The battle for the ACC picks up this week around the league. In this edition of What We Heard we take a look at what we heard from the ACC coaches teleconferences this week.
Clemson
Question – I seem to recall before the season you were pretty confident with the first-string defense and was just wondering how that second-string defense, the depth would materialize this year. Now that you’re at this point in the season, what’s kind of the verdict on that?
DABO SWINNEY: Just, you know, exactly the same. Our first group has been outstanding. They’ve been really, really good, just like I thought they would be. And after four games, I think we’re — not just the games. Everybody just looks at the games, but you know, a whole camp and five weeks into the season of practice and developing our depth. So I think that we’re right on schedule. I think we’re doing everything that we can to develop the depth for us and get guys ready for when their time comes to play. The first two games we were able to play a ton of guys, and then these last two games, you know, didn’t play a whole lot of guys, just by nature of the game, but also coming into it we had a lot of guys like a Christian Wilkins, for example. Well, he’s a depth guy, and so now after four games, he’s not a rookie anymore. He’s a vet. Guys on the offensive line like (Justin) Falcinelli and (Jake) Fruhmorgen and some of those guys, Taylor Hearn, they’ve all gotten some experience in there. I think we’re right on schedule.
Florida State
Q. Do you look at any aspect of Miami and say, that may be the best in this area or that area and this may be the biggest test we’re going to have so far this season?
JIMBO FISHER: Oh, yeah, a lot of areas. I think they’re really good on defense. I mean, their secondary, got great cover guys. Linebackers are good players that can press you, do different fronts. Offensively they’ve got two great backs. Quarterback is a heck of a player. Got big offensive linemen. Receivers are big, lanky, athletic. I mean, the punter is a great punter. They’ve got great guys on special teams. They’reas good as — by far, they always have — and then year in, year out, you know what you’re going to get. I say that without saying that I’d expect that, if that makes any sense.
Louisville
Q. I was just wondering how you’ve had to change your recruiting approach at Louisville as opposed to what you were doing to attract players at Arkansas?
BOBBY PETRINO: Well, we’re going to go back to when I was here before and really hit hard in the states of Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, recruiting hard obviously here in the state of Kentucky, and then we kind of go — we do have everyone assigned to places throughout the country. Last year I think we signed guys from 11 different states. So it’s been a good place to be able to recruit to. We just feel like we need to get guys on campus.
Q. Did you come away injury-wise okay from NC State?
BOBBY PETRINO: Yeah, we’re in good shape.
Georgia Tech
Q. Your defense has given up 30 or more points each of the last three games. What do you do this week to shore that up going into Clemson?
PAUL JOHNSON: Well, we’ve got to play better. I mean, that’s disappointing. We knew we had lost a bunch of guys offensively even before the year started, and then we lost a bunch more to injury, and we had eight starters coming back, and we’ve got to play better. We played a really good half at Duke, and other than that, it’s not been up
to expectations.
Q. I know you obviously didn’t play Deshaun Watson the entire game because he got hurt, but when you watch Deshaun Watson on the film, what stands out the most about him for you?
PAUL JOHNSON: Well, I think he’s a good athlete, I mean, first and foremost, and then he’s a good quarterback to boot. So that’s two very good attributes. We knew about Deshaun for a while. He was here at Gainesville High School. We had him in our camp when he was younger, and we know what kind of athlete and what kind of
player he is. He’s got all the attributes you need to have to be a great quarterback, and certainly he’s starting his career that way.
Virginia Tech
Q. Frank, what did you see from Michael Brewer in practice yesterday? How did he look?
FRANK BEAMER: He looked okay. You know, it’s still going to be — see how he develops the rest of the week and see what happens. But I tell you, it didn’t surprise me, to be honest with you, how well he threw yesterday.
Q. The fans love Friday night and Thursday night and Monday night games. You’ve had now, this will be your second one that’s not on a Saturday. As a coach how much more difficult is it with the short week or do you enjoy the atmosphere of those special night games?
FRANK BEAMER: Well, number one, I do enjoy the atmosphere. And as I’ve always said, if you can play well, it’s great for the university. It’s great for recruiting, great for your football program. But the key is you gotta play well.
But you know, it’s a game that — or it’s the thing that whatever day we’re playing on, we kind of have a schedule that, you know, we keep intact. In other words, I don’t care what day it is, a Monday practice is always the same for us, a
Tuesday practice is always the same. Wednesday and Thursday. So you know, we try to approach it that way, and the kids know what practice it is, how they should be — how they should be prepared at that point for a game. So you know, it’s something we kind of gotten used to and like being the only game on.