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CHICK-FIL-A BOWL: AUBURN v VIRGINIADecember 29, 2011Bill LazorChase MinnifieldJim ReidMichael RoccoATLANTA, GEORGIA MATT GARVEY: We welcome the Virginia coordinators and players. We'll welcome offensive coordinator coach Bill Lazor, defensive coordinator coach Jim Reid, quarterback Michael Rocco, and cornerback Chase Minnifield. Coach Lazor, if you could make an opening comment, talk about your bowl week experience, how it's been for you so far. COACH BILL LAZOR: Well, we're excited to be here, personally I'm excited to be here for the bowl game. This is the first time I've had a chance to be a part of a bowl experience. I've been in a couple playoff runs when I coached in the NFL. I can tell you it's a lot different. First of all the way we've been treated as a team is great. Chick‑fil‑A has done a great job of taking care of us, making a great experience for the players. I feel proud for the players because they've earned it. I think as a team we've come a long way from when Coach London took over the program. Really seen these guys grow. I'm excited for the players. I think they've earned this with eight wins. When you're in an experience like this, the first thing I've learned is how crazy the week can be. I think we did a great job offensively of preparing the game plan and practicing before we came. Now the challenge for the players and the coaches both really is to stay focused. We've just talked about when it's time to work, let's get to work. In the meetings and practice, we've tried to take a real businesslike approach. I feel great about how we practiced yesterday. I think our players know what to do. I think they're prepared. They're going to play hard, they're going to play fast. MATT GARVEY: Coach Reid, talk about your experience so far. COACH JIM REID: I've been to a couple of these. I can't tell you how well we've been taken care of. It's not just the coaches and our players, they've done a marvelous job in that area, but our families as well. They make you feel right at home. People here, it's like you never met a stranger. Like you met them, known them your whole life. Really outstanding. We're facing an offense here that were the national champions last year. Much is the same. They're so very, very well‑coached. We prepared well when we came down here, and it's a good thing we did. There's not an awful lot of time when you get into bowl week. The people here have given us great meeting rooms. Just been terrific. But the focus, at certain amount of times during the day, it has to be great. Then you have to get into the bowl week because you deserve a little bit of what Atlanta and Chick‑fil‑A are trying to give to you, but then you immediately have to get focused in at practice again and the task at hand. Just have to tell you I'm so extremely proud of Chase Minnifield and Mike Rocco. Chase is somebody I've coached. We're playing with very much the same players we did last year. The improvement they've made, the focus they've given us throughout the year has been just as great of an experience as I've had in my entire life, to be quite honest. It's not just because it's the last experience. What we went through last year, what these young men have been able to do this year to get us to this bowl game, it's just been outstanding. Great, great young men. Coach London is an outstanding, outstanding leader and man as well as a football coach. Just very proud to be able to be associated with this program right now. MATT GARVEY: Michael, when you guys arrived here we told you about our live, laugh and learn mentality through bowl week. Talk a little bit about that and how you've experienced that, maybe your favorite bowl week event. MICHAEL ROCCO: It's been a great experience being here. My first bowl game as well as a bunch of our other players, first bowl game experience. It's just been a great opportunity to kind of enjoy the week but also a time to focus on what we have in store for us on Saturday in a great opponent like Auburn. I'm really thankful for all that Chick‑fil‑A has provided us, the opportunities that we've had throughout the week. My personal favorite thing that we got to do is probably just watch the linemen compete in the milkshake competition last night. It was fun to see them kind of enjoy that. Just been a great week to enjoy with your teammates. Kind of a celebration of what we've accomplished this season. Really focusing in on what we have in store on Saturday. We've been treated first class. It's been a great experience for me. MATT GARVEY: Chase, what about you? CHASE MINNIFIELD: Like Rocco said, plenty of fun. We've been able to live, see the city, been able to laugh, plenty of laughing amongst the teammates, and we've been able to learn. My personal favorite was the MLK visit. Mostly everything that was done so far has been a experience you can learn from in general. The MLK thing was something that not everybody in this world gets to experience. For us to be able to experience that is a once‑in‑a‑lifetime type of thing. MATT GARVEY: We'll go ahead and