Boston College Athletics
Howard Game Week: Addazio Addresses Media Monday
September 07, 2015 | Football
Boston College football head coach Steve Addazio conducted his weekly press conferenceon Monday and discussed the Eagles' 2015 season-ppening 24-3 win over Maine and his team's preparation for Howard on Saturday, Sept. 12. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m. ET at Alumni Stadium. The game will be broadcast live on ESPN3, while radio listeners can tune in on the BC-IMG Radio Network.
Steve Addazio Press Conference
Monday, Sept. 7, 2015
Opening Statement:
“As I told you, I was looking forward last week to being able to go through that tape last week and it was kind of a real interesting game. There were a lot of good takeaways from the game and a lot of interesting points from the game. Let’s start with defense. We held them to seven yards rushing. They didn’t really try to run the ball but we held them to seven yards rushing. They had .3 yards per carry, which is fairly dominating. We had eight TFL’s, that I thought was pretty remarkable. We had five sacks and 12 quarterback knock downs, which I think is pretty remarkable.
"Aside from the opening drive, they had nothing. In the opening drive, they hit us with a y-high and we had a holding penalty in the secondary which led to a field goal. We came out in the game purposely wanting to play defense so that we could put them on the long field, pin them, and create momentum to put the offense the ball on the short field. That strategy just didn’t work out. But after we got through that series, we were stifling on defense.
"But when you really go through the tape, what is kind of interesting is that our whole approach – and this is really good football conversation right now – our whole approach is ‘All three phases work together.’ So on offense, we had, on the second drive, an 18-play series. Now I haven’t seen an 18-play drive in a very long time. I really didn’t realize it was as long - 18 plays. We only came away with three points , but it was 18 plays. And there were a lot of good things going on in those 18 plays.
"Obviously, we became discombobulated at the end. We had some wrist band issues coming in from the sidelines which created a sack that was completely unnecessary. We have to learn to throw the ball away and play the next down. But that is part of the youth that we have right now. So I thought that was interesting on offense. On offense, we averaged over 4.0 yards per carry, which is our goal. We hit our goal on offense. We had four explosive runs of 12 yards or more. We had 23 runs of four yards or more. Twenty-three runs of four yards or more! We held the clock in the first half for almost 20 minutes on offense. For the whole game, we almost had 40 minutes of time of possession. There was something wrong on the stat sheet. We went down and did it. We were 39 minutes worth of possession. That would put you in the top 12 in America. Our defense only played 51 plays. So that is really a good way to complement your offense and your defense.
"Now let me tell you what the problems were. Because you may say, ‘That sounds great, Steve.’ And I’m not a guy trying to manipulate anything. I just like to look at it for what it is.
"But here’s the problem. On offense, we had 10 runs that were zero yards or less. That created some problems for us. And those runs, I heard a lot of people say, “The offensive line wasn’t any good.’ Well, that is a bit of an over statement because there were some beautifully blocked plays because we had 23 runs of four yards or more. But the youth of our O-Line didn’t pick up some blitzes and things and that created some zero or minus yards runs. That’s what happened.
"That, coupled with the fact that you’re playing great defense. So you hold your opponent on their 20, 24. The drive chart says that at that point, they punt the ball. Our offense is starting on our 22-yard line, on our 8. We didn’t field punts, we gave away globs of yards on our punt return not fielding punts. So here is the defense keeping them on the long field, but because of that, our offense is on the long field. We should have been short field for offense because defense kept them on the long field. It never happened. So the offense, in a vast majority of the game, was on the long field.
"The special teams didn’t help us keep the game shifted. The first series was the one series the defense didn’t play well so they’re on the long field. It’s hard to get the short field.
"Offensively, I told you what the negative was. The negative was there were 10 plays and zero yards or less. I thought that was negative. And we only had four possessions in the first half, because one of them was an 18-play possession. But in the second half, there was three possessions where we were ineffective. That is where, if you want to know in my opinion, where the bog in the game was, it was right there. And what was going on at the same time as that were these field possession swings that should not be happening because we weren’t fielding the ball on the punts.
