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CAPITAL ONE ORANGE BOWL: FLORIDA VS VIRGINIA

December 28, 2019

Jonathan Greenard

Miami Gardens, Florida

Next batch: Jonathan greenard, mark owe Wilson, Kyree Campbell.

Q. What kind of challenge is their quarterback?
JONATHAN GREENARD: I mean, he's a dynamic athlete, and I've watched a good amount of film on him. He's really fast, makes some good decisions and knows when to tuck and run with it. He's their guy, so he's going to make plays when he needs to, even times when it might not be called for, he's going to make something happen. Just got to execute on the pass rush and try to contain him. That's a goal and the game plan, we just look forward to executing it.

Q. Anyone else stand out on their offense?
JONATHAN GREENARD: No. 8, No. 2, they are big, physical receivers, pretty good guys, 21 runs pretty hard, the running back. They got some players, so we can't take them lightly at all. They're here for a reason just like we are. Just going into the game, not taking them lightly, going to try to impose our will on them.

Q. Have you played against anyone like them?
JONATHAN GREENARD: I've played against top quarterbacks like him. Of course Lamar at Louisville, and when we played Houston a couple years ago, Greg Ward was a guy that could run, a ton of guys. Pretty much the quarterbacks, they run for their life most times in the pocket. All of them seem pretty fast when you're chasing them, but he's pretty special in his aspect, what he does, so we're just going to do our best to contain him.

Q. About Lamar, do you still talk to him?
JONATHAN GREENARD: Yeah, I still do. We're still cool, real cool.

Q. Pretty awesome stuff.
JONATHAN GREENARD: Man, it's crazy. Like I said, we came up in the same class together. We're always going to have that bond together. He's doing his thing right now, hopefully I get to where he is eventually, but I'm excited for him, proud of him, happy for him. It's good to see him do his thing like me.

Q. Do you feel like you've accomplished everything you wanted to, as a player, as a person?
JONATHAN GREENARD: I still want to get double-digit sacks. Hopefully I can get that this game. I thought I hit it last game, but no, I didn't. That part as far as on the field. Academic wise still want to get my masters. I'm still working on my MBA. Once I can get that, then I'll have achieved everything I wanted coming down here.

Q. Donovan, how big of a game is this for him and his draft stock?
JONATHAN GREENARD: It's huge. Any time you can get a chance to make some plays in a big bowl game like this or anything like this at the highest level, it always helps. But they know he's been hurt, so it hurt him, but it didn't hurt him at the same time. But it would be good for his mental, just overall for him to understand he's still got it, just getting back out there with the boys again, he'll feel good to be out there with his brothers. It'll be huge. I know he's been working really hard in practice, so I'll be excited to see what he does in the game.

Q. Finally getting to see you guys as a tandem --
JONATHAN GREENARD: Yeah, I miss him out there. He misses being out there, so hopefully we can get out there and get back to doing our thing, so I'm excited.

Q. Perkins is a guy who didn't get sacked a lot this year. How important is it to --
JONATHAN GREENARD: Yeah, we're definitely going to try to do the same thing. Any time you've got a running quarterback, if you hit him a couple times, it's definitely going to change him. They understand that he's going to feel our presence a lot more. However we definitely just have to make sure that we still contain him at the end of the day. Even if we get one sack on him, we've still got to stay the same and be persistent on our pass rush. Overall it's going to be a tough challenge and we've got our work cut out for us, but overall we still know what we've got to do.

Q. (Indiscernible) he touches the ball every play.
JONATHAN GREENARD: Right, I mean, he has -- I think he has 100 more touches than anybody on the offense. He has 100 more carries than any running back on the team. That just tells you all it is right threw. He's going to call his number. He's their guy. He's a dynamic athlete who works. He's been pretty successful all year.

Q. (Indiscernible).
JONATHAN GREENARD: I played some guys, of course like I said going back to Lamar, Houston guy, Greg Ward back a couple years ago, Kelly Bryant, as well, back at Clemson and even at Missouri. Any time you've got a running quarterback, a dynamic athlete like that, you have to just make sure that you stay in your pass-rush lanes, make sure everybody on the D-line is on one accord as far as how we want to rush, don't want to get out of lanes because as soon as he sees an opening he's going to take it. Basically just being disciplined, and if we execute that at the highest level we'll be fine.

Q. (Indiscernible).
JONATHAN GREENARD: It's like any defense, we have our growing pains at times, but once we're all one accord and understand what we're trying to do on every play and understand our opponent and attacking their scheme, it shows what we can do at the highest level. In times that we're not like that, we kind of get off our game a little bit. If you know your game, stuff like that happens to you.

Q. (Indiscernible).
JONATHAN GREENARD: Like I said, it never gets easy, but especially this game. We'll be the only game on at that time. It doesn't make it any easier. We still have that talk in our head. I've been in the ACC and when we're playing SEC teams we're trying to knock them off because they're the best conference in the game. Any time you have that talk in your head they're going to send it at you. They're going to give it their all. Obviously they're here, they're pumped up, they're excited to be here, and they feel like they have a chip on their shoulder coming into this game, which they should. We're going to take this chip on our shoulder, too, in order to have that same mentality.

Q. (Indiscernible).
JONATHAN GREENARD: Yeah, definitely. We definitely came into the mindset this year as far as trying to get a National Championship, of course. That's any team. However, like I said, the injury bug just caught us at the wrong time. Football is football, life is life, so we just played the cards we were dealt. We understand that we can't change the past. Even when we took our first loss, despite a couple injuries that's no excuse. We've still got guys that should be able to step up and make plays. Overall it wasn't the result that we wanted but we're still thankful for the position that we're in despite all the things that we've overcome.

So we're glad to be here. The guys are still excited to be down here. Some of these guys are from here, so they can still see their family, even on Christmas at that time. Coach gave us a break. Overall we had to just accept the good things and look at the bright side and take the positive out of everything. Even though this is a huge bowl game we didn't get the result we wanted by being in the playoffs. However, this is the highest game possible, so if we get a W, hopefully we can do that, and we still go in with the mindset of giving it our all.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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