Duke Blue Devils College Football Pregame Quote, 09/07/2023

Well, thank you guys for coming. To recap Clemson and we talked about after the game, but it was a great night for our program. I thought we went out there and we did the things that we had to do to win. I think when you went back and watched the film it played out very similar to how we talked about it. I think us winning the turnover battle and us making the stops in the red zone that we did ‚Äì those things were critical. And then us being able to finish those drives at the end of the third quarter beginning of the fourth quarter to kind of create a little bit of separation in that game were really, really big and so proud of our guys, proud of how we came out and competed, proud that we went out there and believed in who we were and what we’re all about, and we were able to get the job done.

Now it’s time to keep moving on. We’ve got a huge challenge in terms of getting ourselves back ready to go on such a quick turnaround. There was a lot of emotion and enthusiasm after that game Monday night and now it’s suddenly Thursday and we’re done practicing and we must get ready to go again. We’ve just challenged the guys this week to go out there and play their best brand of football. I think that’s the challenge this week. Human response says you can’t do it again. We’ve challenged them to kind of prove that wrong. That’s kind of where we’re at.

On Lafayette, they’re coming off with a nice win last weekend where they made a goal line stand to win the game and so I’m sure they’re going come in here confident. I’ve gotten to know John Troxell a little bit over the years. Certainly, crossed paths with him some and I think he’s doing a really good job. He’s in a kind of similar spot to us, trying to establish his culture and trying to rebuild that program. They’re in year two also. There’s not a ton of film on who these guys are and what they’re all about. We were able to get into some of the stuff from last year, but I think they’ve kind of reestablished their identity a little bit, certainly on offense. Then there are some crossover ties and their offensive coordinator worked with me at Bowling Green. So, I know TJ DiMuzio really well. Kevin Baumann worked for me there as an offensive line coach. So anytime you go back into the northeast and play some teams, there’s some crossover to my roots and so a lot of respect for these guys. I know they’re going to come down hungry and really wanting to go out there on the stage and play their best football too. It’s going to be a challenge and hopefully we can respond the right way and play our game.

On handling the schedule of playing with less days to prepare:

Yeah, well, we got no help from the NCAA on that, which was really disappointing. We had submitted some waivers to try to get our class schedules altered, given the uniqueness of playing a Monday night game and they were all denied, which was disappointing. So, we were really scattered on Tuesday, having to try to get our kids in around class times and different times. We watched the film Tuesday, then we were able to go out there yesterday and really have like a Monday practice, because it was two days removed from the game and so that physically was what it was. Then we did a lot of extra walkthroughs, just to build some reps in situational football. Today was really a Thursday practice. So, we went out and did our normal Thursday practice. And then that’s it. We’ll do a little bit more walkthrough tomorrow than we normally do, just to again, build some volume on reps and schemes and looks but other than that, you got to get physically ready to play the game.

On if the format of recovery changed at all playing twice in one week:

Yeah, again, similar. It wasn’t what we wanted it to be because we couldn’t get them to allow us to have a window to bring our kids in. Our kids are in class from 11:45 until 9:15, at night on Tuesday. And so, you know, it would have been nice to be able to create a block where we could have got them in and got them recovered. We talked about student-athlete welfare, and some of those things and it certainly would have been nice if we would have had a window to bring them in and do some of those things. They did their due diligence and they got it in on their own when we had open windows, but it certainly wasn’t ideal by any stretch of the imagination.

On if anyone specific or special reached out after the win on Monday:

I wouldn’t single one person out because that would omit too many people, but I just think the outpouring of support from the Duke community. Whether that’s coaches on this campus, people on this campus, former players, former coaches, I think all of those people and then obviously the Duke alumni community as well. I just think it was great to see everybody come together with a sense of pride about what was accomplished and what that meant to Duke.

On the mental focus of the team after Monday’s game heading into the weekend:

I would think after this morning’s team meeting, they’re refocused. How about that? Probably the best way to word what today was.