"So when you really break it down, that is what went on. I am not a manipulator shaper. I had to go look at it myself, educationally. And ask myself, “What is going on here?” That is precisely what was going on.
"We want time of possession. I know everybody wants points. We would all like points. But we all want to play great defense. We want to have great time of possession. We want to have field position. We never got the field position battle. And that has got to get addressed. The field position battle should have been for us the way we were playing on defense but it was against us. That wasn’t the fault of the offense. We have to do a better job on the special teams.
"On offense, we’ve got to become a more consistent offense and squeeze out some of those mistakes. You squeeze out half of those minus yardage plays, you probably ran for 300 or 350, probably threw for 200 or 250. You’re probably looking at a 500-yard offense day. That is probably what you thought you would be. And that is where you are.
"That is the facts of what really happened in that game. This is why stats can be very misleading.
"If I came out here and gave you the real stats, not sugar coat them but just gave them to you, you would come away ask, “What is the problem?” Because the stats aren’t really going to show it out. There is no stat for it but the zero or less plays we had on offense. But the field position, you won’t find that in a stat category.
"Nor does anyone pay attention to time of possession, which I pay very close attention to. When your defense can pay 51 plays, they can play great defense. When you can possess the game for almost 40 minutes of a game, you should win the game.
"The oddity was we didn’t put a lot of points up on the board. That was the oddity. That is what happened and that is why that happened. So that is the sum total, real nuts and bolts, of what happened in that game.
"Moving forward to this game, we are playing a Howard team here. What we need to do right now is take care of BC. We’ve got to continue on defense to make sure we are covered against all the man-beater plays that people want to play against us. The y-highs and the q-run games and those things, which we put away on that in the second half. And on offense, I really think what we have to do is stay fundamental and very basic and really let this offensive line gel, come together.
"Let me digress for a second. The other positive that came from that game, which was really important, was that we didn’t turn the ball over and we didn’t have a lot of penalties. We played a pretty clean game and that wasn’t the case across America. Okay? We need to continue to play a clean game with no turnovers and no penalties and now we need to sure up those 10 plays and get rid of the minus yardage plays. That has to happen.
"And that is the goal this week. Make sure that BC plays BC football on both sides, and of course, we really need to attack our special teams. And I would say to you that this is the best coached special teams I have seen in a long time and it’s a shame we didn’t get to the fruits of our labor here. That needs to happen. We have a big-time punter and he needs to punt the ball like a big-time punter. We have to kick the ball like we are very capable of doing and not to the 10 yard line with no hang time. We have got to be able to field the punts accurately so that we don’t have some 60- or 70-odd yards lost in special teams. I think we tighten the special teams up, we take away at least half of those zero or negative yardage plays on offense, I think we see a completely different result and we continue to play good defense, and then our football team takes the next step. A step toward growing. That is where we are.”
How many of the zero yards or negative yard plays were on first down?
“They were kind of mixed in on first and second down. And in a lot of them, it was amazing. It’s what you would expect it to be. It is a missed block there or a missed assignment here or a bad track run here. And then, my goodness, we had at least five plays that were gone, and we just, we’re like this off of them. Those are going to come. Then they start to become back-breaking. That is our trademark.
"Two years ago, here was our identity. We had a tailback that was a big-play hitter. We had a receiver that was a big-play, play-action hitter. Last year, we had big plays out of our tailbacks collectively - not one big hitter. We had a quarterback that was electric with his feet. So he became a big play hitter. So we might have lost the (Alex) Amidon last year but we supplanted it with the (Tyler) Murphy. And this year, what we’ve got to get to is, obviously we expect big plays out of our running backs. And I don’t think we got enough of them. But then, on the flipside of that, while Darius (Wade) is very capable runner, is he a house-call runner like (Tyler) Murph? I don’t know. He is more of that 10, 15, 20-yard guy. We have to go find those hits. We have enough receivers. We have speed. We beat others over the top. Anybody over the top. We need to go find those big-hit plays in play action right now. We didn’t get any of those Saturday."
