Syracuse Orange College Football Pregame Quote, 09/09/2019

On the team’s response after watching last week’s film:

We had a nice meeting over the weekend. We went through every play, and it was very detailed and very intense.

On how a blowout loss effects confidence:

When you lose like that it’s time to check you’re hold card, that’s for sure

On how big of a challenge it is to get the team where it needs to be:

I don’t know about the challenge. If you got something in you, you are going to respond.

On if he is in awe of Clemson’s accomplishments:

You know I look at that team and I think about the Miami Dolphins going undefeated in the National Football League and it has only been done once. You always get a team that gets close, then something happens and they get a loss. They end up with a Super Bowl ring, but they don’t go undefeated. What they did, going undefeated, I think is extremely impressive and we’ve had other college football teams go undefeated before, but to me that’s a heck of an accomplishment. And now, they are on their second run with an opportunity to do it again and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a team to do it twice back to back. You analytic guys have to check that, but it’s been very impressive and they have a very statistical opportunity to do it again.

On if Dabo Swinney is the standard of how teams should be coached:

I think the biggest thing is if you knew where he came from. Alabama has been Alabama for a long time. Ohio State has been Ohio State for a long time, if I’m not mistaken I could be. I’ve been mistaken a little bit the last seven days that the last 10-15 years Clemson was not like that. South Carolina was better than Clemson and now all of a sudden all people do is talk about Clemson in that state. I think that what’s happened there since he got there from day one, and what he does now is truly amazing.

On Sam Heckel and McKinley Williams’ Injury Status:

I would say chances are that he [Heckel] won’t play, but I won’t say he’s out.

[On McKinley] I’m waiting to see the doctors and we’re going to see what happens. I don’t want to give those guys too much information‚Ķ I’ll just leave it at that.

On how to get up after being knocked down:

I am going to ask you a question, have you ever been knocked out? I have. When you wake up the blues are blues and the reds are reds, everything seems clearer than you’ve ever had it before. It’s like rebooting your entire computer, I am not saying go do this to see how the feeling is, but it’s really eye-opening, it’s kind of like being knocked out and waking back up and we’re going to see how we do. Maybe we reboot and maybe everything is okay, and we’re going to have to see.

On knowing that this week’s challenge is even bigger than last week:

I wouldn’t know if it was stiffer. I think we have a big test, what we just went through‚Ķ that was big. And now we have an opportunity against the best team in the country, so we’ll have to see how we do.

On what he saw from the Offensive Line:

We have to find ways to win. That is what we do. I think it is easier to find ways when the elephants are full grown and the hippos are full grown. And they need to grow up and there’s no way around it. We’ve got big games early in our season and we’ve got young offensive lineman. Oh well‚Ķ nobody is dropping a tear for us, they’re going to get better as they go along and we need to find ways to win.

On how they have played Clemson tough last two years:

I don’t think it has anything to do with it. They’ve changed up, they’ve done some things, and their personnel is a lot different. I’m not going to say they are a lot younger, they move around, they’re extremely fast and while their defense got a lot younger, their offense got a lot older. Then there goes that balance once again. You know they could really get after you defensively, not that they still can’t and not that other teams still can’t do that, but they’re so good on offense now that you have a limited time in the game to get them and if you don’t keep pace with that offense the game is over. You got to hit them just right, it’s Buster Douglas vs. Mike Tyson, if you don’t hit them with the upper cut you’re going to get knocked out. There goes that word again. I’m not sure I’ve seen any team able to do it. I saw what they did to Alabama and they got a lot more coaches and a lot more things than we have and they were playing for a big ol’ ring. And they were both undefeated when they were playing, not sure about Alabama’s record. So they’re really really good, we’re probably seeing one of the best teams of an era that you’re going to see.

So you guys don’t think you’ve figured it out?

I think this is a totally different situation.

On what he saw from the Linebackers:

I think it’s not about calling certain individuals, I think the entire defense played extremely hard. When we watched it, this is going to sound crazy, I was really proud the way they played, they played hard. Now, playing hard, but not playing in the right place still adds up to the same score. There was effort they didn’t give up, but they’re in the wrong place, and there is wrong calls and there is missed tackles. When there is not communication and the communication is not received, and you’re missing tackles, it’s going to make you look really bad. That happened on offense, defense and some of the special teams.

Was Maryland’s tempo apart of that?

I think if we said the information we didn’t receive it. I can speak and you can hear me, but if you’re not listening to what I’m saying you’re not going to gather the information you need to gather. I just think that we need to communicate better and make sure the other guys are receiving it.

On how ESPN game will help promote the program:

There’s two answers. Here is the first answer: I am excited about the brand. I’m excited about what it represents. I’m excited we’re going to get a game nationally for our community, for our student body and for this university. And hopefully we’re going to play in a way that they’re going to be proud of our performance. The second part of this question, which you didn’t ask, is I am totally locked in on this football team. We need to make sure we are doing the things we need to do to get better, and that is my focus because the football team is the core of the football branding of this university. And I want to make sure we are doing our part to represent this school the correct way.

