Duke Blue Devils College Football Pregame Quote, 09/03/2019

We had a good day Sunday, recovering, practicing and looking forward to (North Carolina) A&T. We looked okay from an injury standpoint. You saw that Brittain (Brown) had an issue out there but he practiced today. Noah Gray took a big hit in the ribs but the x-rays looked good so he will be fine. Going forward, thank goodness, you come out of a very physical game healthy. I can tell you about A&T. They are a great program, not just a great team. They are champions. They do what champions do. There are three ingredients to what championship football teams do and they have a conference championship trophy. They were MEAC champions for a reason. First of all, they have talent. Second, they are extremely well coached. The third thing is that they play and compete at an extremely high level in all three phases. This is a really good football team and a really good football program. I think you have to test yourselves in those settings. We just played one that is a great football program, but you have the same thing in North Carolina A&T. Coach Washington, defensively… In 18 or 19 games no one has scored more than 30 points. Systematically, they are as good as I have seen. He has been around the game for a good while. He has a system defensively that they believe in. Their offense matches and compliments the defense and then their kicking game is outstanding. I think he has done a tremendous job and his staff has done a tremendous job.

On Duke’s offensive line play against Alabama:

After I watched the tape I thought our offensive line played well. We matched. We are better up front, we are physical. We matched their defensive front better than maybe I thought we were going to. We have something to build off there. We were not consistent enough up front. A large part of some of the inconsistencies of offense were not because of our offensive line play. We have some good players there. We can play even better. You are never pleased when you get beat that badly but I am encouraged by what I saw.

On using the triple option:

We have worked a bit at it and are very capable going forward. I think it depends upon the opponent and the difficulty is the certain amount of time you devote to it in practice. We are not going to just let it go.

On the defenses performance against Alabama:

Obviously, early we played well. We managed the line of scrimmage. Our defensive front did what I expected them to do. They were not going to get easy yards. The most difficult part of playing Alabama is to manage their skill. We worked a lot on tackling but obviously not enough. It is an eye-popping thing. Our defense stayed on the field too much because we were not productive offensively and got tired. But the biggest issue would be that we have to tackle better to limit explosive plays. We should have limited some of the explosive plays, not only if we tackled better but also if we pursued to the ball better.

On Duke’s run game:

I mentioned that our offensive line is better but we also have really good backs. What I want to see is balance. I want to see execution. I want to see us align well. I want to see 11 people, every snap, doing the right things. No busted assignments. I want to see our technique better. When you do all of those things, when you are crisper on offense, then you start running it better. Once you run it better you can build some explosive plays. We had two explosive plays in that game. One of them was a great catch by Scott Bracey. That is where I am focused, on Duke. If we will execute and perform as well as we possibly can, then we should have success against anybody we play. These guys are going to test us because these guys don’t give up points and they don’t give up big plays.

On North Carolina A&T’s strengths:

Their speed at running back. Their speed at receiver. They have a great return game, both in kickoff and punt returns. They are explosive in that regard. Defensively, as I just said, they play so well. They have good players. They had a defensive end drafted a year ago and they have other players like that. They compete in every aspect, front, linebackers and secondary. In this era, to keep people to under 30 points is impressive. I think the most points they gave up a year ago was 23 to ECU and they won the game. That gives you a lot to be concerned about. They have an outstanding punter. The kicker has a strong leg; every kickoff last week was a touchback. This is a team that is complete. Not just picking one part of it. They are a really good football team.

On defensive players that stepped up:

There is no question that you have a lot of captains over there. It is kind of a little bit of a misnomer that we lost a lot of our leadership. We have guys that have been leaders and played well throughout their careers. Tre (Hornbuckle) and Dylan (Singleton) particularly. They don’t only do it at the game, everybody knows what they bring to each practice. Vic (Dimukeje), who has been hurt, and Drew Jordan, it’s across the board. I thought Koby (Quansah) played fierce in that game as well. He is a week out of surgery and certainly I pointed that out to the team. We had individuals that were competitive on both sides of the ball. Let’s see if we can get the entire team to that level.

On former Blue Devils on NFL rosters:

I’m excited. I talked to a couple that made it and a couple that didn’t make it. Being right on the verge of that last cut is difficult. I think we have 11 or 10 on the 53 (man roster) and one on a practice squad now that they can add. I was having a good time texting back and forth with Joe (Giles-Harris) and Breon (Borders). You have two teammates down there and we have Coach Mid [Ron Middleton] down there. Also, Tom Caughlin is a longtime friend. I said, ‚ÄòI guess you guys are trying to make me a Jaguars fan.’ I’m very proud of all of those guys. I think Daniel Helm, he was let go by one team and he went to the 49ers, it speaks volumes of what he has done. You are talking about a guy that believes that he is an NFL player and intends to be one. He fights, scratches and claws to be in the game. It is pretty special.