Did the players who were last year get anxious because they knew what should have gotten done?
“I think that you saw Sherm (Alston) probably trying to do too much. He is an electric player. He’s going to make his plays now. You saw just the sprinkling of Thadd Smith. Not quite, just a little bit more. Elijah (Robinson) that can stack receivers deep. The mere fact that we had an 18-play drive - no touchdown - that tells you we’ve got to get some bigger chunks.
"What drives you crazy is you go 18 plays and only get three points. And then we had another drive where he had a dozen plays and we got zero points because we missed a field goal. That is what drives you absolutely out of your mind. That’s what leaves people walking away with this feeling of … we are so conditioned as a fan base. Today, more than ever: 30s and 40s and 50s of points. People equate that with winning all the time. If you’re scoring in the 20s against smaller division teams, it doesn’t matter what happened anywhere else on the field, ‘What’s wrong.’ It’s almost the players start feeling like that, which is really … it’s the way it is.
"I can’t control perception. It’s a crazy way to look at it, honestly. I’m more interested in what happens between the white lines, personally. I think that if you are taking care of business, those other things will come. And we are working really hard to develop the identity of this football team. The identity of this football team is you are always going to run the football. That’s going to happen. Where are the big explosives coming from, besides the tailback and how do we get them? We have to get these guys going. Sherm (Alston), Thadd (Smith), Elijah (Robinson), those guys are explosive players. They can go the distances on you. We’ve got to get that, just got to get it. That is a big focus for us right now. Along with becoming a little bit more of fine-tuned machine, so you are not second and 10, second and 9, second and 8 … it just gets you out of whack. You’re taking a minus-2 yard play on a play that had no basis. On the very first play of the game, we ran our bread and butter read zone play concept for us. Nine yards … And then we just do something so ridiculous on the second play. It was a mental mistake, that is all it was. That is where the youth is. Right now, we are not making up for that with a big strike. We had a couple of good throw strikes that we have to go catch those balls. We can’t leave those in the balance.”
On Charlie Callinan
“Charlie Callinan just got back last week. He missed the whole training camp with a hamstring injury. He just got back so no, he wasn’t targeted at all. We just are trying to get him back in and start playing again. He played about 20 snaps. He missed the whole training camp. He’ll be ready to go this week.”
On Elijah Robinson
“He started out early, had some freshman mistakes. So he didn’t play as much. He’ll be fine, but that’s what happens. You play those freshman and they make freshman mistakes. David Dudeck played over 40 snaps as a receiver. Thaddius Smith played over 40 snaps as a receiver. It’s too much. Too much. We’ve got enough guys that we don’t need to do that, so that we can have fresher legs so that we can be more explosive down the field. We don’t need to blow those guys out. You start playing 40 snaps as a receiver - never mind the fact that both those guys probably had another 13-15 snaps on special teams – it’s too much.”
On Thadd Smith and Sherman Alston’s personal knowledge of their skill sets
“Sherm (Alston) knows it and has it, and Thadd is really developing it. Those two guys know they have explosive speed, which gives them play-making capability. Sherman is a little more impatient then Thaddius is. I think Sherm’s got to play within the scheme and don’t worry about trying to get more than what you’ve got. I’m not worried about Sherm; he’s a competitior. Sherm will get that thing back on track in a hurry. He’s shown that he can make big plays in big games and he’ll make his share. That will happen. Elijah (Robinson), in the vertical passing game, is pretty impressive. He can really stack DBs. People want to load the box and he can get on top of them. He is 190-something pound guy. Tall, six-foot-two, 190-pound guy that has got long speed. He’s just got to just settle in. He’s been a wide out for three weeks. That will come.”
