Wake Forest Athletics
Caldwell Looks Ahead To Matchup With Maryland
10/5/1999 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 5, 1999
On the team's focus
"I think overall, our team's focus has been pretty steady in terms of our
next opponent. We were certainly focused in on Rutgers because we knew
they were a good, solid football team. The same goes for this team as
well. We're moving on in the season. You've got two teams with identical
records - it's a conference game, we're playing at home, television game -
I think all those things add to it. It's an important game for us.
Overall it is important for us to get better. Sometimes if the team starts looking at other things that don't matter that much in terms of looking down the road, where we'll be at the end of the season, they lose focus. We try to keep our focus and look at the team we're playing."
On the running game, offensive line
"We still have the ability to be better than what we are presently. We're
not consistent enough, but it certainly makes a difference for us in terms
of being able to control the clock and begin to establish field position.
That's been of great value to us. George Belu does an excellent job with those guys up front. The guys up front have been a pretty consistent bunch. They're working together and we have some youth along with some experience. We've got (Brian) Wolverton and (Sam) Settar in there.
Michael Collins has played a lot of football for us. Vince Azzolina is maybe a guy people don't talk about often, but he is very good. He does a real good job of sorting things out along the interior. He's like a quarterback on the line of scrimmage. He's a bright guy and has a real mean streak in him as well. All in all, they're playing well together."
On Morgan Kane
"He actually strained a hamstring last Thursday, prior to the game. We're
giving him the ball a little bit more often. I think if you look back over
the years in ball games that we were able to give him the ball 25-30 times,
he'd get you 100+ yards. Obviously I think the overall emphasis of our
offense has certainly enabled him to come forward a little bit. We do a
few more things on the perimeter with him because he is a guy who has speed
to get outside and we're giving him the opportunity to do that a little
more often."
On the kicking game
"Last week we just felt we had to open it up and give some guys the
opportunity. We have a good nucleus of place kickers and we just had to
open it up and see who would kick the best. It so happened that Kevin
Church kicked best throughout the week. It wasn't close, actually. So we
gave him the opportunity. This week we're going to kick it again and see
what happens. Kevin Church is a very good place kicker. We were hoping he
might get an opportunity to kick an extra point before kicking a field
goal, just to get his feet wet a little bit. Unfortunately that didn't
happen. I just felt I had to go back to the guy that had been in there
before in a tight game and let him come through and see what he could do.
Matt (Burdick) certainly did a nice job for us. That field goal kick was a
very important field goal."
On Maryland
"Field position and time of possession will be important. They obviously
have a lot of the same strengths that I think a lot of good teams do.
They run the ball well with a heck of a back. Lamont Jordan is good.
They've got a good, solid kicking game and a good, hard-nosed defense. One of the big things you notice right away about when you watch them on film is that their defense can run. They're fast. They'll give us all kinds of problems and we have to be able to run the ball consistently. We're going to have to throw it with some regularity, too, just to keep them off our back a little bit. A lot of teams are starting to pack a number of people around the football on us to try to keep us from running the ball."
