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DISCOVER ORANGE BOWL: STANFORD v VIRGINIA TECHJanuary 2, 2011Frank BeamerMIAMI GARDENS, FLORIDA JASON ALPERT: Coach, you've now been here multiple times over the past few years. Any preparations different for this year's Discover Orange Bowl as opposed to any previous years? COACH BEAMER: Not really. The last couple years we've approached our Bowl games a little bit differently, and we're following that this year. A few more practices, a little bit tougher practices, curfew, and really these Bowl games -- and the Orange Bowl does such a great job of providing the opportunities to really take the kids and enjoy the week down here in south Florida. Some kids went to a basketball game last night. They do such a great job of that. And you want them to enjoy the experience, but you also -- your main goal here is to get ready to play a football game against a really good Stanford football team in a game that you're going to remember probably forever. You play a lot of football games, and you can't remember what exactly took place, but I think most of us are going to remember what took place against Stanford in the Orange Bowl. You know, that's been our purpose. And I think we've had a good week of practice. I think the attention to detail has been good, and I think our kids understand how important this football game is. Q. How rewarding has the success of your offense been this year, considering that it's something that some of your fans have been down on? You have been winning games recently but some people wondered how good you could be if your offense scored more and put up more points, and I know you would have liked to see it be more productive at times. How rewarding has it been, especially since you were a guy who always stuck with Ryan along the way and to see it kind of pay off? COACH BEAMER: Yeah, I think usually as coaches, you're as good as your players. I think we've had a lot of good defensive players over the years and we've been good on defense. And I think this year we had some really good offensive players, starting with our quarterback, and we were really good on offense. Generally speaking, I know people get tied to a lot of things, but generally speaking it all gets down to your players and how ready they are to perform. Q. Yesterday you said that you feel like this is a very, very important game as far as the history of Virginia Tech football goes. Could you elaborate on why you feel that way? COACH BEAMER: Well, you're playing a top-five football team that deserves to be there. They're the highest ranked won-lost team in the country. You watch that Oregon game, and they're very, very close. Had everything worked out after that, had they beat Oregon, they'd be playing for a National Championship. And then I think our record at Virginia Tech, and not all of them are under me, but we're 1 for 27, and quite a few of them are, when we've played a top-five football team. So I think for us, we've been playing, we've playing for a National Championship, but I think as you go along, to state that you're one of the top programs in the country, you've got to get your share of wins against a top-five team, and this is a real for-real top five team. That's why I think it's very important. Q. With their quarterback getting so much emphasis and a lot of conversation with him, do people lose track of the fact that they're a really tough two-dimensional team and really hard to get them in one dimension like most defenses like to do? COACH BEAMER: Yeah, I think there's a couple points there. He is certainly a quality quarterback that can throw, and the stats show that. But the stats also show that they're a really good running football team, and the stats also show that he's a really good runner when he needs to. And you kind of lose that, and that's why I think they're such a tough team to defend is that they can run the football and they can throw the football. And when you get teams that are very, very good at doing both, those are the hard ones to slow down. Q. You were speaking a minute ago about obviously wanting to make sure the kids enjoy the experience and all those things. Given what the perceptions were about your team six days into the season, have you allowed yourself to enjoy the buildup to this game particularly maybe more than other Bowls in the past? COACH BEAMER: I'm certainly appreciative of where we were and where we've gotten to from where we were. I think everybody feels that. But you learn in this business, there's always that next ballgame, and you'd better go and you'd better get ready. If you lose that last one, then there's people that are not happy. And then you've got to go to all those Hokie Club meetings, and people are not happy. I'm very appreciative, and I really like this football team. I really like the kids on our football team. But I know this: We need to win the next one. Q. Having gone through your own program turnaround in the early '90s and now 18 straight Bowl trips, can you appreciate what Coach Harbaugh has done in just four years at a place like Stanford? COACH BEAMER: I'm going to tell you, it's really amazing. He and his staff deserve a lot of credit. You know, they got the quarterback, and when you've got that guy, you've got a chance, and they had that guy. But they built off of that. And then I think you