On the impact that the win had for the momentum of the young players
“I think they can move on, but it won’t come in leaps and bounds. It will come incrementally. I think the great news was you played with a quarterback that never really played before. You had a bunch of young skill guys. You really didn’t have any turnovers. You really didn’t have a bunch of penalties. You didn’t have a bunch of miscues. We had one. I think it was great for Darius (Wade). He managed the game pretty well. I thought the lesson that Darius can take out of that game is don’t take unnecessary sacks. The beautiful thing about running a naked play action pass is that you are outside the pocket and if the play isn’t there, you can throw it out of bounds and play the next down. You never should take a sack on a naked. You’re on the goal line in the red zone, you’re playing a play action pass, and if it is not there, you throw it out of the back of the end zone. He learned that lesson right there. Those are two huge negative yardage plays that will easily go away. Other than that, I think he managed the game. I thought he ran hard when he had to run. I thought he threw the ball well at times. A couple times he floated it because the pocket collapsed on him and he couldn’t follow through and step through. So, I was really encouraged for his first game out.
"And really, to be totally honest with you, I'm not discouraged with the play of the offensive line. I know people want to make it that way. It is not really accurate. We just have to play cleaner, make less mistakes. That will happen. I said this going in that it would take a little time. A little time didn’t mean a quarter. It is going to take a little time. It’s not going to get all fixed this week either. But it going to get incrementally better.
"We’re a pretty physical team and a pretty tough team, both sides of the ball. We play really hard. We played hard in that game. We played physical in that game. That happened. We just didn’t play clean enough. I didn’t think the offense and special teams help us sink in right. Special teams kept us on a long field and the negative yardage plays on offense hurt us. But again, almost 40 minutes of time of possession in total for the game, I think it was like 38, 39 minutes and change. Come on, man. You don’t do that if something’s not going right. You don’t play 51 snaps on defense if something’s not going right. But everybody rolled by that. And you know why? Because there is [24] points up against Maine and at halftime, there is 10 points on the board. That is the way it is."
On other ACC teams putting up big scores
“We’re all 1-0. We’re all 1-0. And we here work real hard on having our offense complement our defense. At other places, they’re not concerned as much about it. Defensive coordinators get fired. Here, we have to plan to win. So I can’t be worried about Clemson. I can’t be worried about some of these other teams. We have a plan to win here at BC, and we’re going to follow our plan to win. We can’t be who we’re not. We’ve managed to play pretty okay against those teams with our little ol’ plan to win, so we’re going to stick to it. Would we have liked to put more points on the board? Sure. But honestly, there were two or three touchdowns just right there for the taking. You’d have walked away with a completely different mindset. So nothing’s as good as it seems. Nothing’s as bad as it seems. Somewhere in the middle is reality, and we’re kinda somewhere in the middle - in our reality right now. That’s where we are. Probably about where I’d thought we’d be, to be honest with you. That’s about where we are is where I’d thought we’d be. Now, I’m more interested on how we move it forward, because if certainly we stay where we are, it isn’t going to be good enough. But that’s what this is all about. It’s about moving it forward and that’s what’s at hand, and that’s what we’re working at right now."
On focus going into Howard game and players transitioning to college ball
“Hey, listen, Howard’s got a fine football team. But we’ve got to take care of Boston College right now. We’ve got to execute. We’re not doing anything fancy out there, I’ll tell you that right now. We’re going to go back to fundamentals this week. Fundamentals, basics and work on get a higher level of execution. I want a higher level of execution on all three phases. That’s what I want. We’ve got to focus on that right now. I don’t want to get in there, get all game-planny and we’re going to do this and this. No, right now, I want to go back and those 10 plays that weren’t right, why weren’t they right and let’s get them right. That’s the mindset we have right now. Let’s get those plays right. Let’s take care of BC right now. Let’s develop BC. Let’s take another step with BC. Let’s get our young guys what it takes to compete on the major college level in your preparation. Guys come out of high school and they’re not used to that. It’s not in their hemisphere, the preparation it takes to have a high level of execution. That’s part of the battles is learning that preparation. Learning that the day doesn’t start for you when you walk in the facility and end when you walk out of the facility. You want to be a great major college football player, you’ve got some stuff you’ve got to do on your own. You’ve got to put preparation in. You can’t show up and, ‘I’m here. Feed me.’ It doesn’t work out real well for that. We’ve got a 20-hour rule. There’s only so much you can do. The young guys will learn that. They’ll come out there, they’re not satisfied with their performance. Guess what? Here’s the great news: you can fix it. You don’t like the way things are, change them. If you want to play better, maybe you have to prepare better. It’s my message to them."
