Boston College Athletics
NIU Game Week: Addazio Addresses Media Monday
September 21, 2015 | Football
The third-year coach talks about FSU, the defense and who will start at QB
On the game against No. 9/6 Florida State…
"Just wrapping up last week's game before we move on to this week's game. Having a chance to look at the film and really study what was going on and get better sense of that game, which is what we wanted to do. It's a learning experience. We are trying to learn from it. There were a lot of positives in that game. Obviously, I thought we played real well defensively. We held them to 217 yards, as we talked about after the game. I thought that was really great. The defense was in great field position the whole night. The defense starting field position was somewhere between the 20-25-yard line, which is where you want to play defense from. That's how we started the game. We deferred the kickoff because we wanted to start on defense and we were hoping to keep the field tilted to start the game. We started the game and, unfortunately, they went down the field and scored and we lost that advantage. But I felt the defense played from great field position which is really a good thing.
"And we played hard and we played fast all night long. I was pleased with that. Any time you can hold their backs down to 98 yards, 3.3 yards a carry, it's a good thing. It's funny; here's the No. 9 team in the country and here is our young football team playing each other. They had 217 yards and we had 195 yards. I mean you know it's kind of an interesting game.
"What was different about the game? The average starting position for Boston College's offense was the 19-yard line. We played on a long field all night, which is not a great place to be for a young football team. That's contrary to everything I told you about what the plan is for us to win is. We are starting on the 19-yard line. Good luck with that. That's really difficult to do. The national average chart says that you have 10 to 13 percent chance to score a touchdown. So now you going to take a young football team with a quarterback that's got about six career snaps snaps and you're going to beat 10 and 13 percent odds. I don't think so. Against what might be one of the best defenses in the country. I'm not sure that's going to happen. But that's the way that is.
"Once again we have to do a better job on punt return and kickoff return. Those are the two plays that helped control that. We gave away so many yards once again on those deals that the average starting field position should have been in the 30's instead of the 19's, which means you are one first down away from re-tilting the field back at all. If you're a real football guy or gal and you understand the big impact that had on BC's offense.
"That's not all the story. Did we play particularly well on offense? Well, the obvious answer to that is no. Did we do some good things on offense at times? Yes. Where are the problems? Inconsistency.
"People say the offensive line is terrible. No they weren't. That's not an actual statement, although they were inconsistent. That's an actual statement. It's a collective combination of things. I don't think we are particularly running the ball really well. I said the strength of our team is in our running backs. But right now it really isn't. We are not playing at the level that we need to be playing at. And that's been addressed. The offensive line is young and inexperienced and they are working at it but there are times when the plays blocked perfectly well. You have to get more than the six, seven or eight yards that are available there. It's okay to get some yards when it's not blocked so well. That's what happened across America in college football. So we have to work on that.
We had a hard time getting the ball to our wide receivers. No kidding, Coach. It starts with trying to throw the forward pass. I got it, okay.
"But understand this. We were playing Florida State. We were playing exceptional defense. We are not going from a minus-19 field position and going to start chucking the ball around with an inexperienced quarterback to inexperience wide receivers and give the game away. We don't have Tom Brady. That's not where we are right now. So we are going to play it close to the vest and try and get that game into the fourth quarter. By all rights, we had the game into the fourth quarter with a seven-point deficit. In fact, when we fumbled the ball, we started on the minus-whatever yard line and we are working our way towards midfield at that point and time. I really felt that it was only a matter of time where we would conservatively pop a couple of runs that would put us in position to tie that football game up. That's kind of what I thought. Now, that didn't work out. But that's what I thought.
"I had people ask me at halftime, you had two minutes let's call it. Listen, we were not playing well at offense at that point and time. You won't find a lot of football people against a team like Florida State who are going to say, let's go huck-and-chuck in a two-minute drill hoping to God we're going to complete a pass to get down so we can kick a field goal. I made a decision and I know it's the right decision to get our tail into halftime at 7-0 and get our game reorganized to see if we can comeback to get the ball in the second half. Let's not kill our defensive effort right now by doing something stupid here with a young, inexperienced team. That's what you do when you have a veteran quarterback and veteran offense. When you don't, what you do is you get into halftime you reorganize and hope when you come out in the second half you're going to have a better plan when you get the ball and all things being equal. Flip the field, tie the game and get that thing where it's anybody's game in the third quarter. That's very logical, very sound judgement. That's not the way it worked out but that's the right thing to do. And that's what we did. And that's where we are. I've been telling everyone right along: We are young on offense, we're inexperienced on offense and one and two weeks is not going to make a difference. We just went from a small-level football team to prime time Florida State and we had to adjust to the speed on both sides of the ball. And that's what happened on the first drive on defense.
