BAD BOY MOWERS PINSTRIPE BOWL: MINNESOTA VS. SYRACUSE

December 22, 2022

Garrett Shrader

Yankee Stadium

Syracuse Orange

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Garrett Shrader and will start with questions.

Q. Jason Beck now the new OC. What did he do with you this year to show why he should be an offensive coordinator, some of the things he did to help you?

GARRETT SHRADER: Yeah, I mean, first of all, I'll say we're really excited about having him as O., him being named just because of the relationship for me personally that I have with him, being in the room with him every day. That ability to be with a coordinator, really allows me to be an extension on the field because we're seeing eye-to-eye, talking about these things we're seeing every single day. Making sure we're on the same page. For the most part we've been doing a pretty good job of that, continue to get better.

I mean, we're excited. Offense, we haven't skipped a beat. We're creative and definitely excited to play. It's been really fun past couple weeks practicing, getting ready for this bowl game. I'm ready to get out on the field.

Q. How important do you think it is to keep the consistency of the same kind of offensive scheme?

GARRETT SHRADER: Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing is the terminology. Like, that was my third offense in three years or my fourth offense in four years this past year that we're still in. Having a new coordinator, the offense will pretty much be the same in terms of terminology, mindset and philosophy because he does come from that same tree, has been working with Coach Anae for the past 10 years or so.

That's a big part of it. We're excited for the new challenge. I know he is, too. But it will be fun going to the bowl game. A lot of new faces going to be showing up. A couple guys leaving. But there's definitely a lot of buy-in. We are excited to go out there and play next week.

Q. With knowing that Jason Beck will remain the quarterback coach, what does that do for you to keep that leadership?

GARRETT SHRADER: I mean, he addressed that as soon as he was named. Ultimately it's best. He didn't just want to be a coordinator and go out and tell everybody what to do. He definitely loves coaching, you can see that every single day. I think it was important for him to still teach the position, be in that room every day.

That's exciting. He's my favorite coordinator, favorite quarterback coach I think I've had so far. Just being able to continue to build that relationship, just how much I've developed personally, this offense from last year. It's exciting to see because we're only going to get that much better going into this year.

I'm definitely looking forward to it.

Q. With players choosing to not play, what are your expectations for the guys we'll be seeing in their places?

GARRETT SHRADER: I think obviously there's pros and cons losing our best players on offense, if not our two best interiorly. On the reverse side of that, that means the ball gets distributed to a lot more people. We'll have a lot of weapons.

Kind of decentralizing and flattening that structure, which is exciting. It's fun to see everybody get a lot more touches, too.

There's really not that much of an emphasis on who gets the ball. Obviously you have Orande. But besides him, there's been a lot more guys instead of Sean touching the ball. LeQuint has come along, Dan Villari, are kind of the biggest two that are starting to jump out. There's a bunch of other guys catching those balls, too, so...

Q. What was that moment like when you heard Coach Anae was leaving and Coach Beck was getting promoted?

GARRETT SHRADER: It's actually a funny story because we were all hanging out over at our place. David, one of our student interns, he came and told us. We're like we didn't believe it, thought it was just a rumor or whatever. Turned out 25 minutes later all articles started coming out.

It was overwhelming at first. We lost Coach White earlier that day. I mean, as soon as we found out Coach Beck was going to be the OC, that was kind of put to rest. We were ready to get back to work because we knew who we were working with. Coach Beck had a lot to do with the offense this last year, throughout the whole course of the season.

Just knowing that and then all the other guys, coaches, we got a phenomenal offensive coaching staff, so... We're not really going to miss a beat. Everything has been pretty much the same. Probably just as fluent if not better just because of the extended time, not having to go to class, all that stuff.

It's been good. We're excited.

Q. It's only your second year, a bit of time since Syracuse has been to a bowl. What is it going to be like to lead Syracuse into Yankee Stadium?

GARRETT SHRADER: We're all excited. Started from the beginning, just that's all we ever talked about, get back to a bowl game, get back to a bowl game. For this team this year, we felt like we were talented enough to take things further than that. We definitely feel like we have underachieved in terms of what we were capable of. Due to the circumstances, guys getting hurt, tough schematically to go out there and win football games for a little bit.

We bent, but we didn't break. It's exciting. We knew we made it to a game, but we just weren't happy with that. Part of us wished we would go somewhere a little bit warmer. But we are used to the cold weather anyway.

The biggest thing is we have a couple days off here making sure, when we get there to the bowl site, we're ready to play, make sure we're in the mindset to go out and win a football game.

Q. It's only been a short period of time that Coach Beck started calling the plays. Have you noticed any intricate changes in the play calling?

GARRETT SHRADER: It's been the same offense, but the calling style has definitely been a little bit different. I'm not going to dive into that. Stay tuned on, what is it, the 29th? You'll be able to see.

It's exciting. Really this is the most fun I think I've had in a long time playing football, these past couple weeks. It's exciting to go out there every single day and be able to go play, especially with the way we're doing things now.

Loved Coach Anae, but Coach Beck has been an extension in building off of what he left here.

Q. For the Minnesota defensive coordinator, he compared you to Ben Roethlisberger. Have you ever seen that comparison?

GARRETT SHRADER: There's actually a running joke, maybe when I was hurt, banged up, there was a running joke. Normally you go watch guys you like to play. I watched Brett Favre, Mahomes, guys like that. When my foot got all banged up, there was a running joke that I need to go watch Ben Roethlisberger highlights towards the back half of his career, work on the punt fakes.

I'm better now, so... I've never heard that before. Depends on what games you watch.