On the team’s defensive pressure against Maine
“We weren’t wild in our blitz packages. They ran sprint out pass, naked and a quarterback run. I don’t even know how many running attempts there were. We say here 20, but it really wasn’t 20 because some of them were quarterback runs and things. We were pretty vanilla for us. Pretty vanilla for us. We had some pressures. We came in on that one pressure unfortunately where the quarterback got a little dinged – I think he’s OK – but we came at him one time and we came pretty fast. But there’s some little stuff in there, but for the most part, we played pretty vanilla. There wasn’t a lot coming at us. They made a decision in that game to not run the ball against us. That’s what happens when you don’t run the football, they had no time of possession, which gave us multiple cracks to get back out there, to get where we could crack the egg. That’s where sometimes I believe, you want to talk about putting stress on your defense: three out, three out, three out, three out, three out. When I looked at the drive chart when we were on defense, there were a lot of 1:30, 1:40, 2:00, 2:40 drives. Because your defense is brrpt, right back out there again. Our defense was having a 1:30, 1:40, 2:00, that’s it. Fifty-one plays of 1:30, 1:40, 2:10. And in between there, they’re able to get on the bench, get your wind and coming out pretty strong. Sometimes when there’s none of (smack), none of (smack) coming at you, the defense stays pretty fresh. That’s what happens. “
“He’s on the move a lot. There’s a lot of roll-outs, a lot of pocket movement. Not a lot of sit-in-the-pocket. When you roll out and stuff like that, it’s hard to have timing. Do you know what I mean? They’re not timing throws. It was obviously a conscience decision by them, which you make decisions and you live with them.”
On Tyler Rouse’s big day
“(Tyler Rouse) was the offensive MVP. He played like 16 plays on special teams, 40 plays (on offense). The guy did it all. He did it all. He ran fast, he ran explosive and ran with balance and power. You felt him, right? You felt him. That’s the best thing I can say about Tyler Rouse: you felt him. Some of the other guys we didn’t feel. I thought Rouse had a hell of a day on offense. On defense, I thought (Matt) Milano and Mehdi (Abdesmad). We had a lot of guys who had good days, but those two guys especially. Those two guys had a hell of a day. Created a lot of havoc, a lot of TFLs, disruption. We got a little depth on that D-Line now do those guys can stay pretty fresh."
On Matt Milano
"He’s a guy that can cover, and he’s a guy who can be a run defender and a blitzer. So it gives you great flexibility. You’re not in a situation where you’ve got to exchange that guy out, tip your hand. We’ve had three of them. We’ve had (Josh) Keyes, KPL (Kevin Pierre Louis) and we’ve got (Matt) Milano right now. Those three guys are good run defenders, good pass defenders. They can play man coverage. It gives you the flexibility if you’ve got a guy who has those tools. He has those tools … He’s a backer. He’s half a (line)backer, half a safety.
"KPL was a tailback in high school, I don’t know what he came here as – probably a safety or something. Milano came her eas a safety. Keyes, he’s like a hybrid. They’re all like those hybrid guys.
"The word hybrid to me, whether you’re talking about offense or defense, I have a lot of interest in that. On offense, a guy like Josh Bordner – who can play some Y, play some receiver - I love those guys. I think they create conflict for the opposing offense, the opposing defense because they’re not sure how to fit those guys. If you play with light nickel, nickel kind of guys used to be – not any more – used to be teams would line up in big sets and pound the dog out of you. Now a days, people want these lighter hybrid kind of guys because they’re more space guys with all the spread offenses."