"We settled in quicker on defense. We have more veterans on defense. We didn't settle on offense. We never got our cleats on the ground. Although there were times I thought we did some good things. But on offense we didn't do anything explosive."
On this week's opponent, Northern Illinois…
"Our objective is to make strides. Here we go on to week four. We are playing Northern Illinois, which is an outstanding football team. This is not coach talk or any of this other nonsense. We are playing an elite MAC team, which is really like to me a Power 5 - middle rung - Power 5 team. That's what we are playing. I happened to watch them against Ohio State. I've watched them all year. I talked to the coaches at Ohio State. I have a great trust in them. I have a great feel for what they tell me and I believe what they tell me. What I understand is that this is a really good football team. And they are for real. And the strength of this team this team is on defense. They are big, physical and tough. They earned everything they got from Ohio State.
"Their quarterback is a veteran player who is a big, strong kid who has deceptive speed. They have a good running back; he's a 6-foot-2, 200-pound kid. He's a big back. [Their] wide receivers are talented. I can't tell you enough about how the defense is excellent."
On the game plan to win…
"That's why we have to physically do what we can to help our field position. Do the things we think we can to help our quarterback and create explosive plays on offense and keep out defense firing at a high level. That's got to be our winning formula as we re-develop and as we continue to grow. And I'm very, very optimistic. I'm excited. I'm optimistic but I'm realistic and I know that this is going to take time. No one has patience - me most of all - but we are going to develop this football team the right way with the right basic foundation and we are not going to do dumb things, like just putting our defense up against a wall by just throwing out there for the sake of it and giving us very low chance of winning our chance of winning. The way we have to play right now is to play great defense and play really well on special team. We've got to be able to establish our run game. We are losing first downs right now. We are completely flipped on first down. Right now, we are a four yards or more carry team on first down team - that's how teams like us have to operate. Sixty-eight percent of the time we are three yards or less right now. That's happening because we are having little breakdowns."
On the quarterback situation…
"We've lost our quarterback [Darius Wade] for the year, that's where we are. No one is complaining but we lost our quarterback for the year. So now we are going to go into a situation that we really need to rethink everything we tool for. We have two young quarterbacks [redshirt freshman Troy Flutie and freshman Jeff Smith] and neither one has played a meaningful snap. In an offense that doesn't have a lot of confidence yet because they are young, now they are going to become younger with the trigger man having no real game experience. I just got a lot of work. This job got even harder; that's football and that's life. People throughout the country are doing that this week. [Losing quarterback Darius Wade] was a big hit for us right and we lost our center [Frank Taylor] in the game, which put a true freshman offensive lineman. That created a couple of issues, which you would expect against Florida State.
"I'm not complaining - Please don't' take it like that - I'm just trying to be as factual as I can be. Your hand is your hand. I love our future and I love where we are headed. Do I love it right today? No I really don't. I don't like the fact that we lost the game. I don't like that we didn't have enough offense productivity. I know what could have helped us. It would have been nice if we didn't have a 19-yard field position average starting with not one of them being higher than the 30-yard line. It would have been nice but that didn't happen.
"I'm not a big deliberator but I'm not ready yet and that's got nothing behind it. It's Monday, which is a big game-plan day and I have to really process this and I want to probably watch a little bit of practice. It's always good to see how the guys respond to a challenge. Just to anoint someone doesn't make a lot of sense to me right now but nor do I believe in being to wishy washy.
"Is there a scenario where you will see two guy in a game ? Yes, sure there is. Will that happen? I'm not ready to say that right now. Could it happen? Yes it could. If I start with one guy, it doesn't mean I don't have confidence in the other guy. I just might feel like that's what we need right now based on who's in the game. I don't know that."
