|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
TOSTITOS FIESTA BOWL: STANFORD v OKLAHOMA STATEDecember 30, 2011David ShawGLENDALE, ARIZONA THE MODERATOR: Good morning. We're going to go right to questions. Q. David, in 1959, Oklahoma State hired Bob Simmons as its head coach. At that time, my research, the two best coaching jobs the black head coach that had ever gotten was Stanford and Oklahoma State. Since then a lot more opportunities: Washington, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Texas A&M, all kind of schools. Have you seen‑‑ have you followed at all the progress that's been made for minority head coaches? Are you pleased with the progress? What are your thoughts about it? COACH SHAW: The question is whether I'm pleased with the progress for minority coaches in college football. And I am. I really am. Of course, it's something I follow with my father being a coach. I credit my father, Tyrone Willingham, Denny Green, a lot of those guys that, gosh, did a good job and showed that they could win games so that opportunities for the rest of us are more prevalent than they were before. I think the athletic directors, there has been, gosh, last seven or eight years, a hard push by athletic directors to make more guys like me available, get to know more guys like me and give them opportunities when they deserve them. Q. Is it satisfying‑‑ I know you played‑‑ a lot of reasons you enjoy being at Stanford. The fact that Stanford was a pioneer in this regard, you mentioned Dennis Green and Tyrone Willingham and yourself, are you proud of that for what Stanford has done? Stanford has sort of been the leader in this, I think. COACH SHAW: No question. I give a lot of credit to Bill Walsh. He has always done a lot for minority coaches. And Stanford likes to be at the forefront of a lot of different things. And it is kind of the way that we do business. I'm very proud of my school. Q. Can you talk about (indiscernible) in your staff and how that impacts what your student‑athletes pick up? COACH SHAW: Absolutely. For me it goes all the way back to Bill Walsh in the '70s and Stanford's desire to always have a balanced offense. Stanford has been good. We run a NFL offense: Bill Walsh in the '70s; Denny Green, early '90s; Tyrone Willingham during his tenure; and then these last four or five years that's been what we have been good it. Honestly, it helps us recruit quarterbacks, to play in a NFL pro‑style offense. Helps us to recruit offensive linemen to play in an NFL pro‑style offense. It is a mental state that we like that makes us a physical team, and it has been working for us. Q. Offense, but now really a big NFL influence on that is defensive side too. A lot of coverages, a lot of fronts, a lot of blitzes, a lot of stuff. COACH SHAW: Yeah, no question. Personally, I love the NFL game. I do. I love the fact that it's hard. It is difficult week in and week out to face those NFL defenses. Coming here to Stanford, we wanted that. We wanted that difficult defense to deal with, a defense that knows how to protect protections, a defense that knows how to stop a run and presents different looks to an offense. That's what we've enjoyed these last few years. Q. When you take a look at OSU's high‑powered offense, Weeden, Blackmon, running game, where do you start when it comes to stopping them? COACH SHAW: You start with Blackmon. He is the best receiver in the nation. He is great after the catch. He is a big, physical kid. He makes tough catches look easy. As soon as his feet hits the ground to jump up to make a catch, he is at full speed. He is a difference maker. He is a game changer. We don't talk about stopping guys like him; we talk about trying to contain them. We talk about trying to limit the yards after catch, trying not to give up the big play. And while you are doing that you got to make sure that you're still‑‑ have your run gaps because they have got a couple good running backs. But at the same time, you have got to stop the big plays, you got to limit the run, and then hopefully use our offense to keep their offense off the field. Q. What about Brandon Weeden? You obviously have your own great quarterback in Luck. When you look at the two, how do they compare and contrast in your mind? COACH SHAW: I don't want to compare them. Weeden is very good. He is accurate and smart. He is not a runner necessarily, but he moves well in the pocket, which is all you need to be able to do as a good quarterback in college football. He knows how to find his weapons. He throws a catchable ball, but he also throws a ball where guys can run after the catch, which is huge for the type of offense that they run. Q. Can you talk about the components of your experience that made you so ready for this season and