we think we're pretty good. We've just got to get it on game day.' Once again, midway through that second game of the year, it really started showing up, and it's been a fun group to coach.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297