On whether converted freshman wide receiver Elijah Robinson will return to quarterback…
"[He might.] Not yet because I really like him [at wide receiver.] I think he's going to be a big time wideout and God knows we need one. I think he will be. He's getting closer and closer every week to really doing some great things. I hate to do that but I might have to."
On when he will make his decision for the starting QB…
"If I tell you one thing, I wouldn't be truthful. I don't have that answer yet. I have not made a definitive decision yet. I really want to watch how the next couple days go. That's just life that's just the way it's got to be. I'm going to go with a little bit of what's best for the team and a little bit how I think the guys are performing at practice. I don't really have any game meaningful snaps. I think Troy has a better overall picture of what we are doing. I think Jeff is extremely explosive, which we don't have many of those plays right now. So I mean there's room for both conversations here. Both guys are talented. Both guys are working hard and neither has any significant experience.
"You have to see if there's a lot of things that go on in practice. How you practice is how you play. If one guy is struggling in practice, for me to sit here and tell you I'll put that guy in as a starter, I'm lying to you. I'm not doing that. That will be enough for me to make another decision another way.
"But we are going to carve out a game plan that we think will best suit the talents of the guys that we have. That's what I'm completely engrossed in right now. That's what my mandate to the coaches is. That's what I'm personally engrossed in. What exactly can we do at the highest level? Whatever it is - it can be radical, I don't care. That's the way it's going go right now. It's all about one thing: win on Saturday. I don't care what it takes; it doesn't take a lick of difference to me how we get it done. We can stand on our heads for all I care."
On if both quarterbacks will play in the same game…
"If I were to go that way, I'd do it less on who has the hot hand and more on packaging; a package for a guy who has a certain skill set. You do that with a running back. If he's hot, you give him the ball and just let him go. For a quarterback, I'm not really into that at all. If I play two guys, we're going to have a plan for why we did it. We're not just going to do it. Having said that, if one guy just went out and lit it up and if one guy went out and did the opposite, he's coming. That goes without saying. It will be very defined. We're going to do this with you on the third series. We're going to have a plan for that if that's the way we choose to go."
On practice translating to the game…
"If you're struggling on Tuesday or Wednesday, you're going to struggle on Saturday. That's not going to change; not when you're young. If you're a veteran player sometimes you will have a bad day. But when you have no experience and you're struggling on Tuesday and Wednesday, you're probably going to struggle on Saturday. That's what's happened to us this year. The mistakes I see on Tuesday and Wednesday are the mistakes that are killing us in the game on Saturday right now."
On the defensive units Friday night…
"If our run game was where it should have been on Friday night, that game would have gone down to the wire. It would have been a game that was exactly what you thought it should've been. That was a hell of a game. Everybody wants to talk about BC's offense. I'm with you, but I mean Florida State's offense was about 19 yards better. It was a defensive game. Those were two good defenses out on that field."
On BC's toughness…
"Nothing is as good as it seems and nothing is as bad as it seems; somewhere in the middle reality falls. If we played a little bit better, it would have been a hell of a contest. We still had a hell of a contest. Anybody leaving their seat? That speaks to how physically tough our football team is. On offense, we're pretty physically tough. I wouldn't say we're very efficient, but we're physically tough. Our defense is physically tough and that was evident. It's a pretty good foundation and a pretty good starting place. We're well aware of the fact that we have to become much more productive."
On sophomore DL Harold Landry and working with young guys…
"He's been breaking through. What you see in camp, what you see on the practice field, what you saw in weeks one and two led you to believe that that would happen in week three and it did. My experience with young guys is that what you see is what you usually get. I wasn't seeing those great explosives with our backs in preseason camp like I'd like to say. I'm not seeing them in the games right now. That needs to start happening and they know that. I've addressed that. We need to break tackles. We need to get the 2-3 yards after contact. That all matters for us. That matters a lot because we're not a team that on 2nd-and-10 is going to throw some dig route down the field and we're good to go. We have to methodically move, probably even more so now than before. Darius (Wade) didn't have a lot of experience but he could throw the ball well. We were trying to, little by little, get that thing going. In that game, in that field position, that situation we were in didn't lend itself for that. That's where we were headed with him. I felt very confident that you would have seen a much more balanced Boston College football team by the time we got to the end of the season. That was our goal. You're not going to realize that now. Now, we're going to have to see what we can do with what we have and where we are."
