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NEW ERA PINSTRIPE BOWL: MICHIGAN STATE VS WAKE FOREST

December 27, 2019

Dave Clawson

New York, New York

Michigan State 27, Wake Forest 21

DAVE CLAWSON: First off, congratulations to Michigan State. I thought they played a really good football game. We came out in the first half and played really well on offense. Bottom line in the second half is we didn't make plays on offense, and they made the plays on defense.

They did a good job of pressuring us. I thought their defensive line did a good job of rushing the passer. We just didn't get open on the perimeter.

We're not where we were at receiver to start the year. We had some guys in there that really haven't played all year. That's not ideal when you get to a 13th bowl game, play against a defense the caliber of Michigan State.

But I was proud of the way we hung in there. We made enough plays to stay in the game, but not enough plays to win the game.

On defense, it was kind of bend but don't break the whole game. We really only gave up two touchdowns. We gave up one on a busted coverage, then one second half touchdown. 21-20 at the half. We give up seven points.

I never felt we were stopping them. But we got those two big red zone turnovers, which kept us in the game. They missed a kick. I'm sure their coaching staff, they're probably feeling they could have won that game 38-21 or whatever.

Credit to our guys. We came up with two huge red zone turnovers, then we forced the fourth down. Kid missed a kick. With three minutes left in the game, we had the ball. We felt great about our chances to win it.

We didn't make enough plays. Credit to them, they did. I'm proud of the way our players competed, battled. We got really thin. That was a little bit the story of our season. I think when we were a healthy football team, we could play with pretty much anybody in the country.

As we thinned out here, got a lot of injuries, that's our next challenge as a program, is to develop the depth so, number one, we can play more guys, and number two, that when we do lose players the caliber of a Nate Gilliam or Sage Sarrat or Justin Strnad, we don't fall off as we have. That's our next step, our next challenge.

We're attacking it. I have confidence we'll get there. We're not quite there now, but that doesn't take away from how well Michigan State played today. I thought they played really well. They're physical. Their quarterback played well. We did not defend the pass well at all today. I thought we conceded way too many easy throws. Just the outside throws, we weren't even close.

Did a lot of good things this year. We didn't finish the way we wanted, but we'll get back to work in a couple of weeks and attack 2020 with a vengeance. We'll be missing some really great kids.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Coach, obviously not the end result you were looking for. When you think back to this week as a whole, any positives that you take away from this experience?
DAVE CLAWSON: Incredible positives. Everything positive but the end of the game. My thanks to the Pinstripe Bowl, Randy, Mark, Emily, John, the whole crew. What a first class organization. Everything this week was incredibly well-organized. Just really want to thank the whole Yankee organization for giving Wake Forest football such an incredible experience.

Their attention to detail, very grateful for everything that they did. I also want to do this, I really want to thank all the Deacs that made it up to New York. All the students, our fans, our alumni. I mean, it's that type of support that we get at bowl games is amazing. To come up two days after Christmas to New York, we are grateful for our fan base.

Q. Dave, you talked about the depth issues, the way you were attacking it last year. You did the deep dive in the summer on injury prevention. More of a look at that or just a matter of getting more players ready for bigger roles?
DAVE CLAWSON: The injuries this year were different than last year. Last year we had soft tissue injuries, hamstrings, pulls. We didn't have that this year. We had freak things, whether it be a broken collarbone, torn biceps, a couple of ACLs.

We'll certainly do a deep dive on it. But the injuries we saw for this year were much different. They were worse. But we did not have as many guys down this year.

It just seems that we lost a lot of really, really good players. I mean, you certainly would argue that Justin and Nasir are two of our... Luke Masterson. Guys are good football players. Maybe survive losing one of them. It's tough to lose as many as we did.

I think we just got to figure out a way as a program to make a commitment to play more guys early in the year. If you saw today, I mean, we had guys that we had redshirted that hadn't played all year that were getting meaningful snaps. Justin Williams, Isaiah Chaney, Zach Ranson. Those guys weren't even on our two deep six weeks ago. That happens. You got to find a way to survive it and still win. We didn't do that.

You look at why you didn't win games, why we didn't play well at the end of the year, that becomes an issue we have to figure out how to address so it doesn't happen again.

Q. Do you have any kind of update on Jamie? Hurt on the last drive.
DAVE CLAWSON: He took a shot there. Kind of at the end of the game when they're teeing off, I didn't think he could protect himself. I mean, I think if there was another series in the game, we probably would have went in.

At that point it was two minutes, he didn't have mobility, they were teeing off. I didn't think he could protect himself. At that point I thought Sam would give us the best chance to win.

Q. Looked for a minute that it was going to be a storybook ending for your senior class. What has this class meant to the program?
DAVE CLAWSON: Everything is in context. All these guys picked Wake Forest when we were 3-9, 3-9. I think they changed the culture of our program, that we now have a locker room and a team that expects to win football games.

Over the last four years, we've had 30 wins, which I believe is the second best, other than that stretch in '06 and '08. We've been to four consecutive bowl games for the first time in the history of the school. We've had four consecutive seven-or-more-win seasons for the first time since World War II.

I think the telltale sign of our program is we're not happy. We're disappointed we didn't get double-digit wins, that we didn't win our fourth bowl game in a year. I think we're past the point of just being happy to get to a bowl. I think these guys have changed the culture and expectation level of our program.

Q. You have a good football team, playing in the ACC. Michigan State finished eighth in the Big Ten. What would be your assessment of the Big Ten having faced Michigan State now?
DAVE CLAWSON: I mean, Michigan State, they lost to No. 2 Ohio State, No. 8 Wisconsin, No. 8 Penn State, No. 14 Michigan. They're in a really, really tough division.

You watch the football, it's good football. You take those games out of it, which you can't, but they're 6-2, outscored their opponents two-to-one. We knew this was a good football team that didn't play well against some excellent teams.

Q. Dave, you had 250 yards offense in the first half, only 101 in the second. Did they do something differently or change something you didn't pick up on?
DAVE CLAWSON: Not really. I thought we missed some throws. We ran that little speed-out a couple times. Didn't throw that well. We had opportunities to make plays. We'll go back and watch that film. We'll have a hard time sleeping for a couple of days.

There were chances to win that game. I think as we became one-dimensional, we played from behind, they did a pretty good job rushing the passer. Again, credit to Michigan State. They're a good football team.

Sometimes when you don't make plays, the opponent has something to do with it. I certainly want to give them their credit and their due.

Q. Dave, you talked about having chances. Did this kind of seem like the quintessential Wake Forest bowl game, two red zone takeaways, then the missed field goal? Maybe felt like you were meant to win this game?
DAVE CLAWSON: When we had the ball with three minutes left, down six, yeah, I mean, you were hoping it would have some of the endings other bowls have. Again, it wasn't meant to be. Again, it wasn't for a lack of effort, competitiveness, desire, all the intangibles I think our kids showed all year.

Like every game, I thought we fought hard. Just missing a few bullets at the end that would have been nice to have.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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