Wake Forest Athletics
Head Coach Jim Grobe's Weekly Press Conference Quotes
10/2/2001 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 2, 2001
Head coach Jim Grobe
"You learn a lot about yourself when you play great football teams. Of course the past two games we have played top 25 teams. I think we are starting to figure out where are strengths and weaknesses are and who we can count on."
On Win In the Conference
"It's no question that we would like to win a conference game, I think it is important to our players, but I don't see any easy teams in our conference. Everybody is playing pretty good football. To the best of my knowledge we are going to play a good team every week from here on out."
On NC State's Defense
"We don't see any place that you can attack them. They have a good solid front and they play sound coverage in the secondary. We are going to have to balance it up a bit. We are going to have to run and throw the football at them."
On NC State Being Dangerous After a Loss
"I think everybody is more dangerous coming off a loss. I think when you lose you are more motivated to win, you are more motivated to correct mistakes and coaches see more mistakes."
On Player's Leadership
"Certainly our seniors are motivated right now, this is their last shot. You always get in the situation where sometimes young guys are happier just to be playing rather than taking the game seriously as you like for them to. I am challenging our young players to step up and take more responsibility."
On Quarterbacks
"What's happened now is we are really going with the healthy guy. We have had a problem with Anthony's foot. He didn't look to bad in his first run at Florida State. James has a sprained ankle but we feel he will be fine by Saturday. Whoever is the most healthiest."
On Special Teams
"We work on special teams like it is the most important thing every week. We know that NC State has a track record for blocking kicks. You don't find many good teams that aren't good at special teams so we take it very seriously."
On Amato's Team
"Their defenses are similar to the defense at Florida State. They are very aggressive. They move around a lot and like to blitz and bring pressure and keep the offenses off balance. Offensively, they are very similar to the attack we saw from Florida State. They are very wide open on offensive.
John StoneSenior, Wide Receiver
On playing NC State
"Every ACC team is good this year and beatable. Every ACC game is important and we're going to go out there and do what we can."
"Basically we're just going to do what we have been doing. We'll try to establish the running game like always. We're going to go out there and play Wake Forest football by playing an up tempo game and trying to get something going early. [In the first two wins] things really didn't get going for us in the first half and in the second half we were able to play a lot better."
On Quarterback Situation
"Both James [MacPherson] and Anthony [Young] have different strengths and weaknesses. I think they're going to help the team in their own way. I'm really excited about the combination that those two are able to give us.
"I think James throws a little tighter spiral than Anthony, but I mean in terms of us [wide receivers] running our routes, they've got really good timing with the wide receivers and its just us going out there and catching the ball."
Tarence WilliamsJunior, Running Back
On Recovering After The Loss at Florida State
"Mentally we're okay. We lost and we have to learn from it. Hopefully we won't lose again this year. We just need to work harder in practice.
"We're very confident. We lost two big games in the ACC to Maryland and Florida State, but its over now. I don't like to dwell on the past.
"We have to learn to accept [the loss]. Karbo [Ed Kargbo-Okorogie] told the team that we need to bounce back up and get back in the swing of things. We're ready for them.
On Changes in Practice After the Losses
"To me every practice is tough. It's very aggressive. We don't run more gassers, but they keep us conditioned and that's the main thing."