On not having a backup QB with experience…
"It's frustrating. We don't have any older quarterbacks. We don't even have an older guy that's a backup quarterback that has a lot of experience. A year ago, if something had happened to Tyler [Murphy], Josh Bordner was going to get ready to roll. He's a veteran guy. He's been in games. We would have helped Darius along the way. That's how we would have handled that. Year one, I had Chase [Rettig] and I had Josh. I had Mike Marscovetra. This year, that's not the case. So it becomes a little extra disruptive. Plus we made the position move with Elijah [Robinson] who was here in the spring. Can you plan for that? You do but you don't. You're trying to develop those young guys, you're not trying to situational them until you have to. Now we have to, it's on us. We don't have that luxury. It's just where you are. Every school and every year is different. This is one of those years that this is where we are."
On playing with young quarterbacks…
"I'm not looking at it as a season; I'm looking at it like how do we adjust for this week. I'm into the week-by-week mode, which I always am anyways, but I'm really into. I'm really into it day-by-day now, just trying to get my arms around what each one of them can do at the highest level that they can do it. It doesn't matter what I want to do. It's what can they do. You have to give them an opportunity to succeed. I'm not game planning up here right now. It's hard to game plan right now. This is more about what can they do the best and just let it roll. We need to play great defense and let them go be athletes and make the plays they can make. If I started game planning with these guys right now, it would bury them. It's just hard. People don't understand how hard it really is. You have a rookie young guy in there. You take your time. You try to simplify things. You simplify things as much as they can be simplified unless you have some phenom in there. That's rare at that position. I've never seen that before. I remember at Florida, we used to put (Tim) Tebow in the game and he had three of four things that we asked him to do. That's how we got him going initially in his first year as a true freshman. We had Chris Leak who was an accomplished player. This is different than that. Our hope was that we would be indoctrinating guys along the way with a little package. We hadn't gotten there yet because our starter was only into his third game. Best laid plans never go exactly the way you planned."
On the team being strong on defense…
"We knew that going into the season. That's where our most veteran players are. You have to be smart now. You have to play to your strengths. You do something crazy, you're hurting your defense. The last thing I'm going to do right now is hurt that defense."
On how he felt at halftime against Florida State…
"I felt great at halftime against Florida State. I thought we had control of the game on defense and I thought we just needed to settle down on offense; make a few adjustments, just draw up where our problems were and fix them. I said at halftime, 'just keep pounding at the rock and the rock's going to crack.' I truly believed that that rock was going to crack and we're going to start hitting those plays and getting some chunks. We had a couple of specials that I thought would really hit. We had a couple of opportunities there that could go. Then we had the punt and the kid muffed it that I thought we could get on top of. Those are the kinds of things that happen. We had the kick that we tried to down inside the one that they pulled out to the 20. Those are the kinds of momentum shifts that you're looking for. That's what turns the game. I was not anywhere near discouraged. I was encouraged. I told the kids that if we get the game into the fourth quarter, we'll have a good opportunity to win the game. We were well on track to do that. The last thing I thought in 100 years was that at the end of the third quarter, we would fumble the ball that way. In that drive, I thought we had a couple of plays that were going to go. We made a mistake on that one reverse to (Sherman Alston). It opened up and I thought he was gone. We made one mistake and it ate him up right there with that speed that they have. It was an error. Make the plays that are very makeable; that was very makeable, but we had an error. We didn't make it because a guy didn't handle it right. That's where are though. That's my job. I have to clean that up. I have to get us to the point where we aren't making those mistakes. That's what I need to work on. We're really not that far away, but with this quarterback injury, it just puts another layer on that. With a young team, you're digging, trying to get ahead of the mistakes and inconsistencies. You feel like you're digging and digging and here comes another pile of sand on your head. You keep digging and eventually you're going to get to the top. It'll just take a while."
On talking to Urban Meyer about Northern Illinois…
"He said, 'you have to buckle it up, guy.' I appreciate that very much. They're really good, tough, physical, well-coached. They're a good, veteran football team. That wasn't one of those flukes. They play hard. They made their opportunities through physical, tough, hard-nosed football."
