Wake Forest Athletics
#21 Wake Forest vs. Clemson
10/10/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 10, 2008
Recap | Final Stats | Notes | Photo Gallery 
Wake Forest Head Coach Jim Grobe
On whether Skinner having 76 of the 156 total rushing yards was by design...
"Yes. We came into the game and told Riley (Skinner) that one of the reasons why we can't run the ball is because we have a quarterback that nobody expects to run the ball. We told him to buckle up because it was his turn tonight. One of the things he did do well tonight was he stayed in the pocket well when he felt the pressure and we didn't have a run called. I think against Navy he got flushed to easily. Tonight, I think he got north and made something out of nothing. I really thought he grew up a lot from the Navy game to this game."
On the 3rd and 24 pass from Skinner to Boldin...
"He definitely threw it to the right guy. I just can't tell you how proud I am of DJ Boldin. He's our leader right now offensively. He's a tough guy and makes plays. We try to get Riley to deliver the ball to the open receiver but when it gets to be crunch time, he knows that if he can go to Boldin, then we have a chance."
On injured place kicker Sam Swank...
"We had hoped that by game time he would be fine but when we went to breakfast this morning he was still pretty sore. We still had hopes that if he got to the stadium it may loosen up and he might be able to kick in some capacity. As you can see, we have a good kicker in Shane Popham. I think he's a little nervous in kicking field goals but I think he did a nice job of punting the ball. We had hoped to get something out of Swank tonight but when we got over here tonight, he was just too sore to get full range of motion so we were with Shane the entire time tonight."
On having a bunch of people in at quarterback tonight...
"We wanted to run the ball tonight. We had some early success with putting the running backs in at quarterback. What I thought Clemson did a really nice job of was realizing that after awhile, Josh Adams wasn't going to throw the football. Once they figured that out, they brought some safeties up to the line and we really just had more guys that we could block. I thought early in the game it was really good to us. Overall, I think it was something we wanted to do but we really just couldn't stay with it."
Wake Forest Player Quotes
Senior LB Aaron Curry
On how the defense felt on the field...
"Tonight we played with attitude. We played in a bad mood, but we were having fun."
On having fun while playing...
"I had a great time. It's no better than coming out on Thursday night under the lights and being able to play the game you love. I express that on the field, just playing, flying around hitting everything that has the ball. Just having a lot of fun."
On how physical the game was...
"It was very physical. The whole week the game plan was to come out there and be aggressive and be very physical and just dominate out front. If you don't get them out early, you might not ever catch them."
Redshirt Freshman P/PK Shane Popham
On what was going though his head when he found out he was kicking tonight...
"Well, first of all was Sam going to be all right for next week because I know he was disappointed he couldn't play against Clemson, so I just wanted to do the best I could just to prove myself because I had a challenge thrown at me and I wanted to rise to the occasion."
After the first field goal, what did Swank say to you?
"He said, 'Hey man, it's cool, we all miss sometimes but you know what, that's just how it rolls. You just got to start again."
Junior QB Riley Skinner
On the defense...
"More than you can ask for on offense. It's kind of like how much did we hurt our defense? We have to capitalize, that's the bottom line. We have too many chances in the red zone. We are moving the ball really good. We are on the one yard line, the five yard line, first down and we come away with three points, and that is just on me. That is on our whole offense entirely. Bottom line, we just have to get in the end zone."
On lack of scoring...
"It's just a testament to our defense, you know. The thing is, when you look at our yards moving the ball, it's not like we can't move the ball at all. We're driving, we're just shooting ourselves in the foot when we get in the red zone. It's just something we have to work on."
Senior WR D.J. Boldin
On scoring against Clemson...
"Riley's got a great arm. We worked on that play all week in practice. Coach always told us the under route got robbed and I was going to be open. It happened tonight and I made the play for the team."
On putting the win in context...
"It's a win we needed, you know, coming off that Navy game. That was quite embarrassing, but Navy's a good football team and to come play a great team like Clemson, both of us are contenders to win the ACC this year, so to beat those guys, it was a major accomplishment tonight."
Clemson Head Coach Tommy Bowden
On Clemson's offense in 12-7 loss to Wake Forest...
"We tried everything, if you watch. We tried going deep to Aaron [Kelly] and throwing deep over the middle to the tight end. We tried reverses, we tried fake punts, we tried C.J. [Spiller] on the outside and James [Davis] in the middle. They were playing really well defensively. We just couldn't develop any kind of continuity and we sure tried everything we had."
On his defense allowing Wake Forest to convert on a third-and-24 in the fourth quarter...
"Well, that was the winning drive so it was pretty damaging, but our defense made a lot of plays. They played good enough for us to win the game, I thought. And we converted a fourth-and-17. But they played good enough to where we should have been able to respond offensively."
On scoring seven points in last six quarters and if personnel adjustments need to be made...
"We'll go back and we'll study the tape to see exactly why we're making mistakes. If we have to make personnel changes, we will. We sure had a lot of injuries, but if it involves personnel, we'll do that. That's what we've always done."
On if his team lacked 'life' during game...
"Oh, no, I thought we had some life. It was a pretty close. They had life, and we had life. We were ahead with six, seven minutes left in the game, and that's a pretty good top-25 team. You can't play that long and have it be a close game and not have life. It came down to the last four or five minutes. I wouldn't say we didn't have life. We didn't execute or form our offense, but the kids were surely trying."