look at their defense. Their defense, if you know you can score points, it makes your defense better. Hey, let's get three-and-out and get the offense back on the field. You play a little bit harder, play a little bit better. So your quarterback I think makes your whole football team better. Certainly in their case, they brought in people -- you look at their team physically, and they're big. They're big and they're varied. The defensive backs are big, and they're more like an NFL team when you look at them. And so I think they've done a great job of recruiting and recruited the kind of kids that they want. They're tough, they're physical, they play hard-nosed, play very efficient. You know, I really give Jim a lot of credit. I think they've done a great job. Q. You said before practice yesterday you were anxious to see how Ryan Williams did in practice. How did he do, and do you still feel he's a game-time decision? COACH BEAMER: Yeah, he did better. We're going to go back and meet as a staff here in a few minutes and I'll see where Billy and Ryan are right now, Coach Hite and Ryan. But I thought he looked better yesterday than he had as far as just moving around and getting around. Q. In reference to or in answering Paul's question, you talked about the importance of beating a top-five team, but you're not a stranger to playing top fives. You played one in Boise in the season opener, but yet it seems like you've embraced this opportunity a little bit more and maybe even ratcheted up the pressure on your team to win the game a little bit. Is that because you think this team is capable of handling it better than maybe at the season opener, just the stress of the importance of beating a top five? COACH BEAMER: Well, I told our football team, a lot of those -- I know that the top fives that we played and when we played them, a lot of those guys were weren't good enough to beat the team at the time. But I do feel like we're good enough now, and so I think that -- I think it becomes important for a program to get your share of wins. When you go out there and play all week, and I was talking to Mike Finn over there, in our conference you go out there and play and you play in good competition, it's hard to win each and every Saturday, and it's hard to beat a top-five football team. But you've got to get your share of them. So that's where I think we are. Q. One of the interesting things about college football is it's still kind of regional. But is there any difference between West Coast football and East Coast football? You have one player from California on your team. Are California athletes different than East Coast athletes, and do you use the West Coast/East Coast things in terms of motivation for this team? COACH BEAMER: No, no. Particularly when I look at Stanford -- I know how it is. We played California, got it handed to us in a Bowl game a few years back. But when I look at this Stanford team, whether on the West Coast or whether on the East Coast, they're tough, they're efficient, they're hard-nosed. I think they're just good, regardless of what coast they're from. Q. Rock talked the other day about sort of boiling over before practice that Monday after JMU, that he kind of went off on a bunch of the guys, and initially you were maybe worried about how some of the team would react to that, and you kind of told him, you can't talk to everybody like that, maybe call a meeting and clean it up. What was your first reaction when he did that at practice, and then as the results have sort of shown themselves and some of the other guys said it kind of lit a fire, was it, as it turns out, the right thing? COACH BEAMER: Yeah, I think all of our seniors had the same want-to. But I think what you've got to do is be careful how you express that to other people and how other people accept that. But you know, I think it all turned out fine. I think everybody understands Rashad has got a big heart and he cares a lot and he puts a lot into it, and he wanted his football team to be good. I think that's the way it was taken in the end. Q. And then I guess did you ever have a similar moment to that one where somebody, one of the leaders, kind of grabbed everybody by the facemask in that '95 season that kind of helped turn it around? COACH BEAMER: Well, yeah, I know J.C. Price at the time, when we got to the Bowl game, he kind of set the rules. Hey, we're going to be in at this hour and we're going to prepare this way. And Jim Baron I think was right in the middle of that. Yeah, I think with every team, if you've lost your first two ballgames, which we did, and you come back, you've got to go back and look. I mean, there was some good leadership and some guys that really cared that went through your football team. I think probably happened back in '95 with a couple guys there, and I think it happened this year. Q. You've had a remarkable feat of getting to 18 straight Bowl games. When we were talking to Coach Harbaugh earlier he said he would favor a playoff system, and I was wondering how you would feel about that idea. COACH BEAMER: You know, I think what we've got is getting closer to working all the time. A few years back or a couple years back, it was like four teams, two-plus-one deal, play two games and then two winners play, and I thought that was kind of where it was going to go, because I thought there was so much