Wake Forest Athletics
Tuesday Press Conference Video and Quotes
9/8/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 8, 2009
Press Conference Video: Grobe | Brown | DeGeare | Woodlief
Jim Grobe
 Jim Grobe  | |
"We've got to play better, there's no question about that. It was a team effort, we turned the ball over four times on offense and then defensively gave up a couple of big plays for scores and those are things you can't do if you want to win a football game. One of the things we've been good at in the past is taking care of the ball and actually forcing turnovers defensively. So we've got to get back to that and as soon as we do we'll start winning games."
"We're pleased with how hard we played. I would have never dreamed we'd go in at halftime with the score 10-7. I really thought Baylor would score more points and I thought we would score more points. As it turned out I think we played a pretty good football team when we still had a chance to win, so as many mistakes as we made to still be in the game and still have an opportunity at the end to win it, it probably says something about players and their determination. If we coach them a little bit better then hopefully we can get to where we can win some games."
"We've got to do a better job coaching. You tend to focus on players on the field because ultimately they win or lose games, but I think as coaches we've got to do a good job preparing our football team. Sometimes you put in too many things for the first game, we may have done that. We had a lot of mistakes on both sides of the ball. That maybe us as coaches trying to `what if' it too much, you know `What if they do this', `what if they do that', trying to put too many things in. I know we made enough mistakes for a couple of games last Saturday. Hopefully we'll be better with our game plan and not make as many mistakes this week."
On turning the ball over...
"You've got to be smarter. I think in Jordan Williams' case when he fumbled the ball he was trying to get an extra yard, which is great, but you've got to protect the ball. And in Riley's case two of the interceptions were poor choices, one of them wasn't his fault. But when you miss a catch it doesn't always ricochet to the defense. That's something that just happens once in a while. On the defensive side of the football we're just young right now. We're worried so much about our assignments we don't worry about hawking the ball as much as we should but that will improve as we get older."
On Riley Skinner's performance...
"I'm not sure what went on there. First game jitters, even for a fifth-year guy, are pretty big. I think he wanted to play really well. Sometimes you put too much pressure on yourself. I think you'll see a guy that calms down a little bit now that we've got the first game out of the way and I think you'll see a marked improvements in Riley's performance."
"It'd be really easy for us if we could say that Riley Skinner didn't play well so we lost a football game. The problem was we had a lot of guys not play their best football. The main problem is playing a good football game in your opener. A lot of teams are playing teams that wouldn't even give them a good scrimmage. Then you can go out and make mistakes and you can still win. But with Baylor if you make too many mistakes you're not going to win. We've got the same thing coming with Stanford. We're playing really good football teams and we've got to improve pretty quick, because we can't keep making as many mistakes as we made last week."
On Stanford...
"They are a good, well coached football team. A team that probably should have been in a bowl game last year. They are a little different than what we saw last week. This is a big, physical, tough football team. They'll get down the hill, knock you down and have good play action passes. They have a quarterback, a very talented freshman, who reminds me a lot of Kevin Sneed at Ole Miss, a tall kid that can throw it and has good mobility. They have a big tailback that is All-Pac 10 and a really good player. They have a really good players on both sides of the football and it should be a really good challenge for us."
"They are a big, physical tough football team. This is a Stanford football team that is probably a little different than most people remember it. You think of Stanford as an air-it-out type football team and they are capable of doing that but they like to get physical with you."
On preparing for Stanford...
"I think the toughest thing for us is the change from last week to this week. Last week there were a lot of formations, a lot of different types of plays, options and trick plays and lots of different things to prepare the players for. Mainly basketball on grass type stuff. This is a completely difference offense. This is a knock-you down type offense. So our young defenders that haven't played much football saw a three-ring circus last week and now they are going to get a real tough physical offense coming to town. So that's going to be our challenge. To change gears and get in the mindset that we better keep our pads down and get our cleats settled in the turf pretty good or we're going to get knocked off the football. It's a completely different plan from last week."
Positive things about Wake's defense during the Baylor game...
"They played really hard. I liked that. We had good energy. We made too many mistakes, but I thought Mike Williams did some good things, I thought Cyhl Quarles did some good things, Brandon Ghee played pretty good for us. It was nice to get Hunter Haynes back in, he'd been out for a while with a hamstring and I think you are going to see him get better and better. There are always some bright spots but unfortunately not enough for us to win the game."
 | |
Linebacker, R-Jr
On getting focused for Saturday...
"From last Saturday both sides had a lot of mistakes. Special teams had a lot of mistakes. The key this week is to learn from those mistakes, have better practices and have more enthusiasm before this week's game. Last week was a tough loss for us. This Saturday is going to be a challenge for us. We want to have a good week in practice. Last night we had a great practice, we just want to continue that this week and just go in there on Saturday like our hair is on fire."
On Stanford...
"We started on Stanford them last night. They're very physical. The o-line is big and they are very physical upfront. Their quarterback is a redshirt freshman, he's got some speed and he's very physical as well. They're running back is a powerful runner. We're a team that they've never watched and we haven't seem them a lot. It's going to be a very interesting game and I'm excited for it."
On the noon start and Stanford coming in with the time zone difference...
"We do have an advantage on them in that way. We have to be ready to go early in the morning. We have to be focused and have our tempo ready. It's early for us too, but we have to be focused and ready to go."
 | |
Wide Receiver, R-So
On what they have to do this week to improve on last week's performance...
"You're never too happy after a loss but we had a lot of mistakes, offensively and defensively. We had four turnovers. Coaches have been preaching to us all preseason and even before the game, if we won the turnover battle, we should come out with the victory but, obviously, we didn't do that. We had four turnovers to their one, and defensively we missed a couple tackles and offensively we missed assignments to go along with those turnovers. It was just a rocky hill and then we just couldn't come back and come out with the victory."
On building off the second-half offense...
"We definitely have to build off the second-half momentum that we had. Offensively, we came out doing some great things in the second half. We started moving the ball better than we did in the first half. I think we should just build off that and try to continue to do that to start out the game instead of waiting until the second half against Stanford."
On Stanford...
"Stanford is a tough, physical team, just like Baylor was. They run a whole lot of man-to-man so if we can beat them with our speed that we have at receiver and all over the field on offense, if we can beat them deep or underneath and get yards after the catch, then that should help us out a lot because they run a whole lot of man-to-man."
On the receivers...
"Hopefully, if the receivers can do our job, beating our man off the ball and getting deep then Riley definitely has the arm strength and accuracy to find us down field. It's on the receivers this week because they run a whole lot of man-to-man so if we can do our job, we should be in good shape."
On the offense and moving forward after last Saturday's loss...
"We tried to put it behind us. We knew we made a lot of mistakes; we had a lot of opportunities to score more points than we did. The defense played great in the second half and gave the offense a lot of opportunities but we just couldn't take advantage of it. But we're just trying to put that in the past and worry about Stanford now."
