Syracuse Orange College Football Pregame Quote, 10/28/2019

On where he sees Boston College as a rivalry:

Boston College is right there. We had a couple of the guys talking about this game as soon as we finished the Florida State game. You have to understand this game is different, the hitting in it is different, and it will go along with the other rival we played which we are not going to mention [Pittsburgh] because this is Boston College week. We understand what that means and it is going to be a physical contest. I think our guys are excited and know the older guys have to lead in a situation like this because the younger guys don’t know, and it is not their fault they don’t know, and once they have a taste of it they will understand.

On whether he’s seen growth in the offensive line and what he thinks needs to be worked on:

I did see some growth. I thought that they came out and fought extremely well. I thought for the very first time we had series where we could run the football and move the football. I thought we were moving the football against good personnel. I went back and checked and there was lots more of the ones than I thought. The growth needs to continue. I thought Matthew Bergeron did a good job for his first extended work and I want to continue to see him grow. The one thing about him is even though he is a young guy in year, he is not a young guy in age so there was some physicality about him while he was out there and we were excited about the way that he played.

On whether he sees increased physicality in the older Canadian players he recruits:

I do. They got a little hockey mentality when you talk to them. The freshmen that come from Canada are two language people, so they are very intelligent. English for a lot of them is their second language, and they may speak their second language better than some of our guys speak their first language. They are really sharp people for the most part. The physicality does not bother them, and we love our brothers to the north and we will continue to recruit up there.

On the difference between fixing mental mistakes versus other mistakes:

Coach Dick Tomey, who was my head coach at the University of Hawaii, passed away this year. He used to always use this line that I did not understand as a young freshman and as I got older it started to stick with me. And the line he used to use was: ‚ÄúTry less harder.‚Äù I think their getting out there and they want to win so bad and want to do well so bad that they jump and they move. They make a mental mistake on something that they’ve done right a thousand times. When we try something in game and they’ve done it right a bunch of times before we even take a chance during the game. And we have a lot of confidence that they are going to do it right during the game and they blank for a second. I think that whole attitude, try less harder, take a deep breath and relax. We had a couple of situations where the running backs were in the open field and nobody really tackled them, and I pointed it out to one young man on Sunday. I said, ‚ÄúWhen you get this much grass, which you are probably not used to because you haven’t seen this for a while, you are in the secondary, you’ve got one guy to beat, and a blocker in front, as crazy as this sounds moving at full speed, just take a deep breath and just relax for a second. Just slow down a little bit because this guy is probably going to make a block for you and then once this action happens in the next second or two you will know exactly what to do, your natural instincts will take over.‚Äù So, I think it goes back to what Coach Tomey talked about to try less harder. Because they all have the skills or they would not be here.

On why the team is being penalized so much (Syracuse has the third-most penalties in the country):

Some of it is how we do things. When we play at a very fast rate, we are not going to slow down. So if you have someone for the very first time thinking about what to do, the ball is being snapped very quickly, and somebody on the defense moves, they are reacting to it and now it is a judgement call whether they were right or whether they were wrong. We have to be able to adjust to that, we have to be able to settle down and let the game come to us, even though we have not been out there a lot of times. When the older guys have penalties, that is different, and that is the thing that’s troubling. The younger guys, it is going to happen. The older guys, this should not be happening that much and that’s where we have to settle down because we have too many older guys having penalties. And we can’t have that with as many young guys as we have playing.

On whether there’s something he’s doing differently formation-wise to find a spark for the offense:

Everything does not come down to players and formations. We have plenty of formations and we can try all kinds of stuff, it really comes down to elephants and hippos. The more secure you are upfront, the more things you can do. If you got a heck of a cake, you can put all different types of icing on it and everyone will like it. But, if you got a cake that tastes bad, it doesn’t matter what kind of icing you put on it. So, it always comes down to the O-line and the D-line. If you are secure up there, you can start growth everywhere else. I would say the youth on the offensive side of the ball keeps you from doing things that you can really exploit some people with because they [the young players] are just not used to it. Now, the flipside is this might look really good, but now you have someone who could lose a physical one-on-one battle that could really allow you to isolate someone and get after him. So, there’s things you can’t do because physically they can’t hold up or mentally it may be too much for them.

On how he keeps the message positive in the locker room:

I think that everybody let things get away from us a little bit. I think the biggest thing is we need to reel it back in. What we need to do is eliminate mental mistakes and play physical. We did not turn the ball over the last game, but we didn’t get a turnover the last game. There’s good things happening, but not enough good things. The big thing for me is, I want to make sure there is growth with these young men. We are going to figure out why it happened, but everything happens for a reason. And there is good fathers in here, good sons and I want these guys to be fantastic husbands. I think that this adversity that we are going through is going to make them better and we need to make our way through it and persevere and I believe we will by staying together and not giving fault to anyone else and seeing if we can find a way to win one football game. That is the growth they are going to have. I think they are going to take this experience with them forever. The whole experience of what they thought was going to happen, what people told them was going to happen, and then exactly what happened. Because you have to work hard and it is not a gift, but I think from a life lesson that this will go a long way and it is going to make them a lot better. So, I am going to try to find the positive and the negative in this, along with myself.