this opportunity at Stanford? What were the main aspects of your résumé that, hey, made you ready? COACH SHAW: That's a tough question to answer. I will say that I did have a varied experience in the NFL. When I was in Oakland, we had an outstanding quarterback in Rich Gannon, but our first year with Rich Gannon, we led the NFL in rushing, and he was a big part of that as a running quarterback. We had a two running back system with Tyrone Wheatley and Napoleon Kaufman. So we were able to be balanced and be physical. The very next year we were high‑powered passing offense, but extremely efficient in the run. I went to Baltimore and we had to devise a way to move the ball. We were not very good on offense, but we had an outstanding tight end in Todd Heap. I was part of an offense that had to run the ball with Jamal Lewis and find ways to use the tight end, find mismatches. You look at what we have done this year, really we have an outstanding quarterback, a very good running game which the quarterback is a big part of it and also finding ways to use our tight ends to our advantage. Q. If Alabama wins, where does that leave the winner of this game? COACH SHAW: That is a great question that I don't have an answer for. For us, we just concentrate on this game. We don't care where we are ranked after this game. We don't care what happens where anybody else says that we are. It just means that we are Fiesta Bowl champs. That's all we can care about. As far as the championship game, that's great, people will watch that and enjoy that, but we are just concentrating on our game. Q. How much has Chris Lewis meant to Stanford and how much are you going to miss him? COACH SHAW: We have missed Chris all year. Even the games that he has been healthy enough to play, he still was not able to get to that fifth year that we saw in years past. We have missed him all year. We will continue to miss him. Very, very happy with what the‑‑ how the doctors have treated him. And our biggest concern is about Chris' health going forward. He is premed. He is going to be a doctor. He is a phenomenal person. If he plays football again, great. If he never plays football again, great, because our paramount concern is Chris' health in the future. Q. Looking ahead some to next year, with Andrew gone, the next guy coming in is going to have a lot of pressure on his shoulders. Kind of like you, you replaced Harbaugh. What's going to happen to this seniority? COACH SHAW: There is no question, Andrew Luck is going to leave a big hole in our offense. What I love about our team though is we're going to have a really good offensive line coming back next year. We have some outstanding running backs coming back next year and we will have more speed on the outside next year, which we are excited about as well. So for us, we want to take a lot of pressure off the quarterback position. There's not going to be another Andrew Luck in college football for years to come, let alone in our team right now. So we're going to take the pressure off of that and we got a lot of great players coming back on defense as well that we plan on being a very good total team even maybe without a marquis quarterback at least for now. Q. We all see the finished product in Andrew Luck, at least as a college quarterback right now. It seems like this is a kid with some pretty amazing upbringing to be able to handle everything he has handled. Can you deconstruct a little bit what the role of his upbringing and his dad and his mom, those sorts of things, have meant for him? COACH SHAW: That's a great question. My wife asked his mother all the time: How did you do this? How did you make this kid? How did you provide an environment that spawned Andrew Luck? For him, there are a lot of components to it. Number one, he has got an extremely‑‑ just a very loving family, a very close, tight‑knit family, a family that has lived in a bunch of different places. So as young as he is and as young as he was when he came to Stanford, he was worldly and had lived in Europe, had lived in a couple different places, learned German, spoke German, was around soccer, not just football, was around professional athletes and how guys conducted themselves positively and negatively. He was with his father and his father knows a lot of guys. His father has NFL experience. He has been around a lot of high‑profile people, but a lot of good high‑profile people. He grew up with humility and knew that he had a lot of talent but knew that's not what's going to make him be successful. He is a hard worker. He is a tough kid. He is the ultimate competitor. But he is also the ultimate team player. It is kind of a perfect storm of ingredients that produce our No. 12. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|