The Clemson Insider

The 2016 season is underway and the ACC went 11-3 in week one. In this edition of Around the ACC some comments from the ACC coaches from this week’s teleconferences.

Miami

Q. Coach, with Jamie Gordinier out for the season, which players need to step up behind your three freshmen linebackers to provide the depth that you need?

MARK RICHT: Well, we don’t have much left. Everybody that plays at linebacker position is going to get tested. The other thing is the special teams that Jamie played. One interesting note that I think most people got, Pat Bethel our true freshman defensive end was backing up Gordinier when it came to the punt block team. So Gordinier was out very early in the game, so Bethel’s got to jump in there, and first play that he’s ever played in college he’s on the punt block team and he endes up blocking the punt. We felt like somebody was going to come clean, we weren’t quite sure who. So everybody had to go hard just in case it was him, and he did a beautiful job on the first play. So not only do we need help at linebacker, we’re digging a little deeper in the depth chart when it comes to special teams as well.

Q. Coach, with Jamie Gordinier out for the season, which players need to step up behind your three freshmen linebackers to provide the depth that you need?

NC State

Q. How big is it with Scottie Montgomery being a first year coach or how do you expect to see things change? You’ve got one game film from him, is it similar to what they did before? Can you tell?

DAVE DOEREN: Yeah, it’s the way they played last week you’re not going to see everything in one game when you blow somebody out. So I think they’re probably saying the same thing about our offense too. They know we’ve got a lot left that we didn’t show and we know that they do. So it just seems like every year Game 1 or two you’re going to play somebody who has some new people on their staff that you’ve got to prepare for a lot of unknowns. We’ve been watching a lot of film on Duke and on Louisiana Tech and also on ECU because of their personnel. And same thing defensively. Studying Vanderbilt’s tape because that’s where their D-coordinator came from, but also he retained their D-coordinator, so studying ECU’s defense. You got to give the guys a lot of looks. You can’t be too specific on what’s going to happen because it may be different.

Boston College

Q. You lose a game right at the end like that, it’s tough to take. Normally a team heads home and thinks about it. In this case you guys had a long flight to get back home. I just wondered, how did the guys handle that? How long before they could turn the page on that game?

STEVE ADDAZIO: That’s a good question. I don’t know that you know that exactly. I can tell you this, we had two good days of practice, I can tell you that, and that’s usually a good indicator. I think our guys were a little fatigued yesterday, maybe a little more than usual for a Tuesday, and I think that’s probably a little bit of the travel related. But we had a good day today, and I think that’s yet to be told. There are hurdles in football season. There are injury hurdles. There are travel hurdles. There’s tough-loss hurdles. There’s big-win hurdles. You get to the point where you realize you’ve just got to kind of take it a day at a time, put the best in you can today. Today not tomorrow, man, today not tomorrow philosophy. Go out and grind and prepare and put your best foot forward. As a head coach you’re trying to watch and manage and say, okay, we’ve got to cut down here, we’ve got to do more here. Just the different things you try to do to tweak your team’s preparation and try to get your team to the highest level of competitive excellence you can come Saturday. So will that trip have an impact? I guess that’s yet to be told. But there’s nothing we can do about it. It is what it is. We’ve got to go play and we’ll get judged on that, and that’s the way it is. So we’ll find out. But we had two good days, and I anticipate we’ll be ready to roll.

Larry Fedora

Q. Just your takeaways in week one from quarterback Mitch Trubisky. I know you obviously said he’s been very patient for this opportunity that he got this year and what you can say from game 1.

LARRY FEDORA: I think in game 1 he learned a lot. I think he realized that coming off the bench in relief is a little bit different from being a starter. I think he’ll be a better player this week than he was last week.

Q. And then as far as the multidimensional weapon of TJ Logan, just what you can say about his ability in the run game and in the return game, as well, moving forward.

LARRY FEDORA: Well, TJ has always had the ability to make big plays for us any time he’s on the field. It was fun to see those kind of things pay off for him because he’s a hard-working kid. He’s in his senior year. He’s put a lot into it, and he wants to make plays for this football team. I’m happy to see that. He’s a lot of fun to coach.

Q. Talking about last week’s game, you played a really tough running back in Chubb. Will that help you the rest of the season when you play schools like Florida State who have big running backs like that?

LARRY FEDORA: I hope so because Pitt has got a whole backfield of guys that can go. Florida State does. There’s other teams in our league we’re going to play that have really good running backs. We think hopefully we’ll be better because of our opponent this past week. We feel like we learned a lot about our football team, so I think I’m looking forward to see what this team is going to do in the future.

Louisville

Q. Just your defense against Syracuse’s new style of offense, just what you can say about what you’ve seen on film and kind of how your defense matches up with that.

BOBBY PETRINO: They execute very well. You know, they’re going at a very fast pace. I’ve always liked their quarterback. I thought he was a very good player last year against us. He’s tough and has a quick release, and they’ve got good wide receivers, so it should be a good challenge for us. We’ve got to do a good job of communicating in a loud place and getting lined up quickly and playing fast, not hesitating.

Q. What can you say about the preparation going into this week for you? What did you try to do in practice to simulate what that speed of the game is going to be like?

BOBBY PETRINO: Yeah, we’ve had two teams running at our defense and trying to get the ball snapped within 16 seconds all the time and going really fast when we do what we call our crossover drills where it’s our two offense going against our one defense simulating Syracuse, and while we’re doing that we’ve got noise going on. It’s hectic when you’re at practice like that, but it really pays off for game time.

Florida State

Q. After the win on Monday, it came out that you’re 10-9 as Florida State’s head coach in games that you’ve trailed by 10 points or more at one point. What do you attribute that to?

JIMBO FISHER: I don’t know. Our kids believe we keep sawing wood, we keep fighting, but we’ve got to quit putting ourselves in those situations, too. But we play — they’ve been quality opponents and people we’ve done it with. Like I say, a lot of people mark Florida State coming out is a game. But that’s part of being here, and we need to eliminate ourselves and not give ourselves that many opportunities to come back. We need to play better early, and that’s going to be one of our goals to — you know, it’s just not across the board just different positions at different times, but at the same time, we’re very proud that our kids have fight, they have resolve, they have the ability to keep believing in what we do and remember it’s a 60-minute game, and as I say, keep chopping wood.

Q. In 2014 you had several of those comeback victories, but a lot of new players in the 2016 team. Did you have a feeling that they might have had that same type of resolve as some of your previous teams, or is that something you pretty much learned on Monday?

JIMBO FISHER: Well, I think until you’re actually in that situation, you don’t know until you’re put in that situation. But how we practice and the type of toughness, the mental toughness that we try to instill in our players, which you hope you’re doing — not saying that other people don’t, and everybody in the country tries, does the same thing, our guys, they take to it, and they have done that. From that standpoint, I’m very proud of them.