"Just wrapping up last week's game before we move on to this week's game. Having a chance to look at the film and really study what was going on and get better sense of that game, which is what we wanted to do. It's a learning experience. We are trying to learn from it. There were a lot of positives in that game. Obviously, I thought we played real well defensively. We held them to 217 yards, as we talked about after the game. I thought that was really great. The defense was in great field position the whole night. The defense starting field position was somewhere between the 20-25-yard line, which is where you want to play defense from. That's how we started the game. We deferred the kickoff because we wanted to start on defense and we were hoping to keep the field tilted to start the game. We started the game and, unfortunately, they went down the field and scored and we lost that advantage. But I felt the defense played from great field position which is really a good thing.
"And we played hard and we played fast all night long. I was pleased with that. Any time you can hold their backs down to 98 yards, 3.3 yards a carry, it's a good thing. It's funny; here's the No. 9 team in the country and here is our young football team playing each other. They had 217 yards and we had 195 yards. I mean you know it's kind of an interesting game.
"What was different about the game? The average starting position for Boston College's offense was the 19-yard line. We played on a long field all night, which is not a great place to be for a young football team. That's contrary to everything I told you about what the plan is for us to win is. We are starting on the 19-yard line. Good luck with that. That's really difficult to do. The national average chart says that you have 10 to 13 percent chance to score a touchdown. So now you going to take a young football team with a quarterback that's got about six career snaps snaps and you're going to beat 10 and 13 percent odds. I don't think so. Against what might be one of the best defenses in the country. I'm not sure that's going to happen. But that's the way that is.
"Once again we have to do a better job on punt return and kickoff return. Those are the two plays that helped control that. We gave away so many yards once again on those deals that the average starting field position should have been in the 30's instead of the 19's, which means you are one first down away from re-tilting the field back at all. If you're a real football guy or gal and you understand the big impact that had on BC's offense.
"That's not all the story. Did we play particularly well on offense? Well, the obvious answer to that is no. Did we do some good things on offense at times? Yes. Where are the problems? Inconsistency.
"People say the offensive line is terrible. No they weren't. That's not an actual statement, although they were inconsistent. That's an actual statement. It's a collective combination of things. I don't think we are particularly running the ball really well. I said the strength of our team is in our running backs. But right now it really isn't. We are not playing at the level that we need to be playing at. And that's been addressed. The offensive line is young and inexperienced and they are working at it but there are times when the plays blocked perfectly well. You have to get more than the six, seven or eight yards that are available there. It's okay to get some yards when it's not blocked so well. That's what happened across America in college football. So we have to work on that.
We had a hard time getting the ball to our wide receivers. No kidding, Coach. It starts with trying to throw the forward pass. I got it, okay.
"But understand this. We were playing Florida State. We were playing exceptional defense. We are not going from a minus-19 field position and going to start chucking the ball around with an inexperienced quarterback to inexperience wide receivers and give the game away. We don't have Tom Brady. That's not where we are right now. So we are going to play it close to the vest and try and get that game into the fourth quarter. By all rights, we had the game into the fourth quarter with a seven-point deficit. In fact, when we fumbled the ball, we started on the minus-whatever yard line and we are working our way towards midfield at that point and time. I really felt that it was only a matter of time where we would conservatively pop a couple of runs that would put us in position to tie that football game up. That's kind of what I thought. Now, that didn't work out. But that's what I thought.
"I had people ask me at halftime, you had two minutes let's call it. Listen, we were not playing well at offense at that point and time. You won't find a lot of football people against a team like Florida State who are going to say, let's go huck-and-chuck in a two-minute drill hoping to God we're going to complete a pass to get down so we can kick a field goal. I made a decision and I know it's the right decision to get our tail into halftime at 7-0 and get our game reorganized to see if we can comeback to get the ball in the second half. Let's not kill our defensive effort right now by doing something stupid here with a young, inexperienced team. That's what you do when you have a veteran quarterback and veteran offense. When you don't, what you do is you get into halftime you reorganize and hope when you come out in the second half you're going to have a better plan when you get the ball and all things being equal. Flip the field, tie the game and get that thing where it's anybody's game in the third quarter. That's very logical, very sound judgement. That's not the way it worked out but that's the right thing to do. And that's what we did. And that's where we are. I've been telling everyone right along: We are young on offense, we're inexperienced on offense and one and two weeks is not going to make a difference. We just went from a small-level football team to prime time Florida State and we had to adjust to the speed on both sides of the ball. And that's what happened on the first drive on defense.
