Tuesday Football Press Conference Quotes
11/1/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 1, 2005
Head coach Jim Grobe
On winning the last two games:
"It feels better than losing. I think our guys are bouncing around a little more and have a smile on their face. We know how these next two weeks will be - two really good teams, one on the road. We'll have to play better than we have played to win."
On Cory Randolph's status:
"He's back. He practiced last night and seemed to do fine. Our key this week is getting him enough reps so that he can be effective on Saturday. He'll get the majority of reps over the next couple of days. I thought he was going to be back last week, and then on Tuesday he said he didn't feel like he could go full speed. We went 50-50 hoping that he would feel better, but he had indicated to us earlier in the week that he wasn't full speed. He had a good night last night. He threw the ball well and ran around pretty good last night, so I think he's back."
On Benjamin Mauk and who will start at Georgia Tech:
"I'm proud of Ben. I felt like there were things he could have done better, but we won. With every quarterback you either win or you don't. Sometimes your performance isn't quite what you like it to be and you win, and you're happy with that. Sometimes your performance is pretty good and you don't win. We're happy with wins, so his status has gone up with us. We feel pretty good with Ben. We felt that Cory played really well in that three game stretch when he was in, and we feel like he deserves the opportunity to come back in and start if he's healthy."
On the offensive line and playing just seven linemen:
"Not only did we take only seven (players), but three of them were held together by a thread. We were really fortunate to get through a game with those guys. I really think they felt pretty good on Saturday. We were pretty beat up on Saturday, but I thought that two or three of the guys that we're beat up really showed some great toughness. And I was proud of Chris Barclay. I thought there were times when there weren't a lot of seams in there, and there were times when we had some good blocking and when we did, he took advantage of it. That's kind of the way it was - hunt and peck, hunt and peck, and all of a sudden we're off to the races. At the end of the day, we had seven different guys that put it on the line. I think part of their motivation was Chris. They really wanted to do a good job for Chris and give him an opportunity to break the record."
On offensive guard Chris DeGeare:
"Chris played a lot. He's playing really, really well right now. He gets beat once in a while just on technique and not being tuned in sometimes. It's just youth and inexperience. But he's improved in so many ways. He's become a really good pass protector, and he's a really good drive blocker. He has to work on cutoffs more, but everyday he gets better and every week he gets better. He is doing exactly what you would like to see a young guy do."
On the aggressiveness of Georgia Tech on defense:
"We knew Duke blitzed a lot, but Georgia Tech blitzes more. You can't find many snaps of base defense when you cut Georgia Tech's film. They're very aggressive, they get up the field, they attack you on every snap, and that's going to be a really big job for our offensive line on Saturday. They want to knock you back into the backfield. They want to penetrate and create havoc. They're bringing at least five most of the time. They're really physical and get off the blocks really well. It will create some of the same problems, but you'll see less base defense out of Georgia Tech than Duke."
On running misdirection against Tech's aggressiveness:
"You hope (it works); that's why you've got it in. But this isn't their first rodeo with us. We've played before. They've seen us a lot. They've got some thoughts on what to do for our misdirection stuff. It's going to be rolling the dice and gambling a little bit and they'll be gambling going after us. Hopefully we'll get them some."
On Georgia Tech's offense:
"The thing that is so dangerous about them on offense is they've got the great receiver in Calvin Johnson. He's everybody's nightmare. He's 6-foot-4 with a 43-inch vertical jump. He is a guy that even if you cover him well is likely to go up and take the ball away from you. Everyone says it's simple to defend him, you double cover him, but the problem is when you have P.J. Daniels running the football, you take one more guy away from the line of scrimmage and you have problems stopping the run at the line of scrimmage. If you put everybody down inside to stop the run and take care of the receiver with coverage, now you've got Reggie Ball on the perimeter. He's one of the best running quarterbacks in the ACC and he throws the ball well. Defensively, there is no one answer for these guys. You've got to mix your blitzes and coverages and be aware of where the great receiver is all the time. But if you are not aware of P.J. Daniels and Reggie Ball and (Damarius) Bilbo, the other receiver, it's not like there is just one great player on the field, they have three or four guys that could really hurt you."
On taking care of Wake Forest before the opponent:
"The best thing our football team has done the past three or four weeks is that we haven't worried about the opponent as much as worry about ourselves. That's what we've done a good job of. I'm proud of our coaching staff because they've gotten the kids to realize that if we take care of the Deacs, we have a chance to win on Saturday regardless of who is on the other side of the ball. Sometimes you get so hyped up against the teams you are going out to play, that you actually don't play very well. If you just worry about blocking and tackling and taking care of things you have control over, you play better on Saturday. We've developed that mentality. Let's work during the week and develop a plan and show up on Saturday and play your best and see what happens."
