Wake Forest Athletics
ACC Football Kickoff - Day 2
7/23/2007 12:00:00 AM | Football
July 23, 2007
PINEHURST, N.C. - Wake Forest head coach Jim Grobe spoke with the regional and national media on the second day of the 2007 ACC Football Kickoff held at the Pinehurst Golf Resort.
HEAD COACH Jim Grobe QUOTES:
On this year's reception of being defending ACC Champions:
"It's been good. Things haven't changed much. People have always been good to us."
On staying at Wake Forest and in Winston-Salem:
"This will be our sixth year at Wake Forest and we're actually playing all the kids we've recruited, and we really like this group of kids. We have a special thing going on right now, and at Wake Forest people really appreciate what we do. They were great to us when we were 4-7. People don't realize what a great place Wake Forest is and if you end up moving on you have to make sure that it's just a slam dunk, that it doesn't have any problems associated with it because we have a great Athletic Director, a great President and just great people at Wake Forest."
On maturity winning titles:
"I think the past couple of years we were 4-7 and had a pretty good football team. I think in this league you can have a real good football team and have nothing to show for it record-wise. Over the last few years we lost some games that went down to the last few plays of the game and some of the kids made the mistakes that got us beat when they were younger. Now I don't think there's any question that the thing that made the difference for us last year was the maturity of our football team."
On having the same level of experience even after losing key players and leaders:
"We've never had a guy lead our football team. Jon [Abbate] played real hard and he was great player for us, but I don't think we've ever had a team that had a guy that was our leader. We have a lot of good kids that work their tail off and for us I think we have group of leaders. Jon was a heck of a football player, but he wasn't the leader. I think the situation that we're in right now is that our offense is going to be our more experienced football team. Defensively, we're going to have a lot of talent, but we're going to have some inexperienced kids. I've felt better last year going in with a good solid defensive football team, but of course this year we thought we were going to have Jon and Eric Berry. I think we'll still have a lot of talent, but we won't have as much experience. My experience as a coach has been that you are always going to be a little better if you're experienced guys are on offense and that's going to be different for me because the veterans on this football team in large part are on the offensive side of the ball.
On opening the season at Boston College:
"I think the key for us early in the season is for our offense to play well and we've got to be really good on special teams. I think defensively we can be a really good defensive football team and I think the key will be how quickly those safeties and young linebackers that we're going to have to put out there can start making the plays that help us win. Sometimes it's not just making the plays, it's getting in the position to make the plays and the young guys are more prone to make mistakes. So it's a real concern for me; defensively I think we have a lot of talent, but we're going to have to have our offense be real productive early in the season."
On Micah Andrews return:
"I think he's ready to go physically; I think the mental part is going to be the big deal. In the spring time he was running ahead pretty good, had a little problem with lateral movement, but over the summer he's been good with that. He just needs to go out and get knocked down a little bit, get tackled and have people fall on him and we'll see how he responds. But I think the big thing with Micah is physically he'll be ready to go, it will just be how quickly he can regain the confidence in that knee."
On Coach Grobe `going wild' and his mild manner:
"It's funny, win or lose, I think the key to being competitive is that you have to have your eye on the next target. Immediately after a win, immediately after a tough loss, my thoughts are on the next opponent, so I try not to get too excited if we win and not to get too down if we lose. And I'd like our players to be the same way. I want our players to feel good when we win, but I don't want them to be so happy about that win that it leads to a loss the next week. I think a lot of times players take on the personality of their position coach and their head coach and we really make the concerted effort to let our players play. We, as coaches, realize we can't play anymore. No matter how fired up I get or our assistant coaches get, if the players aren't excited to play we aren't going to play very well on Saturday, so we want the players to have fun."
On Wake Forest's 2006 season being important for the ACC:
"Somebody asked me earlier, `Coach, what do we have to do to stay on top; what's your attitude now.' And I really believe in our league right now that the idea that someone in this league is going to dominate year in and year out is over with now. I think this is a league where everyone has good players, I think this is a league where each year there is going to be some stronger teams, some weaker teams, but I think the idea that one team will be dominant every year isn't going to happen. I won't say ever going to happen again, but in the foreseeable future for me, I think every Saturday, the team that's ready to roll is going to win. And if you're not ready no matter what your tradition has been, you'll get a loss. I think that's the fun thing right now about the Atlantic Coast Conference. I don't see a team in the ACC that doesn't have talent. I think it's fun for me that every Saturday anyone has a shot and I think that's the attitude we want our players to come out with. We're not on top, we're starting over."
On Nebraska coming to Winston-Salem:
"We're honored to have them come, but first we have to focus on Boston College. But I think having Nebraska come to our place is really exciting for our fans."