"We settled in quicker on defense. We have more veterans on defense. We didn't settle on offense. We never got our cleats on the ground. Although there were times I thought we did some good things. But on offense we didn't do anything explosive."
On this week's opponent, Northern Illinois…
"Our objective is to make strides. Here we go on to week four. We are playing Northern Illinois, which is an outstanding football team. This is not coach talk or any of this other nonsense. We are playing an elite MAC team, which is really like to me a Power 5 - middle rung - Power 5 team. That's what we are playing. I happened to watch them against Ohio State. I've watched them all year. I talked to the coaches at Ohio State. I have a great trust in them. I have a great feel for what they tell me and I believe what they tell me. What I understand is that this is a really good football team. And they are for real. And the strength of this team this team is on defense. They are big, physical and tough. They earned everything they got from Ohio State.
"Their quarterback is a veteran player who is a big, strong kid who has deceptive speed. They have a good running back; he's a 6-foot-2, 200-pound kid. He's a big back. [Their] wide receivers are talented. I can't tell you enough about how the defense is excellent."
On the game plan to win…
"That's why we have to physically do what we can to help our field position. Do the things we think we can to help our quarterback and create explosive plays on offense and keep out defense firing at a high level. That's got to be our winning formula as we re-develop and as we continue to grow. And I'm very, very optimistic. I'm excited. I'm optimistic but I'm realistic and I know that this is going to take time. No one has patience - me most of all - but we are going to develop this football team the right way with the right basic foundation and we are not going to do dumb things, like just putting our defense up against a wall by just throwing out there for the sake of it and giving us very low chance of winning our chance of winning. The way we have to play right now is to play great defense and play really well on special team. We've got to be able to establish our run game. We are losing first downs right now. We are completely flipped on first down. Right now, we are a four yards or more carry team on first down team - that's how teams like us have to operate. Sixty-eight percent of the time we are three yards or less right now. That's happening because we are having little breakdowns."
On the quarterback situation…
"We've lost our quarterback [Darius Wade] for the year, that's where we are. No one is complaining but we lost our quarterback for the year. So now we are going to go into a situation that we really need to rethink everything we tool for. We have two young quarterbacks [redshirt freshman Troy Flutie and freshman Jeff Smith] and neither one has played a meaningful snap. In an offense that doesn't have a lot of confidence yet because they are young, now they are going to become younger with the trigger man having no real game experience. I just got a lot of work. This job got even harder; that's football and that's life. People throughout the country are doing that this week. [Losing quarterback Darius Wade] was a big hit for us right and we lost our center [Frank Taylor] in the game, which put a true freshman offensive lineman. That created a couple of issues, which you would expect against Florida State.
"I'm not complaining - Please don't' take it like that - I'm just trying to be as factual as I can be. Your hand is your hand. I love our future and I love where we are headed. Do I love it right today? No I really don't. I don't like the fact that we lost the game. I don't like that we didn't have enough offense productivity. I know what could have helped us. It would have been nice if we didn't have a 19-yard field position average starting with not one of them being higher than the 30-yard line. It would have been nice but that didn't happen.
"I'm not a big deliberator but I'm not ready yet and that's got nothing behind it. It's Monday, which is a big game-plan day and I have to really process this and I want to probably watch a little bit of practice. It's always good to see how the guys respond to a challenge. Just to anoint someone doesn't make a lot of sense to me right now but nor do I believe in being to wishy washy.
"Is there a scenario where you will see two guy in a game ? Yes, sure there is. Will that happen? I'm not ready to say that right now. Could it happen? Yes it could. If I start with one guy, it doesn't mean I don't have confidence in the other guy. I just might feel like that's what we need right now based on who's in the game. I don't know that."