right with that. And the reason I felt that is we played Auburn in the Sugar Bowl in I forget what year it was, but they were undefeated along with two other teams. But when you played them, you realized this team, Auburn, was really good enough that they should have had a chance to win a National Championship. So there was three undefeated teams that year. I think most years you can look at it, and this year maybe it's a little bit different, but most years you can look at it and there's about four teams that's really capable or really should be talked about winning a National Championship. So if you've got those four teams and then the two after that, I think you'd have the perfect formula as far as I'm concerned. The thing that I don't want to see go away are the Bowl games. I just think they're right for college football. I think there's a lot of good to it. The experience we've had down here with the Orange Bowl people and our kids' experience and our fans coming to town three or four days early and enjoying themselves, I don't want to see that go away. When I was in 1-AA football I was in the playoffs, and you know exactly how it goes. You're going to go in on Friday, play on Saturday, you're right back out, and if you win you're getting ready for the next game. It's totally different. And even with the format as it is now, you know, we've got the No. 1 and 2 team this year, and so we're closer. I think whatever can just get it to the four teams -- you can see why there's controversy with the third team, and if there was four teams there would be controversy about the fifth team, but I don't think that fifth team I think in most cases is as much of a conversation as that third team could be for the National Championship. But as far as I'm concerned, I want to keep it the way it is and keep on working with it and keep on getting it better and make sure we keep our Bowls in place. That's the way I see it. Q. This is a little off the Bowl topic, but I know you're good friends with Ralph Friedgen. He went out very well the other day, but I wondered about your thoughts on the whole situation there and where college football is going with something like that happening. COACH BEAMER: You know, we had two coaches fired in the ACC this year, and then up in West Virginia which we're familiar with where you've got winning records, you're going to a Bowl, and still, that's the way it is. Whether it's right or not -- in Ralph's case, what I know is you've got a really good coach that's a really good person that cares about his players, I think certainly does it the right way, does it the right way as far as encouraging academics and that his kids do right, and that wasn't quite good enough. Economics gets into it, I guess, not selling as many tickets as they want, not selling as many suites as they want. But that's part of it. It's a tough profession right now and getting tougher. I think the fact that there's quite a bit of money involved, people want results, they want them now, they want the stadium sold out. And I understand all that. But whether it's right for a guy that -- for Ralph that's done what I thought was a tremendous job at Maryland this year, and kids played hard, and I thought the kids kind of showed what they thought of Ralph how they played in the Bowl game. Whether that's the right way to go is -- that's certainly up for debate. But I know what I know about Ralph and the University of Maryland program, and certainly they felt differently. Q. Considering your close relationship with Ralph and also what you think of him as a coach, would you ever entertain the idea of bringing him onto your staff? COACH BEAMER: Well, yeah, I mean, if the situation was right to do it. I think that's -- any time you're with your staff, it's got to be the right situation at the right time. And my wife keeps talking about my son Shane. But it's got to be at the right situation at the right time. That's the way that should work. But as far as Ralph being a qualified coach and I think a really, really good coach, there's no question. And as far as Shane being a qualified coach and a really, really good coach, I don't think there's any question. Q. I know we're getting off the path of the Orange Bowl a little bit, but since the conversation has turned to this, I have to ask about Randy. Were you surprised when you heard that Miami made the move, as well? I know he thought very highly of you. I'm just curious how well you guys got to know each other over those four years. COACH BEAMER: Yeah, I was surprised. Again, what I knew about Randy -- I don't know all the ins and outs, but what I knew of Randy was that he was doing a good job coaching. I think any time you lose your quarterback, and I don't care what happens -- immediately what happened after that, the next guy threw about three interceptions, then after that it got a little more stable. But I think there's a big change in your program at that point. But what I knew of Randy is that you didn't hear of a lot of problems off the field. Academically they were doing well, and I thought he was recruiting well. But no, that's what I knew. And I liked Randy. I thought he was doing a good job. I've got to say I'm surprised to see all you guys here. I didn't think y'all started working until about 12:00. End of FastScripts |
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