On the crowd being an X-Factor:

It could be huge. It really could. I haven’t experienced it yet [a packed Dome/full crowd at Syracuse]. This could be really fun. It could be really cool and it’s also a lot of people watching you and you want to put your best foot forward because when they go home you want it to be a performance you could be proud of and the community can be proud of. Regardless of what the score is.

On if the pass rush can be effective as it has been the last two year and if they will blitz more:

That’s too much information to give a football team that hasn’t lost since 2017. We had no pass rush (last week) so we have to get a pass rush. You don’t let an NFL quarterback stand back there, you’ve got to find a way to get some kind of pressure on him or it’s going to be a long day. I don’t know how we’re going to do that yet because they are really good at protecting him and rightfully so. We would not be the first football team that has tried to put pressure on him and when the game is over feel empty handed when it comes to that, that they really didn’t get an opportunity to touch him. I had an opportunity of playing Jim McMahon. We were at Hawaii and BYU and I actually touched him on a play which is very unusual to touch a BYU quarterback. I still remember the words that he was using to describe to the tackle on what was going to happen to him if I ever touched him again. He congratulated me on touching him and then he started ripping the tackle. I am standing there going wow, I didn’t even know those combinations [of words] went together like that and it’s kind of amazing that’s how he’s protected. I mean Game of Thrones, he’s got a castle, he’s got a moat, and he’s got some dragons, that dude’s protected. You really don’t get this chance unless he goes comes out of the pocket, he’s fast, he’s athletic and he might throw better on the move than he does from the pocket. I mean he’s the real deal, so I hope we can put some pressure on him, but there’s a lot of teams that have played him that haven’t been able to do it.

Is this the biggest emphasis this week?

You can say it’s an emphasis, but I don’t even know if it’s realistic. We’ll try.

On DeVito using his legs:

I think the thing with him is he has to be smarter. Your whole goal of your quarterback is not to get hurt. Last year we had Dungey and everyone said we ran too much and we used him too much and one time we had him go out on a pass and how crazy are we to send him out on a pass, he’s our quarterback. Now our quarterback doesn’t run and everyone wants us to make sure our quarterback does run. The key is whoever you start the season with, if you finish the season with them you have an opportunity for a fantastic season. And then you have to figure all of that other stuff out in between.

What’s the adjustment process like going from Dungey to Devito?

I think he’s gonna be okay, I think he’s coming along great, I think he’s moving along at a pace that’s acceptable to me and I think things are going to get better for us. So, I think we’re right where we’re supposed to be.

On Chris Elmore:

He’s got his own nickname, Rhino. He’s a very physical player. Here’s a Rhino story for you, a lot of people don’t know this story. Rhino’s playing as a freshman and he runs through – Zaire [Franklin] will get mad on this one – he’s running through and Zaire goes to hit him and Rhino was probably going at a different speed than Zaire was going and really got Zaire good. He’s a freshman trying to make his way and Zaire’s looking at him like ‚ÄúDo you know who the heck you are messing with?‚Äù And Zaire comes up to me and says coach run the same play and I’m going ‚ÄúZaire come on now.‚Äù Alright run the same play and Zaire welcomes him to college football. Rhino’s helmet is half off and he’s got some moisture on his face that he needs to wipe off – and it wasn’t spit. I mean it was an ACC welcome-to-college-football hit, but when Rhino took off his helmet with his mouth bleeding, he was all about going again and that’s when we knew we had the right guy. And when Rhino said do it again do it again and Zaire was looking at him. I said we’re not doing it again and that is where we stopped and they were friends. But they’re very competitive and they’re both very physical players, that’s Chris Elmore.

On Travis Etienne:

Man he’s good. Isn’t he good. He’s an amazing back, he’s big, he’s fast, he’s smart, he’s a really good blocker, he’s a pretty good receiver. What was that 96 yards and blah blah blah two forward passes one on fourth down, I think the other one was a horizontal or a bubble and he just turned around and handed him the ball. I mean he’s an NFL player in college football. He’s a fantastic guy, good person. Big solid dude, you think about him you hope you two or three just like him. Big-time player.

Does last week’s poor tackling concern against Etienne?

You know, that’s what football is all about. You run across some guys that are different and if there is something different about you, you get excited about that and you hope you can do something you can talk about later. Normally, it doesn’t work out your way, there’s a reason they’re like that. You know Jim Brown was like that. Oh I got a chance to hit Jim, normally it didn’t work out well for you if you’re hitting Jim Brown, okay. He’s a special guy and we’ve had a bunch of special backs like that and you know Clemson has one and that guy is special. You know he’ll be playing in the league and hopefully we got a story that we can say we did good against him one time. But, there’s not gonna be too many stories like that written about him, that’s for sure.