On whether converted freshman wide receiver Elijah Robinson will return to quarterback…
"[He might.] Not yet because I really like him [at wide receiver.] I think he's going to be a big time wideout and God knows we need one. I think he will be. He's getting closer and closer every week to really doing some great things. I hate to do that but I might have to."
On when he will make his decision for the starting QB…
"If I tell you one thing, I wouldn't be truthful. I don't have that answer yet. I have not made a definitive decision yet. I really want to watch how the next couple days go. That's just life that's just the way it's got to be. I'm going to go with a little bit of what's best for the team and a little bit how I think the guys are performing at practice. I don't really have any game meaningful snaps. I think Troy has a better overall picture of what we are doing. I think Jeff is extremely explosive, which we don't have many of those plays right now. So I mean there's room for both conversations here. Both guys are talented. Both guys are working hard and neither has any significant experience.
"You have to see if there's a lot of things that go on in practice. How you practice is how you play. If one guy is struggling in practice, for me to sit here and tell you I'll put that guy in as a starter, I'm lying to you. I'm not doing that. That will be enough for me to make another decision another way.
"But we are going to carve out a game plan that we think will best suit the talents of the guys that we have. That's what I'm completely engrossed in right now. That's what my mandate to the coaches is. That's what I'm personally engrossed in. What exactly can we do at the highest level? Whatever it is - it can be radical, I don't care. That's the way it's going go right now. It's all about one thing: win on Saturday. I don't care what it takes; it doesn't take a lick of difference to me how we get it done. We can stand on our heads for all I care."
On if both quarterbacks will play in the same game…
"If I were to go that way, I'd do it less on who has the hot hand and more on packaging; a package for a guy who has a certain skill set. You do that with a running back. If he's hot, you give him the ball and just let him go. For a quarterback, I'm not really into that at all. If I play two guys, we're going to have a plan for why we did it. We're not just going to do it. Having said that, if one guy just went out and lit it up and if one guy went out and did the opposite, he's coming. That goes without saying. It will be very defined. We're going to do this with you on the third series. We're going to have a plan for that if that's the way we choose to go."
On practice translating to the game…
"If you're struggling on Tuesday or Wednesday, you're going to struggle on Saturday. That's not going to change; not when you're young. If you're a veteran player sometimes you will have a bad day. But when you have no experience and you're struggling on Tuesday and Wednesday, you're probably going to struggle on Saturday. That's what's happened to us this year. The mistakes I see on Tuesday and Wednesday are the mistakes that are killing us in the game on Saturday right now."
On the defensive units Friday night…
"If our run game was where it should have been on Friday night, that game would have gone down to the wire. It would have been a game that was exactly what you thought it should've been. That was a hell of a game. Everybody wants to talk about BC's offense. I'm with you, but I mean Florida State's offense was about 19 yards better. It was a defensive game. Those were two good defenses out on that field."
On BC's toughness…
"Nothing is as good as it seems and nothing is as bad as it seems; somewhere in the middle reality falls. If we played a little bit better, it would have been a hell of a contest. We still had a hell of a contest. Anybody leaving their seat? That speaks to how physically tough our football team is. On offense, we're pretty physically tough. I wouldn't say we're very efficient, but we're physically tough. Our defense is physically tough and that was evident. It's a pretty good foundation and a pretty good starting place. We're well aware of the fact that we have to become much more productive."
On sophomore DL Harold Landry and working with young guys…
"He's been breaking through. What you see in camp, what you see on the practice field, what you saw in weeks one and two led you to believe that that would happen in week three and it did. My experience with young guys is that what you see is what you usually get. I wasn't seeing those great explosives with our backs in preseason camp like I'd like to say. I'm not seeing them in the games right now. That needs to start happening and they know that. I've addressed that. We need to break tackles. We need to get the 2-3 yards after contact. That all matters for us. That matters a lot because we're not a team that on 2nd-and-10 is going to throw some dig route down the field and we're good to go. We have to methodically move, probably even more so now than before. Darius (Wade) didn't have a lot of experience but he could throw the ball well. We were trying to, little by little, get that thing going. In that game, in that field position, that situation we were in didn't lend itself for that. That's where we were headed with him. I felt very confident that you would have seen a much more balanced Boston College football team by the time we got to the end of the season. That was our goal. You're not going to realize that now. Now, we're going to have to see what we can do with what we have and where we are."