open it up to questions. Q. Bill, when you guys got here, Perry Jones was at the end of his freshman year. Shaky academic standing to team captain. Talk about that transformation he made. COACH BILL LAZOR: It's hard for me to speak of what Perry was before I got here, so I can't speak to that. It's hard for me to imagine him being anything than what he is today. You'd have to ask somebody else that question. I can tell you what Perry is. When we won the Indiana game, it was our second game of the year. People throughout the year had talked about what Virginia had not done for a long time, having a hard time winning games on the road. We went to Indiana. Michael remembers well the great play call, the first play of the game, where he threw an interception. We haven't called that play to start the game again since. But really the situation was we had the lead in the game, we fell behind, made some errors, had a hard time moving the ball. In two ways I thought it was a monumental game for us on offense because I thought to be down in the fourth quarter, have a guy in Michael, in his second start as a college football player at quarterback, to have to bring us back, complete some passes, a long drive in the fourth quarter, have to throw the two‑point conversion to tie the game. We got the ball back quickly when the defense had a sack fumble, kicked the field goal, won the game. At the beginning of the second half, I felt we were going to blow them out. It just totally turned on us. We came back and won. After the game I thought it was better that it went that way, not for our hearts and our nerves, but for our team. I think for Mike Rocco it was better because now he knew and the players around him knew what he could do, that he has poise, he would be tough at the end of the game, could make plays at the end of the line. The other thing I thought was monumental, and they played a lot of man coverage that day, to me the mismatch in the game, where we won the game offensively for what we were able to do was Perry Jones. Perry against their linebackers, short‑yardage play, flipped the ball out to Perry, made a miss, went for a long run. They had ends and linebackers trying to cover him and they couldn't. To me that day I thought, This is someone special we have here, not just running the football, but catching the ball out of the backfield. He's been the guy to come up and make those plays for us. I'm a little bit old‑fashioned, but to me Perry Jones, the reason why it's happens is not a surprise, not a surprise to anyone in our program, because he does it every single day. A real wise, very successful coach taught me one time you have a chance to be special as a team when your best players are your hardest workers and that's what Perry Jones is. Q. When you came in here as a coaching staff, Coach London was adamant that it was going to be a process to turn things around. You always believe in yourself. Is there a surprise that you were able to go 8‑4 from 4‑8 and here you are sitting at a high‑profile bowl game? COACH BILL LAZOR: Usually on Mondays I'm surprised if we're going to score any points and by Friday I feel okay. It's a process. I think every time we've gone through this it's been different. I've had a chance to learn from some really good coaches and really good men on different ways to take a program and turn it into what their vision of it was. The number one thing to me is we're fortunate in the person who's driving this thing in Coach London, the vision that he set. I think to me what's been special to watch is for our players, last year when we had the record we had, coach spent time, as all of you who have been around the program know, we're going to go to class, this is what your GPA is going to be, this is what we're going to do in the community, how we're going to conduct ourselves. It's easy in human nature to get a negative attitude when you're losing. When the focuses continue to be on building the program the correct way, I think it's been really special for me to watch that the players continue to believe. They believed in Coach London. If they continued with the process, doing all the things he asks them to do, because he knows it's right for them to do, believe it will come on the field also. As it started to happen, I mentioned the Indiana game as kind of the landmark win, may not have been national news, but for us as a program some of those wins took us to another step and took us forward. I think confidence is something that's hard to fake. You really have to earn it, I believe. Over time they have. The number one factor in my mind is they believed in Coach London. COACH JIM REID: When we all got together, Coach London and I had known each other for quite a while, the three words he used is to build the program is 'faith, family and football.' Everybody has a theme and a phrase and a belief. But more often than not, when tested, it doesn't stand the test of time or circumstance. In this instance, every test has been faith, family and football. I think when you're articulate, you stay focused on a theme, then you live