On if the feedback from recruits was positive this past weekend:

Yeah, of course. We always talk about it from both fronts, right? There’s Mike Elko, the head football coach that’s responsible for this team. Right. There’s certain messaging and the way we have to conduct ourselves on a game-by-game basis to have the success that we want to right, but then there’s also the CEO side of this thing, which does have to look at some of this global stuff. Anytime you have a win like that, it has an effect on recruiting, it has an effect on the way people look at your program. It has an effect on who you can get involved with and invite to games coming down the line. From a big picture standpoint, yeah, we have to take advantage of all of that stuff. Everybody saw that and the night was very well received. The crowd rushed the field after the game and the euphoria on the field like that was obviously well regarded by a lot of people.

On how the special team’s impacted the game and if it can be a factor later in the season:

So when you walk into our building, there’s a plan to win right on the wall outside the team room and the number one thing on that is turnover margin. The number two thing on that is win the special teams game changers. Last year, we won them 10 out of 12 regular season games and we won them in the bowl game. That has to be a recipe for our success because I think that’s how you close the gap. You don’t have to win every snap on offense and defense and give yourself a little bit more margin for success if you win on special teams. By our counting, we were plus eight on the night and that was one of our widest margins in my time here. When you factor in the blocked field goals, when you factor in the net punts over 45 that Porter [Wilson] had, when you factor in the big return that [Jalon] Calhoun did have, which created a net punt under 35 on their end, us making all of our kicks, you know, some of those things matter more. I think ultimately that’s why if you look at the stats, and the stats are even or slightly tilted towards Clemson, I think those are maybe some of the hidden plays that are why the score wound up the way it did.

On Wesley Williams’ ability to block two kicks from his position on the line:

He did a really good job getting push with really low pad level and got great extension, and we always talk about it’s a timing mechanism. It’s like a push to reach. So, you’ve got to in your mind when you’re on the D-line, it’s you’ve got a clock in your head, I’m pushing to a certain point, at which point I got to extend and Wesley’s really long and the kicks were low. I mean, obviously there was a trajectory to the kicks that allows them to be blocked but he still has to execute technique in order to be there and take advantage of his length there. He did it on both of them.

On the status of the team injury-wise after Monday:

[Jaylen] Coleman had something toward the end of camp. So he’s kind of on a game-by-game basis. He’s practicing but it’ll be a game time decision this week if he’s available or not. We really didn’t have anything else. Coming out of the game, Jeremiah Lewis got casted at halftime. He nicked up his thumb and was the ACC Defensive Back of the Week this week with a broken thumb on the second drive of the game. Hats off to his toughness and grit and how he persevered through all that and still went out made an awful lot of plays.

On Scott Elliott’s impact in game one of the season:

Yeah, huge, huge and we talked about that a lot. Right. We have to continue to build depth on our roster because we talk about this internally all the time. At the end of the day, there’s going to be a game on Saturday, right? And no one really cares how many people are hurt or not hurt or who’s available or not available. There’s going to be a scoreboard and it’s going to have a result at the end of it. All of those guys that we were able to add in the portal, even if in our initial thoughts, maybe they’re depth guys are just coming in to compete and see what they can be. We were really fortunate last year with Jack Burns and when we needed him to step up and be ready to go, he did, and Scott Elliott did the same and really Scott’s had a heck of a camp and he probably would have started at center regardless. Some of that was strategy too. I think those two defensive tackles, we felt like [Jacob] Monk at guard was going to be really important in that game.

