Wake Forest Athletics
Coach Grobe Quotes From Weekly Press Conference
10/23/2001 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 23, 2001
Head coach Jim Grobe
On North Carolina's defeat of Clemson:
"I was surprised in Death Valley. You can usually take Clemson's best shot at home. Very impressive performance on both sides of the ball. Those things happen from time to time. I was really surprised with the score."
On what can take from Carolina's win:
"I think that is in the past. We are going to see a different Clemson football team on Saturday. I very motivated, upset team. For us we are a little bit different than North Carolina. Carolina defensively is one of the better teams in the country right now."
"We are going to take a little bit different approach. Try to find ways to put a little more pressure. For us offensively we have to keep our quarterbacks healthy. "
On update of quarterback injuries:
"Anthony has the green light to practice today. We are not going to practice him full speed but see how he feels running around and throwing a little bit. We hope to have him on Saturday and a lot will be determined how he feels on Saturday. Our comforts will be a lot better if we have both quarterbacks ready to go."
On playing Clemson for homecoming:
"Well, we have to play Clemson. We can't take them off the schedule. For a football coach you don't notice holidays that much. For us it doesn't matter that Clemson is here for homecoming, what does matter is that Clemson is in town and we have a really good football team coming to Groves Stadium."
On distraction of first TV game of the season:
"For our guys it's a matter of taking care of Wake Forest. Who we play right now is not as important as how we play. We are a young football team and we can't get too caught up in television, homecoming, whatever. Our guys just need to go out and do their job."
On Clemson's Woody Dantzler:
"I think he played some superhuman defensive players at North Carolina. They have some guys that will be some first round draft picks in the country. I don't think it detracts from Dantzler, I think it tells you how good Carolina is on defense."
On running or throwing offense:
"We have run better than we have thrown it. We obviously would like to throw it a little bit better. They would look at our stats and say that we do a pretty good job at running the football and we need to stop that. It wouldn't surprise me if they put more people in the box to stop the run."
On a weakness in Clemson's program:
"I don't think that there are weak links anywhere in Clemson's program. They have great talent at every position. I think they are struggling at little bit like we are playing young players."
On motivation- either postseason bowl or game-by-game:
"I think our guys have been on a roller coaster this year. Five close games we are 2-3. We have played some good football teams. Our guys are motivated primarily that we have chance to be a good football team. We are not there yet but we have a chance to be. They would like to win."
Wake Forest Players
Eric King, Freshman Defensive Back
On North Carolina's 38-3 win over Clemson:
"Pretty good game on Carolina's part. They did a good job on defense. It was not a good job on Clemson's part. We know that Clemson will be ready to play [on Saturday]. Carolina has exposed teams [FSU and UNC] for us. We must learn from our mistakes against Florida State if we want to succeed against Clemson."
On facing a no huddle offense:
"We face [a no huddle offense] all spring, summer, and fall in practice, so it won't be a problem. It will be different though because they have such great athletes. Problems we may have will be on substituting because they are so quick. The fast pace may not let us get aligned on Defense."
On Clemson Quarterback Woody Dantzler:
"We want to prove ourselves against a great quarterback like Dantzler. We are going up against a great athlete, but he is human. He will make mistakes. He can be stopped. He is a phenomenal athlete, probably the best QB we will face all year."
Blake Henry, Junior Offensive Guard
On the week off:
"It definitely helped. At practice [Monday] we were upbeat and rejuvenated. Also gave us more time to prepare for Clemson. We are preparing for their defense, which has lots of movement and changes. They have lots of substitutions on defense."
On motivation:
"We don't concentrate on what other schools do against our opponents...[Clemson] will be frustrated after the loss to UNC, but we have to concentrate on what we need to do. Clemson is one of the best teams this year. We lost by fifty points last year and they took out our quarterback. That should be motivation enough."
On bowl game implications:
"This is a very important game for us. We are 3-3, so this is a turning point in our season. We must have it if we want to get to a bowl game."
