University of North Carolina Athletics
Bouncing Around the Room at ACC Kickoff
July 27, 2009 | Football
July 27, 2009
All 12 ACC football coaches met with the media on Monday at the Grandover Resort in Greensboro. By the nature of the event, it's impossible to hear every word from every coach. So here's a sampling from each of them.
Miami's Randy Shannon on building a program: "You have to change the culture no matter what you want to do. . . If you're able to change the culture, then you'll be successful, and guys understand what you want. It becomes easy. You don't have to worry about it as a head coach, because you can sit back and players are doing all the right things . .. Knock on wood, but we've been pretty good the last three years about players doing the right things off the field."\
N.C. State's Tom O'Brien on the `state championship': "We've only lost one game in the state in two years, so I think that's really important for our state. As I said last year when everybody got mad about the state championship thing, `Hey, we're playing you this year. We'll be here.' The field's 100 yards by 53. We're going to Winston-Salem, and see you other two guys in Raleigh."
Florida State's Bobby Bowden on playing North Carolina for the first time since 2004: "I've been able to watch them some on television, and I was very impressed with them. We used to play North Carolina every year, then with our schedule change, we're in this division, they're over there. So this year, we don't play Virginia Tech, we play North Carolina. Just on film, I was very impressed with them last year. They look doggone tough. I think he's got them headed in the right direction."
Virginia's Al Groh on the versatility of QB/CB Vic Hall: "Midway through his true freshman year there were only three healthy quarterbacks for one particular game, and it's like `Hey Vic, can you help us out here?' just so that if something happens in this next game we're not just drawing it up in the dirt. He was like, `Coach, I'll help you any way I can.' Then all of a sudden, Jameel (Sewell, who left school prior to the 2008 season) was on the scene and we had a chance to utilize both of them in the game, and Jameel wasn't a guy who was going to be able to play corner, so Vic went over there, and he's the only person who didn't make an issue out of it."
North Carolina's Butch Davis on quarterback T.J. Yates' progression: "One of the steps you want, not intangible steps but actual performance steps, is to have such a great command of the offense and where everybody is, that you can get to the second and third read and some progressions on and of the plays before, you already know that one's gone. `This coverage takes that away. I'm not even going there right now.' You're starting to see some of that. The other thing that I love . . . is his ability to stay alive and extend the play in the pocket. John Shoop does as good a job coaching quarterbacks as anybody I've ever been around, and he's always talking about quarterbacks never throw from balanced, perfect five-step drops. There's always people flying across your face, somebody's bumping into you, you've got to move. And his accuracy in the spring was outstanding in those kind of situations: getting the ball to the tight end, getting the ball to running backs, getting the ball to wideouts in unusual positions . . . His eyes now are all-downfield, all the time, and I think that's a real plus."
Georgia Tech's Paul Johnson on his offense: "The perception is that when you run the ball, it's `three yards and a cloud of dust.' Anybody that's followed us through the years knows that that couldn't be further from the truth. I don't know the exact stat, but I think we led the league in plays over 20 yards. . . It's really not three yards and a cloud of dust, but sometimes that's the perception . . . . I would say if you go to any school that we coached at and poll the fans, they would tell you it was real exciting. I think if you win games, it's fun to watch. It's like any offense: If you're not winning, it's going to be dull and you need to change, but that's the nature of the beast."
Boston College's Frank Spaziani on his team being picked to finish sixth in the Atlantic Division: "What are you going to do about it? We'll used it to our advantage . . . I was surprised we were picked that high."
Clemson's Dabo Swinney on having a full year as head coach and putting his own stamp on the program: "We were able to go through the off-season program the way I wanted to do that, and the way I wanted to do spring practice, how I wanted to practice, how we wanted to meet and philosophies of what we want to do, put the staff together that fit that, so it's much more my stamp, so to speak."
Duke's David Cutcliffe on recruiting the state of North Carolina: "We've got a beautiful state flag in North Carolina, and I like that flag a lot. On our recruiting board, every kid on our board from North Carolina has the state flag prominently displayed by their name. I want our coaches to be aware of North Carolinians at all times. We're not going to change that emphasis. Every program recruits around the country . . . We can go to California, and we can go to New York, and we can go wherever they are and recruit players, but nothing takes away from our emphasis in recruiting the state of North Carolina."
Wake Forest's Jim Grobe on the expectations for his program: "We lost a couple of games late, and that makes it feel like an `OK' year. I think we were in great position to go to Tampa and we didn't get there. Back before we won the ACC and went to the Orange Bowl, had we just been close to being in that game, everybody would have been fired up. But since we've been there before, I think it was really discouraging not to get there again. And that's a good thing. That's not a bad thing. Expectations are good, you just can't let them get so far out of hand that you don't appreciate a good year."
Maryland's Ralph Friedgen on losing 95 pounds: "(Philadelphia Eagles coach) Andy Reid called me up. He said, `I hear you're losing weight.' I said, `Yeah, I am.' He said, `I need to lose two people.' So I put him on this diet. He's lost 75 pounds, he says he's going to catch me. So then he told the MediFast people that he wants he and I to do a swimsuit calendar . . . I said, `I'm wearing a Speedo, you're wearing the thong.'"
Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer on the strength of the conference: "Last year, I thought there were a lot of us in the ACC that were about the same, and I think every team in the ACC is going to be better. Most of us got our quarterback back, most of us were young last year, we kind of took turns knocking each other off, and we were just fortunate at the end to play well in the ACC Championship game and the Orange Bowl. But I think there's a lot of teams that are just kind of about the same, and whoever steps out of that pack, I think we're a step closer to affecting the national level. Last year, I didn't think we had a great team in the ACC. I think we had a lot of good teams. I think we're all stepping it up a notch and so I think we're getting closer to affecting the national stage."