On how surprising it is to see guys work throughout their redshirt year to develop for the future:

Yeah, I mean, honestly, it’s not surprising to say that you emphasize something you work really hard at. That creates results. I think that’s what happened, and we talk in our program a lot to our young kids about like taking advantage of the redshirt year. Some kids do and some kids don’t. Right? If you look at your high school program, there’s not a lot of future NFL players on scout team in high school. But in college there are. In college, there’s a lot of kids who just come in as freshmen and aren’t quite ready. If you take advantage of the year, you can launch yourself into a heck of a career. Jessie Bates was a kid I use as an example. He redshirted as a freshman and he still got drafted after year three, so just being a redshirt doesn’t really do anything to you. Wes [Williams] took advantage of everything, and I think probably midway through the season last year is when we knew he was going to be a player and so it’s not surprising that he did everything we asked him to do last fall. He had a great winter. He had an amazing summer. He had a heck of a fall camp. Like all of that ultimately produces results and that’s to the degree now that the production is showing and maybe not the two blocked field goals, like maybe a little bit of that, but we certainly expected him to impact the game.

On if there were times last fall that he wanted to use Wesley Williams:

Yeah, there were times last year where we had him ready because we still get the four games with him. We had him as a backup and we started traveling him and there was certainly rush packages. Obviously, we were veteran heavy on the defensive line and so it just never really presented itself but yeah, he put himself in position to do some things last year as the year went on.

On want being ranked means for the program after a successful start to the year:

I don’t know that I care about the ranking. I care about the night and how important it was because I think that put us on a on a national talking point. I think the fact that we’re in the conversation helps because that means that people are hearing Duke football. That was the one thing that we felt like we had to really change to get this program going was when somebody hears Duke football, what do they think of? I think right now and for the foreseeable future, they’re going to think of that field rush. That’s a much better picture of Duke football than maybe what it was 5, 10, 15 years ago. So that stuff I think, probably matters a little bit more than the ranking. You know, you guys decide where we are, I don’t have anything to do with that.

On how much confidence the team has knowing they beat a nationally ranked opponent, but didn’t play their best level of football:

So it’s funny. I appreciate the question. We talked about this a lot last week and where confidence comes from. I think confidence comes from preparation. It comes from what we do in the summer. It comes from how much work we put into this thing. It comes from what it looks like every day out there at practice. That’s why we should have went out on the field against Clemson as a confident team and regardless of result, those are the reasons why we should believe in who we are and what we’re capable of. I don’t know that it’s confidence. I think it’s validation. The word that just keeps coming to mind is validation. Right? I can say that just like every coach in America could say that. Sometimes validation is what helps it grow. So I could say you should be confident to go out there in this game, and if we go out there and lose by four touchdowns, there’s no validation to it and they look at me after the game and they’re like, yeah, you’re crazy, right? But if you get the validation to what you’re saying, I think that is what allows it to snowball moving forward is probably more how I look at it.

On how much the new clock rules effected the game:

Yeah, I think if anything it wasn’t much at all. I think we got the numbers, and it turned out to be five plays a game which is not even really one drive. So, I think it played out in that area of the field where we talked about it, when they were trying to come back down two scores and the clock wasn’t stopping on first downs. I think that those ate away a couple plays. That’s really the only time it even crossed my mind to be honest with you.

On Jaylen Stinson’s ability to play bigger than his size:

You know, he has every intangible you would want a small kid to have. He’s not that small. He’s thick and he’s built through the upper body but he’s just short. He has every intangible you would want a kid like that to have and the intangibles are what drive him. He’s exceptionally fast. He’s twitchy, he’s athletic, he’s fearless. He puts a lot of work in and plays extremely hard, and he’s extremely competitive. You put all of that into a package and all of that sounds like a really good football player. He just happens to be a little short, but he certainly overcomes that.

On what are some of the things he wants to see improved on this weekend against Lafayette:

I want us to come out and play like we’re supposed to. I want us to take the field and represent Duke with pride. I want us to take advantage of the fact that we only get 12 of these opportunities a year and this is one of them. I want us to look like a team that is improved from week one better than we were Monday night and if we do that, that’s what I’m looking for.