the theme every day, there are no exceptions, there's tough decisions, everybody then believes. I think that's what happened. On defense we had a learning curve that we had to handle. There were some times of great frustration. Everybody handled it with faith, family and football. I think when you can handle certain circumstances and situations like that, now all of a sudden you take Chase Minnifield, who becomes a great player from a very good player, Steve Greer who becomes a great linebacker from a really good linebacker, all these people that you never have heard of before, maybe aren't even names that anyone knows in this press conference right now, contribute to a great effort because they believe in the theme and the program. It's been tested by not only time but also by circumstance. It's been great to watch. This guy right here, we've matched him up with some of the greatest players in the ACC. We're here today from a defensive standpoint because of Chase Minnifield's not just great work ethic that all of our players have, but his knowledge, understanding and study of the game. That's how I feel that we got here. Q. Coach Reid, I've been talking to some of your players. You created a metaphor, special unit forces, with your defense going in especially for road games, get in, get out, get a win. You coached at VMI, I don't know if there's a military influence there. COACH JIM REID: I think you always have to have a certain mindset, especially on defense because as Coach Lazor said on Monday they don't feel like they can score a point and on Friday they feel real good. Monday we feel we can get everything done. You watch what the offense is doing on Saturday, you wish you had another week to prepare. There's a mindset you have to have, and that is that you have to watch that football, and when that football moves, you have your reads, now you have to play hard and fast and furious. We talk about a lot of things like that. The other big part of this phrase is that you just can't be afraid ever to make a mistake. When you make a mistake, you learn from it. I think Chase will tell you that the hollering, the yelling, the corrections, the loud corrections are made when there's hesitation. When there's a mistake made going full speed ahead, you coach it better. I think last year we had a lot of mistakes, but we had a lot of mistakes going full speed ahead by inexperienced players. Because of their great study, their great focus, their great toughness, I honestly believe now at least we get them started in the right direction. Special forces units, everybody here I'm sure holds our military in the greatest of honor and integrity for everything that they do. When you can use a military term in your program, then you're really giving great glory to those people. That's how I feel about it. When we do that, that's why we do it. Q. Coach Lazor, how much do you remember about your time in Atlanta? How much did your time in the NFL shape you? Michael, what has he meant for your development as a first‑year starter? COACH BILL LAZOR: This is the second time back. We played Georgia Tech last year. This is the second time back in this area. The number one thing I remember from the time here was the people, most notably Dan Reeves, great coach I had the honor to coach for. Unfortunately wasn't able to see Coach Reeves while I was here today, but stayed in touch with him, learned a lot from him. It was a great experience as my first NFL experience at the time. I had been a college coach for nine years, obviously a long‑time football fan. It was just quite an honor.  A little amazing to have a chance to work for someone like Coach Reeves and to be in this atmosphere. I think that being here, haven't been in the same locker room yet, so some of those things will bring back more specific memories. But the number one thing that comes to us, we've told our players when we first started here offensively, the video that they watch to learn how to run this offense was all NFL video. There's very little that we do here today that we didn't do to some degree either in Seattle or in Washington or in Atlanta. Those videos, Mike could tell you the playbooks and videos are all sitting there in my office. That's what we use as reference material. I remember when I worked for Coach Holmgren, we were discussing a play that had fallen off in recent years, this was my first year with him. We were talking about the check for the back to run on a certain pass play that used to be a great bread and butter play. After some time with discussion, he stopped, went to is office, got his SanFrancisco 49ers book when he coached for Bill Walsh, said, Look, that's what it's supposed to be. We changed it back and it worked. When you have experiences that are great experiences, we have a chance to learn from people who really know football, do things the right way, you have to make sure you take things with you. We tried to do that here at Virginia. Tell people all the time, when you go out on the practice field, coaching this particular play, it's no different than coaching at any level