North Carolina State University Athletics
NC State And Wake Forest Coaches Quotes
10/3/2001 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 3, 2001
CHUCK AMATO, NC State
On Offensive Production In UNC Game: "I was fairly happy with the way we moved the ball Saturday. A lot of it came in the fourth quarter but the game is 60 minutes long. I don't know whether it's because we aren't tired and they are, more often than not, it's probably because our backs are against the wall. We made plays in that period. But we lost close to 80 yards of field position on two critical penalties in the kicking game."
On The Team Mood Following Last Week's Game: "There is a concern there, but no more than if we had come back in the fourth quarter and won the game. Every week we've got a new mission. You've just got to forget about the game that just happened. We've got to prepare for Wake Forest and that's not going to be an easy task. They lead the conference in rushing offense and just run the ball very hard. We've got to cut down on the big plays and re-focus ourselves."
On The Wake Forest Offense:"They do everything. They will run a form of the option, they will throw it well, they'll bring a man back in motion almost every play with the facility to run a reverse, which is nothing more than a counter play. They have simplified things in what they do up front. They do a lot of quick passes where it's hard to get to them. Sometimes they will drop back into the shotgun and do the Clemson offense. It's not your traditional offense. It's not the Ohio offense (That Wake Coach Jim Grobe Used at Ohio). But they do have some of those plays in there.
On Coach Grobe:"I know him. I can remember talking to him a few years ago whenhe was at Ohio University. They played NC State that week and we played NC State the following week. I do remember him when he was at Virginia as a player. I have gotten to know him better over the past six months. He's a good, tough coach. He's a no-nonsense coach from what I hear."
On Fundamentals: "I've been taught that when you lose, you don't add offenses or defenses. You work on fundamentals. If we block better and we tackle better and didn't change anything else, we would probably have won the football game. Football is not difficult. A fundamental of football is foolish penalties. Knowing the difference between the front of the body and the back of the body. It's easy to distinguish in football because the facemask is usually where the front is. Catching a football is a fundamental."
On the Subject of Finding a Deep Threat On Offense: "Peterson runs awfully fast. Troy Graham runs very, very fast as does Dovonte Edwards. Jerricho (Cotchery) made a fabulous catch in front of their bench. The thing that distinguishes between the ordinary receivers and the great ones are making big catches.
On Preparation For Last Week's Game: "One day you could sense it and we had to kind of slow it down because we didn't play for four more days. It was all business during the week. I did not have to call them up in the locker room before the game to talk to them. They were waiting in dead silence. I really felt that I had to break the tension. I just cracked a little joke and tried to get them to relax."
On Kicker Austin Herbert's Prognosis: "Hopefully, will have him, but we will know more as the week progresses. We may not know for sure until Saturday."
JIM GROBE, Wake Forest
"You learn a lot about yourself when you play great football teams. Of course the past two games we have played top 25 teams (Maryland and Florida State). I think we are starting to figure out where are strengths and weaknesses are and who we can count on."
On Getting A Win In The Conference: "It's no question that we would like to win a conference game, I think it is important to our players, but I don't see any easy teams in our conference. Everybody is playing pretty good football. To the best of my knowledge we are going to play a good team every week from here on out."
On The NC State Defense: "We don't see any place that you can attack them. They have a good solid front and they play sound coverage in the secondary. We are going to have to balance it up a bit. We are going to have to run and throw the football at them."
On NC State Being Dangerous After A Loss: "I think everybody is more dangerous coming off a loss. I think when you lose you are more motivated to win, you are more motivated to correct mistakes and coaches see more mistakes."
On Leadership From The Players: "Certainly our seniors are motivated right now, this is their last shot. You always get in the situation where sometimes young guys are happier just to be playing rather than taking the game seriously as you like for them to. I am challenging our young players to step up and take more responsibility."
On The Wake Quarterbacks: "What's happened now is we are really going with the healthy guy. We have had a problem with Anthony Young's foot. He didn't look to bad in his first run at Florida State. James MacPherson has a sprained ankle but we feel he will be fine by Saturday. Whoever is the most healthiest."
On Special Teams: "We work on special teams like it is the most important thing every week. We know that NC State has a track record for blocking kicks. You don't find many good teams that aren't good at special teams so we take it very seriously."
Chuck Amato Has Brought A Lot of Ideas From Florida State: "Their defense is similar to the defense at Florida State. They are very aggressive. They move around a lot and like to blitz and bring pressure and keep the offenses off balance. Offensively, they are very similar to the attack we saw from Florida State. They are very wide open on offense.