On how the tape looked from the defensive backs side in game one:

Yeah, I thought we played well. I did. I thought we covered well. I didn’t think there was a lot of separation out there. I thought we tackled well. I thought when the ball was caught, we were controlled, and we didn’t miss very many tackles which you know for an opener is always scary. Given that team being extremely athletic and obviously very talented on the offensive side of the ball, I thought we handled space really well. I think that the one long run obviously was the one big play to cut out but there weren’t many more. If there was maybe one more past that I think they hit an explosive play mark the one where we cut the guy loose in the middle but yeah, I thought we handled that part of the game really well.

On fixing the amount of pre-snap penalties that occurred on Monday:

I mean, it’s just making sure that we understand how important that stuff is. Yeah. It’s not like us. It has not really been something that we did. Hopefully you chalk it up to be in the first game, but you know, we have penalties every day in practice. We have refs out there every day of practice who call penalties. We point out penalties We address penalties. We do punishments for penalties like there’s a daily focus in our program to not have those mistakes. But yeah, they showed up and so we got to figure out a way to fix them. Hopefully it’s the first game problem that goes away moving forward.

On keeping the team focused on the task at hand on Saturday:

We use this word in our program a lot. We talk about chasing greatness, and if you’re chasing greatness, then every day you wake up and you look at yourself in the mirror and you can find something to fix. There’s something I can do today that can make me a better anything than I was yesterday and obviously for us specifically as a football player. If you take that mindset, then you don’t have to worry about the external noise. You don’t have to worry about what other people think of you. Don’t have to worry about what anyone’s saying. You can just wake up in the morning and attack the day the right way. And if you do that, and you can stay focused in that light, then at the end of it all, you can lift your head up and the product you see will be you know, three, four months better than what it started at and usually that’s a recipe for success. So we just try to stay focused on that on a daily basis.

On not allowing a sack versus a talented Clemson defensive front:

I think it’s huge because sacks kill drives, right? You can’t go get behind the chains ever. You really can’t against a defense like that. So, it becomes a huge emphasis to one how you call the game right to try to protect that from becoming a major issue. It’s probably why we didn’t push the ball downfield as much as we should or maybe you would like or we would have hoped to be able to, but you’re just cautious of not getting into those 2nd- and-18 type situations because those are very hard to overcome. Your offensive line has to buy into it, and they’ve got to do a really good job creating a pocket. Riley does such a phenomenal job of managing it all both ways, right? He’s athletic enough to escape some that maybe could be negative plays and turn them into positive ones. He’s also smart enough to feel it and know when it’s time to do something and we always yield to him. Maybe there’s a guy open or a route that maybe he could throw but, in his mind, if he feels like it’s time to go, we yield to his feel on that stuff because he knows how important it is to keep us within the chains. When you hear him talk about like four yards of play, it’s not really that we’re just trying to only get four yards of play but it’s that’s part of that mentality. Which is why we have to push forward, and we can’t go backwards because backwards kills everything and so 2nd-and-10 is better than 2nd-and-18 and sometimes it’s not worth the risk of trying to push the ball down the field.

On the guys that talked about how Monday night was a dream and balancing that with the realization that there is more football ahead:

I allowed them the opportunity to enjoy it because they deserve it. Especially for the group that came through COVID. That’s another piece of it. Not only did they go through some down years, but they also went through years where people weren’t allowed to watch games. There was no one in stadiums period and so you work so hard as a kid to get this opportunity to play ACC football and for a lot of these kids, you know quite a few of these years weren’t exactly what, they had dreamed about so, that is, I think part of when I talk about how much joy I take in watching them have this success. It’s great that he said that it’s awesome for him and certainly these kids deserve all of these moments. I said this to a few of our guys, I said I’ve encouraged them to turn off social media, but then turn it back on in December and you can kind of follow the season and you can get everything that you want to get out of it. You don’t need it right now, but there’ll become a time where it’ll be cool for them to kind of take a minute and just kind of soak it all in.