Tuesday Football Press Conference Quotes
12/9/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Dec. 9, 2008
Press Conference Video: Grobe | Arnoux | Curry | Smith | Vaughn | Dick Butkus
Head Coach Jim Grobe
On Aaron Curry winning the Butkus Award...
"I told Dick that the great thing about choosing Aaron Curry is that you've chosen a really, really good football player, but an even better kid. Sometimes these awards are given out strictly on ability and certainly Aaron Curry has great ability but the intangibles are off the chart. He has great character, great work ethic, all the things that you look for in a kid beyond just being talented."
On the senior class...
"Three straight bowl games are special and they've been a major factor each of the three years. They've played really well this year as a senior group. We played a lot of young players this year. I can honestly say that our seniors have played great this season. We played a really tough schedule. Sagarin has us listed as the fourth-toughest schedule in the country right now. We played nine bowl teams out of 12 teams. We've played some really tough teams this year. I think it's been a really good year. I think if we had of been able to support our seniors better with our younger players, it could have been a really special year. This is a great group. This is a group we're going to really miss. We've had these guys bouncing in and out of the office for five seasons. To not have these guys around is going to be really tough. We owe them a lot. They've done a lot of great things for Wake Forest."
On if people will point to this class as the one that turned the program around...
"I don't think there's any question. One of the reasons we won an ACC Championship is because of how well these guys played as sophomores. You certainly have to give a lot of credit every year you're successful to your senior class but you have to have the younger guys step up and they did that as a sophomore group. They may not be seen as the senior class that got it started, but they'll certainly be seen as one of the most talented groups we've had at Wake Forest and a group that was able to keep us going on the right track. Hopefully we can continue to do good things in the future because of the leadership they've shown."
On playing Navy for the second time this season...
"I'm more excited about where we're going than who we're playing. Navy is a great football team and they're going to give us fits again. They run the wishbone and the option as well as anyone in the country. They're playing great defense right now. I'm really excited to be playing in Washington, D.C. I think it's a great location. It gives our players' families a chance to get to the game. It gives our fans a great opportunity to travel and see us play one more time. We had great attendance in Miami and Charlotte. I'm hopeful we can have great attendance in D.C. this year because I think we're starting to get a reputation as a team that travels and that will help us in the future. I'm happy that we're getting a chance to play in the inaugural Eagle Bank Bowl. Playing at RFK Stadium will be really good. We know we have our work cut out for us. We're playing a better football team than we'd like to play. We feel like Washington is the right place for our families."
On if the preparation is any different for a bowl game than a regular season game...
"Our foot is off the gas a little bit. Our first week of trying to get prepared for Navy is during final exams. We're only going out for about an hour. It's a very light practice. We don't want to tax our guys too much on the field. We have to do well in final exams. We have a lot of papers due right now. Playing on the 20th makes it crunch time. We have to be ready to go when we hit D.C. We'll have three or four days to prepare for the bowl game the way we would like to. It's a little different playing on the 20th. If we were playing later in the month, on the 29th or 30th, it'd be a little easier preparation. We have to be careful during final exams. We're not pressing them very hard right now with football. We want to make sure they do well academically."
Senior linebacker Aaron Curry
On the Dick Butkus Award...
"That's a very prestigious award - to even be mentioned with that group of linebackers in the nation and also to be mentioned with Dick Butkus... The stories my granddad has told me about Dick Butkus are amazing, and [so are] the YouTube clips I've seen on him and his style of play. It is just amazing to be considered to win that award."
On rematch against Navy...
"It will be my third time playing them since I've been here at Wake. Each time we've played them we've gotten better on defense, but they've also gotten better on offense. I think the most important thing for our defense is to execute the defense called, and play at the same level of intensity that they play and play at the same speed that they play."
On winning the 2008 Butkus Award...
"I knew I was a finalist, but to actually win it was amazing. Wake Forest has often been looked over when it came to just recognizing the talent and recognizing the success of programs. And just to be able to represent Wake Forest like this is an honor."
On Wake Forest...
"I believe this doesn't just speak for the linebacker that I am, it's speaks for the coaching staff that we have to prepare me as a linebacker, to prepare all our linebackers. It speaks to the efforts of the team, for the winning seasons and going out there and representing Wake Forest not just as a private school that has a football team but a football team that attends a private school. It speaks a lot about how this program has grown."