On not having a backup QB with experience…
"It's frustrating. We don't have any older quarterbacks. We don't even have an older guy that's a backup quarterback that has a lot of experience. A year ago, if something had happened to Tyler [Murphy], Josh Bordner was going to get ready to roll. He's a veteran guy. He's been in games. We would have helped Darius along the way. That's how we would have handled that. Year one, I had Chase [Rettig] and I had Josh. I had Mike Marscovetra. This year, that's not the case. So it becomes a little extra disruptive. Plus we made the position move with Elijah [Robinson] who was here in the spring. Can you plan for that? You do but you don't. You're trying to develop those young guys, you're not trying to situational them until you have to. Now we have to, it's on us. We don't have that luxury. It's just where you are. Every school and every year is different. This is one of those years that this is where we are."
On playing with young quarterbacks…
"I'm not looking at it as a season; I'm looking at it like how do we adjust for this week. I'm into the week-by-week mode, which I always am anyways, but I'm really into. I'm really into it day-by-day now, just trying to get my arms around what each one of them can do at the highest level that they can do it. It doesn't matter what I want to do. It's what can they do. You have to give them an opportunity to succeed. I'm not game planning up here right now. It's hard to game plan right now. This is more about what can they do the best and just let it roll. We need to play great defense and let them go be athletes and make the plays they can make. If I started game planning with these guys right now, it would bury them. It's just hard. People don't understand how hard it really is. You have a rookie young guy in there. You take your time. You try to simplify things. You simplify things as much as they can be simplified unless you have some phenom in there. That's rare at that position. I've never seen that before. I remember at Florida, we used to put (Tim) Tebow in the game and he had three of four things that we asked him to do. That's how we got him going initially in his first year as a true freshman. We had Chris Leak who was an accomplished player. This is different than that. Our hope was that we would be indoctrinating guys along the way with a little package. We hadn't gotten there yet because our starter was only into his third game. Best laid plans never go exactly the way you planned."
On the team being strong on defense…
"We knew that going into the season. That's where our most veteran players are. You have to be smart now. You have to play to your strengths. You do something crazy, you're hurting your defense. The last thing I'm going to do right now is hurt that defense."
On how he felt at halftime against Florida State…
"I felt great at halftime against Florida State. I thought we had control of the game on defense and I thought we just needed to settle down on offense; make a few adjustments, just draw up where our problems were and fix them. I said at halftime, 'just keep pounding at the rock and the rock's going to crack.' I truly believed that that rock was going to crack and we're going to start hitting those plays and getting some chunks. We had a couple of specials that I thought would really hit. We had a couple of opportunities there that could go. Then we had the punt and the kid muffed it that I thought we could get on top of. Those are the kinds of things that happen. We had the kick that we tried to down inside the one that they pulled out to the 20. Those are the kinds of momentum shifts that you're looking for. That's what turns the game. I was not anywhere near discouraged. I was encouraged. I told the kids that if we get the game into the fourth quarter, we'll have a good opportunity to win the game. We were well on track to do that. The last thing I thought in 100 years was that at the end of the third quarter, we would fumble the ball that way. In that drive, I thought we had a couple of plays that were going to go. We made a mistake on that one reverse to (Sherman Alston). It opened up and I thought he was gone. We made one mistake and it ate him up right there with that speed that they have. It was an error. Make the plays that are very makeable; that was very makeable, but we had an error. We didn't make it because a guy didn't handle it right. That's where are though. That's my job. I have to clean that up. I have to get us to the point where we aren't making those mistakes. That's what I need to work on. We're really not that far away, but with this quarterback injury, it just puts another layer on that. With a young team, you're digging, trying to get ahead of the mistakes and inconsistencies. You feel like you're digging and digging and here comes another pile of sand on your head. You keep digging and eventually you're going to get to the top. It'll just take a while."
On talking to Urban Meyer about Northern Illinois…
"He said, 'you have to buckle it up, guy.' I appreciate that very much. They're really good, tough, physical, well-coached. They're a good, veteran football team. That wasn't one of those flukes. They play hard. They made their opportunities through physical, tough, hard-nosed football."
Players Mentioned
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