On Milano’s second sack
"He might have come on a blitz. I think he dipped and ripped underneath. Those guys are pass rusheres. All three of those guys over the last three years have been those guys who can do that. They have that talent to do that. We can do a lot with those kind of guys. We have a couple of those body types out there that do a couple of those kinds of things. We like corners that have a little bit of size to them so they can be run defenders. We don’t have little corners anymore. John Johnson’s got some decent size. He’s a corner-safety kind of guy. When we get Isaac (Yiadom) back, he’s got some size, a fast guy. So we’ve got that capability right now. We’re building that way. You talk about on offense, but on defense, we’ve still got some sophomores playing on defense right now. A bunch of sophomores. Which is nice – which is nice. John Johnson’s a sophomore. Matt Milano’s a [junior]. Kam Moore is a sophomore, (Isaac) Yiadom’s a sophomore. We’ve got a lot of those guys. We’ve got (Kevin) Bletzer. We’ve got Sharrieff Grice. Those guys are right behind them. Those guys are physical, athletic-looking guys now. We’ve recruited and build some good depth in there. That’s why we’ve got to let this marinate. It’s got to marinate. It’s got to come to fruition. We all want to rush that. I get it. So do I do. But sometimes – that’s why they call it experience. You don’t get experience unless you have time."
On starting against two straight FCS opponents
“I think it’s good to start the season with an FCS opponent, for sure. Two of them? I think that’s nobody’s fault. That’s just the byproduct of a team breaking a contract. What are you going to do? It is what it is. I can’t change it, (athletics director) Brad (Bates) can’t change it. That’s the cards we got dealt and we got to deal with it. Is it ideal? No. I mean, in order to be bowl eligible this year we have to win seven games. But if you look at it glass half full, it gives you a couple of extra weeks to get things going a little more. But obviously, you’d like to play a Division I opponent, maybe not a Power 5 opponent. But a Division I opponent.
"To me, we’re playing who we’re playing. It’s major college football. They’ve got scholarships, we’ve got scholarships. And we’ve got to get ready to play. We’re no box of chocolates. We’ve got to go out there, take care of the football, play our level of football or this team will come in and beat us in our stadium. That’s the way it is. Move on. Get better. We’ve got to get better. My whole thing is I don’t want to hear conversation about anything. We’ve got to get better. We’ve got a lot to do right now. Let’s get better as a football program, as football players, coaches. Let’s just improve. And that’s why we have to put a lot of time into BC right now."
On contractual breakdown with New Mexico State
“I don’t remember, but there was a lot of talk. But when it became a reality, I don’t remember what the date was on it. Allegedly, there was a mistake in double scheduling – not on our part. I really don’t know and I probably don’t want to know. I just know the reality was we had a game, we were scheduled to have a game and then all of a sudden we didn’t have a game. And then you’re out there trying to find a game and it’s not easy. It’s not easy to find a game. It’s really difficult. Plus, you’re trying to play a home game. So it becomes very difficult. Just an unfortunate situation.”
On concerns about team looking ahead to Florida State
“I think the good news with our guys is that they’re really locked in to understanding that we’ve got to get better. It felt great that we won a game, but I don’t think anybody walked out of the film session on Sunday and felt too great. We made sure they didn’t. So I think our guys get it. One thing about dealing with our guys is they’re pretty smart guys. We’ve got a lot of work to do. You guys know we have a lot of work to do. There’s a lot of promise, but a lot of work. So I think early on, right really we’ve got their attention that way. If we were doing something late in the season, it might be tougher. Just look at a year ago. A year ago, we came off beating USC and played Maine and the first play of the game we fumbled the ball, we threw a pick. We were a very, in my opinion, we were a nonchalant approach to that. I don’t think we have to worry about any of that right now. These guys love football and they know we’ve got to get better. And you have to have a great understanding of is the only way you’re going to have any success is if each week you grow. Sometimes when you have a veteran team, they can get on a bit of cruise control. We don’t have that."
Injury updates
"(Myles Willis) will be an end-of-the-week decision. I’m hopeful. I really am hopeful … I think we get ( Chris Garrison) back in six weeks or so … Probably a week (on Tim Joy). Probably about six weeks for (Ben) Glines. Something like that. I don’t know the exact time, but those guys will all be back. The one that’s not coming back is Mike (Giacone). He hasn’t had surgery yet. They always wait and see how things are going rehab-wise."