On the honor of receiving the 2008 Dick Butkus Award (addressed to Mr. Dick Butkus)...
"It's amazing. It is an honor to receive this award. To be mentioned in the same sentence as you - the things you've done on the field and off the field - I'm just hoping that I get the chance to repeat the same intensity that Dick Butkus instilled and the determination to punish the opponent. This is amazing."
Senior cornerback Alphonso Smith
On growth of Wake Forest's football program since his arrival as a freshman...
"Well, it all starts with Coach Grobe. You've got to give him a lot of credit. His redshirt program, coming in as a freshman, you wouldn't expect his type of program to work. You're like, `Redshirt! Man! What's that?' You have to give a lot of credit to Coach Grobe and to Ron Wellman for having a lot of patience with Grobe and his philosophy of redshirting. It started from there. It's also starts with the coaches recruiting a bunch of guys who are unselfish, a bunch of guys who have good personalities and character, and guys who care about each other. If you look at all the programs around the nation, most of the programs that are winning have a team that actual care about each other. Each class that comes in, our class for instance, we just bonded from day one. It just goes along with us responding to Coach Grobe's system."
On playing Navy again...
"It's a great opportunity. We played them earlier this year in which we lost a game we thought we could have won. We didn't play as well; we didn't play Wake Forest football. It's a great opportunity for us, and we're going to try to give our fans and the people who support us a treat up in D.C. I can promise we're going to have fun and give it our all and, hopefully, we're going to come out with a win."
On what they learned from playing Navy earlier in the season...
"What you learn is that you're going to get the dive, you're going to get the option, you're going to get the option pass. You just have to execute your defense. Where people mess up is when people try to take what Navy does instead of executing what they do best. That's what we're going to try to do. We're just going to play our defense and try to execute our defense just as well as they execute their offense, because that's what type of game it is. It's just a game of execution."
Senior linebacker Stanley Arnoux
On senior class facing Navy again and what they've learned...
"We've played them three times so far. They execute very well. It's going to be a tough game. They play hard every time we play them so it's going to be a challenge. We learned that they're capable of breaking a big play at any time with any of their threats. They have some fast guys at the wings and they have a pretty tough fullback, too, that can break it as well."
On Navy playing in nearby D.C. for bowl game...
"I don't really get into that. No matter what field we're playing on, we have to come ready to play so that doesn't really matter too much. I'm pretty sure we have a lot of fans traveling, too. The game's not that far away. We're going to have a lot of people watching, a lot of fans in attendance. It's the first EagleBank Bowl so it's going to be pretty exciting."
On senior class and Wake Forest heading to three straight bowls for the first time...
"It's exciting, too. We came in saying that we wanted to go to bowl games. The first year we didn't make it, but the next three now we have had the opportunity to go to bowls. It is exciting and we just hope that [Wake Forest] can continue after our class is gone, and I think that they will be able to."
Senior safety Chip Vaughn
On his senior class...
"This whole class, we're just all so close. The mindset that we came in here with and then after you see it happen I think says a lot. A lot of folks talk about doing something but we actually did it. I think our actions, all of the games we won, all of that stuff speaks for itself. I think our class as a whole was determined to change the face of this program around."
On getting the opportunity to play in another bowl game...
"A bowl game is like all of that hard work we did in the springtime, the summertime, and all that time we spent practicing in the fall right now is all coming to a point. This is what our season's about is this bowl game, because that's what you work so hard for this whole time. And now it's here. Any bowl game and any chance to play after your last game is a great one, so we're ecstatic about this bowl game and we can't wait to play. It's just great."
On Navy...
"They're a very tough, sound and disciplined football team. We have our work cut out for us but I think if we just go out there and play the way we can play everything will take care of itself."
On Aaron Curry winning the Butkus Award for top linebacker in the nation...
"He's a great guy. I can't see somebody else in this whole country who is more deserving of this award. He just worked so hard for it. He's a guy who comes out everyday at practice and works. There's no complaining with him. He just comes out and does whatever is asked of him. All the freshmen and everybody looks up to Aaron Curry. He's just a great guy."