to any people, as long as they're eager, willing, want to be great. I've been fortunate that the players I coached, including here in Atlanta when I was with the Falcons, are guys that wanted to be great. If they thought you could help make them better, they were ready to work with you. I think as a coach, that's what you really enjoy. I had a great experience. It was a short time I lived here in Atlanta. But Nicole and I have fond memories of it. Hopefully it's helped build for the positive on the kind of coach I can be today. MICHAEL ROCCO: I know just back to the very beginning when I first came to UVA, I was in a questioning period where I didn't quite know where I was going to go to school. I met Coach Lazor on my official visit at UVA. I knew it was the right place for me. He instilled this confidence about him where he believed in the stuff that he did in the NFL, a pro‑style offense, knew it was going to work here. I kind of latched onto that confidence and I really wanted to come here a very big reason because of Coach Lazor. Our relationship has grown tremendously through the two years that we've been here and the two seasons that we've had together. Last year I wasn't redshirted, but I didn't play very much. I was just learning the offense. I got in six games, just kind of mop‑up duty. But I learned a lot. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. Coach Lazor is a coach that instills the fundamentals, getting in a groove kind of in the fundamentals. So we practice it every day. Sometimes it's kind of tiring because you know you've done it a hundred times, but he says do it a thousand times, you'll get in the right groove that you wouldn't if you didn't do it that many times. It's the way you want to be coached if you want to play at the highest definitely. He's coached Matt Hasselbeck, Jason Campbell, some of the greatest quarterbacks in the NFL. If you want to be a great player, Coach Lazor is the coach you want to have. We've grown a lot this year. My confidence in the offense has grown. A lot it's in part because of Coach Lazor. Our relationship is good. I owe a lot to Coach Lazor. Q. Michael and Chase, we were talking to Matt Snyder earlier today. He said he plans to play on Saturday. From both your perspectives, where is he at now? MICHAEL ROCCO: Matt is one of the hardest workers on the team if not the hardest. I knew right when he went down with that injury that there was a chance he was going to be back. I didn't know how long it was going to be, how long the injury was going to take to heal. But I knew Matt Snyder was going to work his tail off to be back to play with us because that's just the guy he is. When we see him out on the field these days, it's just awesome to know kind of the struggles that he went through with this injury, everything that he went through as a senior, the last year of this program, how much it means to him. Then to see him back out there playing with us, just having a great time, enjoying his last kind of game preparation with his teammates is an awesome experience. He's a special leader on this team. I'm just really happy for him to be able to get to play in this last game. As for how he's doing, it's like he hasn't skipped a beat. He's out there running routes. His knowledge of the offense is just as good as a quarterback, I'd say. He does everything the right way. He really hasn't skipped a beat. CHASE MINNIFIELD: I remember when Matt got hurt, his locker is right next to mine, 13 and 14. I said, You already? He said, I'm hurt, just go out there, give me another game, I'll be back. I'm sure he's going to be fine when he gets out there. Q. Jim, at cornerback you have an odd mix. For the young players, what has this month meant, the extra practice? COACH JIM REID: I'd like to go back a little bit better further than that. Tre Nicholson came to school in the summer, as every freshman does, and immediately latched onto Chase, or maybe vice versa. He has picked up every positive trait that Chase gives us. Great work ethic. Nobody, nobody works any harder than Chase Minnifield. Come in Saturday mornings during the summer when they have a day off, I see Chase's car parked out there. In the summer he had Tre with him. It was really great to watch. Preparation. When you talk about Chase Minnifield, he brings his scout report book with him and he brings a notebook with him. That's exactly the way the pros do it, the pros that want to be great. So what I'm just trying to say to you is that we've had Chase at cornerback and Dom. We have Tre and we have Hoskey and Brandon Phelps. All of them have had the greatest experience not just the last three weeks, which has helped us, but all year following a couple of great, great leaders. You know, I love all my players, every single one of them. For what they've been through, for what we've asked them to do, there's never been any hesitation by any of them. I love all of them. But you're never going to find a greater player that will prepare himself for an individual battle in a game than the guy that's sitting in front of you right now. I say that