On if his staff is targeting older freshman, as they tend to bring up lots of players who are 19 and 20-year old freshmen:

My first roommate in college at Hawaii was a Canadian guy. Six foot seven, blonde hair, blue eyes, named Jim Mills. Google that one. Skinny guy, didn’t play his freshman year, redshirted his first year. I want to say he ended up being the rookie of the year in the National Football League. Now this is how old I am, because I want to say it was the Baltimore Colts and not the Indianapolis Colts, I knew right there I watched him as a freshman he did not know what the heck he was doing and he was my college roommate, and then he grew into a fantastic offensive tackle. Long, crazy, liked contact. Could drink ‚Äúiced tea,‚Äù I’ve never seen someone drink as much iced tea as he could drink, and it was unbelievable. But, a really good guy and a really fun football player to be around. I’ve always seen that with the Canadian players. They love hockey so much up there that even though hockey and football aren’t the same, there’s some things that cross over, so I’m excited about our recruiting up there. It’s something that I enjoy. It’s a blessing that they’re so close to us and for a lot of those provinces up there we are the closest to them, unless they are on the other side of the United States. I think the two closest schools to Canada are Washington State and Syracuse University. So, I am excited about that and as long as I am here it’s something we are going to try to do. The age thing is a happening because of their educational system, but trust me, even at 18 and 19, they are big, physical cats and for some reason they’re big people. There are some large people up there.

On whether his staff targets older American freshmen:

We’re not doing that on purpose, we’re not going after the older, American senior. We’re just trying to look for the best prospect that we can and if they’re ready we will play them and if not we will redshirt them and we’ll see where they will grow to, so I’m sorry I misinterpreted your question.

On the lessons his team can learn from the Florida State game that they can carry into defending against BC’s strong run game:

Again, we are dealing with a fantastic back in AJ Dillon. Even their backup rushed for 122 yards against NC State and we could not move the ball against those guys at all. So they have two very talented running backs. Their starting quarterback [Anthony Brown] got hurt, so they are with their backup quarterback [Dennis Grosel] and I really feel that based off of coach Addazio and their football team that is what he wants to do. Coach Addazio used to work here at Syracuse University. They want to run the football. He is an old O-line coach and that is how they decided they want to win football games and we have to line up, match their physicality, and stop the run. If we don’t do that, it will not be good and that’s the number one thing and we know what they’re going to do and they’re going to still come in here and run the football. There’s no trick-or-treat that is going to be going on this weekend. Everybody is going to know what is going to happen.

On why stopping the run is not as simple as it looks:

I’m smiling because it is a really good question. I want to give it all of the justice. It’s not that simple because guys get to block people and because you can put eight defensive guys up there and you can cover every gap. I got the D, I got C, you got the B, and you got the A. Every gap is covered and now they’ve got seven guys who get to block the people in that gap and then you have to hold that gap and you got a guy trying to throw you out of that gap. That is the whole battle. It is so cool because they are trying to move people that don’t want to be moved and you are trying to stay in a gap and they are trying to throw you out of it. That’s old-fashioned football. You have to embrace that part of it, and since I have been here, in every game I have played against Boston College, the most physical team won. Look at the score, look at the hitting that was going on, whichever team that was the most physical won the game. Now I am not going to say it has been that way and it’s hard not to beat them if you are not going to be more physical than them. That would just be lucky, but if you match their physicality you have a chance. O-line and D-line. Elephants and hippos. It’s important on both sides, that is where a lot of their outstanding players are and then of course you get a Heisman trophy tailback and you get some tough linebackers and some tough guys around them. Not to take away from their receivers or defensive backs, but that is how their team is built. They have better matchups on certain teams than other teams, but for us and the way we matchup against them we got to match their physicality.

On why have trick plays been effective against Syracuse’s defense:

First of all, I think there has been four of them and three of them have worked and one of them was dropped and would have worked. If you go back to the one from last week, the guy was in the grasp of somebody and this is not an excuse, he barely got the ball off to a quarterback who was actually being grabbed before that and then the guy let him go, then he had to go back after the quarterback and then he actually hit the quarterback. Then he threw the ball back to a guy who was being covered, but now since there was two guys, he stopped covering the other guy to go cover the other guy, and then the ball went to the guy he was actually covering the first time. So, you could see it was a well-designed play, and that’s part of it. I mean hats off to them, you gotta call it and if one of those passes get picked off, one of those passes get knocked down and it is a touchdown the other way, everyone is saying why you would run that play, it was not worth the gamble. But that is part of the trickery. I know we called a play a couple years back where Eric Dungey ran down the middle of the field and he got hit. Everybody said don’t call that play because why would you risk him. Okay, I won’t call that play if you do not want us to call that play, but that is all part of it. Quarterbacks and the Philly special, all of that kind of stuff. If you are going to do that stuff you have to be willing to take the high end and take the results if it doesn’t work out your way if you want to be that creative.

On the chances of injured players returning:

I would say no to him (senior defensive lineman McKinley Williams), and I’m going to say no and he is going to pop up and you guys are going to get mad at me. I haven’t seen him all year, so I don’t know why I would say yes now. For the rest of the guys I will not know until Monday afternoon. I really won’t. I would hope that the guys that did not play would be healthy to play this week. But, we’ll see.