Boston College Athletics
Coach Addazio Stresses Keeping Intensity Up in Practice
September 15, 2014 | Football
Chestnut Hill, Mass - Boston College head football Coach Steve Addazio spoke to the media at his weekly press conference on Monday about Saturday's monumental win over No. 9 USC and the upcoming game against Maine on Saturday at 1 p.m. He stressed the importance of moving on to the next opponent and keeping the intensity high in practice this week.
On the USC game on Saturday night...
I thought after watching the tape our guys played really, really hard. Sometimes you watch the tape and think, `we scored some points', but we really did dominate up front on both sides of the ball. We genuinely dominated them, especially towards the end.
Our plan going into that game on offense was to try to hit them inside with a few different scheme styles and hit them outside, bring some elements of option, make them run side to side and try to wear them down all the way to the fourth quarter and then run a more physical power attack at them and I thought that we did that. On defense we had a lot of scheme in the game, we were able to free up a lot of unblocked defenders in their run game. But the overarching theme was we had to win up front and we did, on both sides of the ball.
Our kids played with great energy and great passion. They're a really good football team. You walk away from that game, you're extremely ecstatic about how your guys responded and how we played. I look at it and I wish we would have played that same way a week ago and I also think, `let's make sure we don't have this conversation next week about how we didn't play with our energy'.
Someone said, `You say you're a young team but you have a veteran o-line'... we have a veteran o-line and we're pretty young everywhere else. So when you have a young team, this is all part of the learning curve. I've said this from the beginning, we're going to be on that roller coaster, we're trying not to be, but you'll see us there. Where you see a game a week ago that we needed to play better and you see a game this past week where we played at a very high level. Now we have to try and even these things out a little bit. As long as we stay healthy we can even them out.
Injuries become another problem because we don't have great amounts of depth at every position. In the first four weeks you're trying to find your chemistry- what you do well, what you don't do well and it's a process that's different every year. People wonder why you don't have the answers, but you can't have them because you really don't know it until you get against other opponents. A lot of times you don't hit your stride until game 4 or 5. You don't know it until you get tugged on.
We have a lot of respect for Maine and their program and history. They've been a powerhouse in the old Yankee Conference and in the world of D1 AA football right now; they're a power. They're physical; they've traditionally done well against BCS opponents. I think they have a great deal of confidence and will come in here really well coached and really well prepared to play our football team.
We've got a lot of respect and I hope that they're mature enough to understand that if you don't bring your A-game, if you're not emotionally, mentally and physically prepared every week, you take a strong football team like Maine and they'll come down here and put it right on you. That's just the way it is. We have our work cut out for us.
On this week's practice...
You do everything you can. Ultimately it's the leadership on your team. That's an area that we still need to work on. For openers, we went out in helmets and shoulder pads. We weren't stupid about it, but we were out there. We kept the younger guys longer, worked on fundamentals with them. I think the first thing is to set the tone. That's what we did a week ago and it was good for us. We need to grind. We're just not to the point where we can take the pads off right now. There is too much development that needs to happen right now before we get banged up. "
On playing tough non-conference games...
You lose that game, you're 1-2. Football is a momentum game. Most programs will play their lesser opponents first. But when you're trying to rebuild a program you have to face tough opponents. People measure you whether you win or you lose to become bowl eligible. For where our program is right now, we play a fairly tough schedule. We're playing Florida State and Clemson in conference, two power houses. There are other teams in the conference who don't play them. We also play Virginia Tech in the crossover, that's not a box of chocolates. We also play USC, Notre Dame and on our schedule this year we have Colorado State, who is currently undefeated. We're fairly challenged. It is what it is. We just have to work.
On celebrating the win over USC...
We took them out to eat; we had a heck of a team dinner downtown. As I said to them, we are going to celebrate this game because we have to celebrate it, but you also have to have the maturity to walk forward after this dinner is over. A week ago we tightened things down a bit. We went out in full pads Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. This week will be close to that depending on the injuries. We pick our spots, we needed to celebrate it. If you can't enjoy the great moments then you're losing sight of what you're doing. I know the paranoia of the whole thing, maybe USC celebrated too much from the other win. You have to wire your guys so they enjoy the wins, not too much, but enough. Then you have to get back to work. It really comes from great leadership within the program, as coaches we try, but at the end of the day it's generated inside. Right now, I'm really pleased with how we played. I loved our effort, I loved our intensity, guys made plays, we stepped up in a great environment, and we represented our university well and defeated a tough opponent. Simple answer is: we're going to go like hell on Tuesday.
On expanding the passing game...
I'd love to. I'd like to see us not drop those balls. Last two games, we've dropped some critical balls. We opened that game up with a throw down the field. We attacked them with the run game, we had a lot of play action to threaten with the throw game, but it's tough. Our team is not very good at 2nd & 10. I believe in our receivers. We spend an awful lot of time on that, but when you're not making routine plays, it's tough. You want to get more balls? Catch more balls.
On getting on Javorius Allen from USC in the backfield...
We presented a defense where we had a lot of hitters. They didn't block them and account for them. When we're on like that we provide a lot of different looks, Don does a great job with that. And on top of that, we were getting off blocks and getting to the ball, then tackling well. I thought our scheme was good, we tackled well. They were confused the whole game.
On the offensive line's performance so far this season...
I think it's important to play well on the offensive line and that's why I was disappointed after Pitt. I don't have a good explanation; it must have been something I did, because we didn't play well then. But I think they played really well on Saturday up front and really well versus UMass. But for some reason, versus a very simple 4-3 Pitt defense, we just didn't block them well. To their credit there was a lot of pride about that. We have more experience there than any other position on the field. That line should be very consistent. The key to getting that defense was keeping them on the field and wearing them down. I was surprised versus Pitt; I'm accustomed to seeing what we saw. We have ability and experience. What we're lacking up there is personality. This is a group that doesn't have that throbbing heart, so to speak. They're five good guys with ability, but they need some more emotional presence. You just have to figure out how to keep that emotion and passion level high.
On freshmen playing...
You're going to see more and more freshmen play. In fact, I really wanted more freshmen to play more reps in that game. But you get into that game and then you have the tiger by the tail and you're just hanging in there for the win. We played a fair amount of them if you look at the special teams. If you look at that kick off team, we've got a lot of young guys on there. We struggled a bit in there. They're learning under fire. You want to get them in, and we are, but sometimes you're holding your breath. But Christian Lezzer got in and he got a sack, we got Stratchan and Schwab going on the special teams, but not as much through the heart of the defense. Marcus Outlow is a guy that we're very excited about here. He is very talented; he's just still learning it all. We would like to cut him loose, but we have to get him ready. Noa Merritt only had one rep in the game; I would have liked to see him have ten. That's where we want to be, we have a lot of big time opponents left on our schedule. At the end of this season the bulk amount of that class has to have played a good amount of snaps for us to feel comfortable going into next season and making them starters.
On the game environment...
That was one of the best environments I've seen here. We've got to get that week in and week out. And that's all about winning. There's no better environment than college football, exciting games and exciting times. I honestly can't figure out what everyone else who isn't there is doing on a Saturday night. What's fun? That's fun!