in all sincerity. We have another one, too. We have Rod McLeod and we have Steve Greer and Cam Johnson and Matt Conrath, Nick Jenkins, Will Hill. Billy Schautz has improved as much as anyone. Talk about Jake Snyder, the improvement he's made at defensive end. Aaron Taliaferro. Don't forget about this guy now. We call him Lazareth because he was left for dead before Coach London got here and Coach London raised him from the dead. We'll go through every one of them. Corey Mosley. I went to Corey Mosley's major exam of which he had to give a presentation and run a class. I went there on a Wednesday morning before we left for Thursday to play Miami. I'm telling you, the focus and the articulation of the point that he was trying to get to with the class almost made me cry. Even when I think about it right now. That's why he plays great on the field because he's developed all these great qualities of preparation and understanding of people, being able to get a point across. That's why we've been able to improve, because of guys like this and guys that I've mentioned before. Q. Coach Reid, I know there have been a lot of great plays defensively this year. Can you talk about the Florida State play. COACH JIM REID: That's what I was going to say. I'm going to say one thing. I'm just going to tell you this. This is the absolute truth. Watching the play, doggone it, touchdown. Then, what, are they going for two? It wasn't a touchdown. We ran everybody back on the field and we came up with a goal‑line stand. I mean, it was just amazing. But the goal‑line stand never would have happened. When you saw that Florida State receiver out in the open, there was no chance that anyone was going to catch him. Some way, somehow, Chase Minnifield hit him in the ankle and got him down on the half yard line going in. You can ask Chase, we tell them, make them keep snapping the ball because you never know what's going to happen. That was an unbelievable example of what I just talked about: preparation, hustle, determination, great coverage, unbelievable effort by our players. That could have been the greatest one, at least seen nationally, because of what it did for us in a big audience. Q. Was that the defining moment defensively for your team this year, the play you made at Florida State? COACH JIM REID: I guess so. Plus a couple plays we made against Georgia Tech on a wonderfully talented great receiver they have. Also on the Duke game when he picked a ball off and gave a look of one coverage, but then sloughed off, gave another one, threw the ball, ran it in for a touchdown. I want him to speak because if I went through all the great games he did, we'd be here past 2:30 and miss practice. CHASE MINNIFIELD: I think we got the will and determination to win no matter if it's on the half yard line, the one yard line, the inch line, I think we have a chance to stop them. If I'm quitting on the play, I'm quitting on my team. That's one thing I don't do is quit on my team. Q. Chase, we talked in July about your decision to come back for your final year. Obviously you had no promises. Kind of a leap of faith. Talk about what you think you've gotten out of this year individually and as a team. CHASE MINNIFIELD: I got a lifetime of memories. You can't trade that for nothing in the world. Lifetime of memories of winning in Indiana, after the game, the locker room celebrations, Florida State, Miami. You can't trade those for nothing in the world. I think my decision was the right decision. I had a great time this year. Q. What kind of year did you feel you had individually? CHASE MINNIFIELD: I think I played better than I did last year, honestly. I had more tackles, more tackles for loss, I had more sacks, more passes defended. I just didn't have as many interceptions. I expected that coming back to this season. Coach Reid gave me a bigger role this year. I got to go to different sides of the field, cover some of the best receivers in the ACC. I think I gave our team a chance to win because I think offensive coordinators had to prepare for where I was going to be. Q. Coach Lazor, coming back here to the dome where the Falcons will have a game less than 24 hours after your game, talk about preparing your guys to play in a facility like this, the NFL environment you have being here at the dome. COACH BILL LAZOR: I'll be interested to see the environment tomorrow because I've heard so many things about the Chick‑fil‑A Bowl. I can't remember them off the top of my head, but the statistics as far as the size of the crowds that the Chick‑fil‑A Bowl has consistently gotten, I'm really excited. When I first came to Atlanta, to the Falcons, one of the things that struck me, I felt like this really is college football country. Maybe that has something to do with why the bowl game has done so well with the amount of fans and support. I'm excited to see all the Virginia fans who are going to join us here tomorrow. I believe we've done an excellent job at some very loud away stadiums, probably the most memorable one recently would be Florida State. They had a heck of a crowd, tried to get into