On improving from earlier in the season:
"I think we're doing a better job of teaching right now. When we came out of the Maryland game, I think we felt like we let our players down. In the Maryland game, I just felt like we played poorly. I don't mean to take anything away from Maryland because they're a pretty good football team, but I wasn't happy with anything - special teams, offense and defense. I wasn't really happy. I think our defense played pretty well, but there was just something missing. I think we've done a better job each week of coaching the kids. I think the kids are doing a better job realizing that on Saturday there are no magic calls. We'll try and get you good calls, but you've got to lineup and play. That is what young guys tend to do - look to the coaches for answers. We're trying to give them the answers during the week and let them be the answer on Saturday. It's a combination of our coaches doing a better job teaching and our players are accepting more responsibility on Saturday and playing better."
On the growth of the team:
"If you've got an old veteran team and start out poorly, you've got problems. I think with young players, if you're not getting a lot of growth, you've got to see what you're problems are. I think we did that. When we got beat by Maryland, we felt like for whatever reason, we weren't growing fast. So we took a little different approach and I think it's been good. The Boston College game was a huge learning experience for us. (Boston College) had shot themselves in the foot several times, and I think our kids expected them to continue to do that. We sat on our heels and expected them to screw it up and drop some passes. When it got to be crunch time, they made the plays they needed to make. Our guys now know to make plays and not expect people to beat themselves."
Sophomore tight end Zac Zelmon
On the attitude with two games left and the two-game win streak:
"I think the attitude has improved. We've had two wins in our last two games. Like Coach always says, there's nothing better than winning. We've had trials that we've overcome at the beginning of the season, but I think we've put that behind us and we are focusing. We have two more games, this one at Georgia Tech and hopefully a showdown with Miami.
On the distractions of last week:
"Coach Grobe did a great job keeping us focused, and reminding us that we had a game to go play. I think that showed by the final score, the final outcome. I think Coach Grobe pointed us in the direction last week. It easily could have been a distraction. Duke is always a battle, and last year we beat them by two."
On Georgia Tech:
"Looking at them on film, they can hit. They'll be a physical defense. It will be tough because they move around a lot. They have a lot of fronts and use a lot of blitzes. But I think our coaches will put us in the right positions to get a win."
On bowl eligibility:
"Everyone knows we have to win to get a bowl. At the beginning of the season that was our focus. We've taken it week by week, and that's got us to where we are now. I think our focus now is beating Georgia Tech."
Sophomore center Steve Justice
On playing so much in games, with the injury losses sustained by the offensive line:
"We are just used to playing a lot. In practice we roll a lot. You go in play real hard and come out and rest a little bit with the roll we have and keeps them injury-free I think.
On adapting to losses of personnel on the line:
"We've have some injuries, but you get in there and get your rehab. For the offensive line, when Louis (Frazier) went down and all those other guys went down, we had the three-rep roll. You get conditioned for playing so much that you kind of learn to control the type of blocks that you need to do. It helps you conditioning-wise playing those games so you can play longer.
On Barclay's rushing record:
"I was really happy. We all took a lot of pride in that."
On being "forgotten" as an offensive lineman as it pertains to the rushing record:
"As linemen, we knew we weren't going to get any of the glory. Chris is a great athlete, you give him a little hole and he takes it so it's not all us by any means. He's amazing."
On bowl eligibility being in reach:
"It's in reach, but we're playing two amazing teams. You've got a top-five Miami team and a top-25 Georgia Tech team. You have to get out and do the grind like every other week. You can see it in the future, but you have to play now. We're hoping for it but we got to get out there and play hard."
Junior safety Josh Gattis
On bowl eligibility being a possibility:
"There's no hoping. We go out every week and practice. We continue to work hard every time we go out there. The past two weeks we went out there and the past two weeks we played full games and got wins. This team has a lot of motivation for these two games. A lot of people doubted us but this team kept we kept trusting each other to make plays and it has shown every week."
On the remaining schedule:
"We just have to keep on getting better. We have to worry about us right now. We have Georgia Tech coming up this week and they're a great team. We are going down there to play in a great atmosphere. We have to pick it up another notch and take this game like we've taken the past two. So we are just focusing on ourselves right now and getting ready to face Georgia Tech."
