Miami Hurricanes College Football Pregame Quote, 11/18/2019

It’s good to be back in a game week. We had a very good practice. The team came back – we gave them Friday and Saturday off – and they came back last night in great spirits, ready to get back to the task at hand. But more than anything, hopefully, what we’ve been stressing is it’s important that we have a passion to play. It’s more important that we have a passion to prepare and to remember the little things that have gotten us on the little mini run that we’re on right now. It’s about rediscovering those things now in a game week, so we can be the best version of ourselves Saturday evening in Little Havana, which is pretty exciting to see the Canes go back to the heart of Miami.

It’ll be a great occasion for our entire football team, certainly for our fan base. I know it will be for me personally. It’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s going to be a lot of fun. I can only imagine myself, but everyone else, as they exit off whatever way you get there ‚Äì the Dolphin Expressway, or [Interstate] 95, or maybe you just take all the back roads through the city. Whatever way ‘Waze’ sends you. They didn’t have Waze back then‚Ķprobably a lot better now that they have it. But it’ll be fun to turn off the Dolphin and head towards that area, pull in and playing a football game. We expect a great atmosphere and we’re very excited to be a part of this game Saturday night.

On if he would regard this season as a success and looking back at in-season moments where the team fell short:

Let’s unpack that a couple different ways. It doesn’t do us any good to think of what could have been. You could make a further argument that we wouldn’t be who we are without those moments happening ‚Äì so maybe we’re thankful for those things. It hurt at the time, but I don’t know that we would have faced the hard truths of what had to get right in this program had we batted down a ball on 4th and 17 or had we made a field goal. I think it was a great teacher to our football team about the little things that win and the accountability that wins. We don’t spend a lot of time looking back.

In terms of looking forward, really staying in the present, right now ‚Äì which is really the only thing that we can control – when we have done that, we have been pretty good. You don’t really want to spend a lot of time looking back, at the same time, you don’t want to spend a lot of time looking forward. It’s the wrong time right now to try and define what is [a success]. To me, you want a team to play as good as it can play. That, to me, is the goal. How good can this team be? Right now, we know we’ve got three opportunities left to get the best version of this team. I think the team is improving, like you say, and that’s exciting to watch. We have a lot of individuals that are improving and we’re coming together. But our best game is still out there. And I think, as a coach, that’s what you’re hunting for.

On the Coastal Division potentially having seven different winners over the course of seven seasons:

I think it’s up to us, as the teams in the division, to do something about it. The issue is that everybody’s trying to do something about it, which makes it highly competitive. The ACC Coastal is what it is because of the defenses in this league. It’s a defensive league. If everybody can play defense, than everybody can compete. Bronco Mendenhall is a great defensive coach. Pat Narduzzi is a great defensive coach. Georgia Tech, now, has a [former] defensive coordinator as their head coach. That’s just the beginning of it. There are other teams out there. That’s the whole point. Anytime you’ve got a teams that are going to focus on playing great defense, what are the games going to be? They’re going to be competitive. That’s a game where anybody can beat anybody because they’re going to be low-scoring games or come down to one possession here or there. Obviously Bud Foster has been a legend at Virginia Tech forever. There’s going to be great defensive coaches in this division, and I think that’s why it’s always a different road to get through.

On the status of DE Scott Patchan moving forward and if he has the potential for a sixth year of eligibility:

Yeah, that’s correct. Scott has the potential to have one more year of eligibility. It seems like he would have a good case for getting it, but you can never be sure of anything.

On the benefits of playing a nonconference game against a local opponent like FIU:

The one thing I know is that anytime schools from this state play each other, it’s a showcase for high school football in this state, and it should be. Whether that’s us and Florida, us and FSU, us and FIU, we played FAU a couple of years ago‚ĶI think it’s important that high school coaches can sit there and can watch guys on both teams. The families of a lot of the guys know each other. I think high school football in this state is so underappreciated, with the level of coaching that’s there and the skill and talent level that’s there. So anything we can do to promote football in the state is a good thing.