it. Whether it's the silent count, the loud voice of the quarterback, the concentration, determination of all the offensive players, I think our guys have really done a great job handling it. I have no worries about handling the noise. I think our guys have done well on the road. If there are more fans for the other team, we'll just try to silence them. Q. Michael, you lost to your in‑state rival. How excited are you to get back on the field and end with a victory? MICHAEL ROCCO: It was a tough loss to Virginia Tech. It was a complete surprise to a lot of us how the game ended, how we played during the game. I know right after the game a bunch of the guys were saying, I wish we could get out there and do it again, it would be a completely different outcome. You can't do that. We moved on. We watched the film, learned from our mistakes, moved on. I know a bunch of the guys wish the game was the week after, but it wasn't. It's four weeks after. So we just have to prepare. We've done a great job of doing that, I believe. I know our guys are ready to play. These last couple of days of practice we're just going to fine tune things. I know our offense especially wants to get out there and compete again because we had an off day that day. Q. Chase, can you talk about Auburn, what you've seen from them. CHASE MINNIFIELD: Auburn is a great team, SEC team. It's going to be a physical game. But I think we're going to play physical also. I think it's going to be a great game against two competitive teams, two competitive coaches, a game that's going to go down to the wire. They talk about the SEC as a mighty powerful conference, but I think we're up for the challenge. Q. Playing as the underdog, you have relished that role all season long. Talk about that and why that has been the case this season. COACH BILL LAZOR: To be honest, I don't think it affects me personally. I may not be the best to answer it because I have great confidence in how we practice every day. I think when I joined Coach London here at Virginia, I look back at that time and I see where we are today, I think our players have come a long way as far as their self‑confidence, believing, believing in themselves. People on the outside may see us, as you said, an underdog. I couldn't tell you because I don't really pay attention. When we sit in our room and we talk about what we're going to go out and do on the practice field that day, I look out at the group of young men, they look at me that they believe, they're with me, we go out and do it. That's what we're going to try to do Saturday night. I really only worry about ourselves. MICHAEL ROCCO: Mimicking what Coach Lazor said, I've been taught from growing up that you don't want to worry about anything that happens in the media because things might be said bad about you, things might be said good about you. You should never let them get you too high or too low. Really as a team, try to stay out of those types of things from the media. As a team, we believe. We've gained confidence, like Coach Lazor said, throughout the whole season. Winning brings confidence, I believe. One win led to another, led to another. We really believe every game we've got a chance to win. We believe in the game plan, both defensively and offensively. We believe in our coaching staff, that they're going to make the right calls. It's our job to go out there and do it. You don't really see the difference in play‑makers throughout the teams because I believe we have the best players in our country on the team. I'm proud to say that. I believe we're not an underdog, but we have a chance to win every game. CHASE MINNIFIELD: I think we all have good self‑confidence and we believe in everybody else. The underdog role I think is something that the defense has relished just amongst the players because we've had a high reputation of playing good defense around here. Last year wasn't what we supposed to do. The performance last year wasn't a good performance. We relish bringing the defense back. As far as the underdog thing that has been said throughout the season, we're just trying to prove people wrong. COACH JIM REID: I have a great belief, honestly, in Coach London. I have great, great belief in Bill Lazor, our entire offensive staff. I have great belief in all of our coaches on defense. I think our offensive personnel, we face them every day. They're a tough, hard‑nosed group. I like to think that we are, as well, on defense. Honestly, I didn't know we were underdogs against Florida State until after the game. I didn't know we were underdogs against Duke until after the game. I never even focused on knowing that going into this game. I really believe in this program, the values of it, the people that make it up. Every day I'm fired up to get in and try to do as good a job as I can to help us get where we want to be, and that's to be an ACC championship team, a national championship team, and the winner of every game that we play. MATT GARVEY: Gentlemen, thanks very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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