North Carolina State University Athletics
Quotes from the Coaches
10/30/2002 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 30, 2002
Georgia Tech Head Coach: Chan Gailey
ON WINNING LAST WEEKEND AND EFFECT ON TEAM:
"Anytime you win you are able to learn from a positive standpoint, as opposed to when you lose you have to learn from a negative standpoint. We are in the process of learning. We are learning about each other, we are learning about how to handle different people on the field because of who we have healthy. Our guys know they can win, and I don't think that has even been an issue. But you have to go put it together."
ON STAFF ADJUSTING THROUGH THE SEASON:
"You are always adjusting. Nothing ever stays the same. When we had Tony Hollings we were much more run oriented. We still try to be that way, but now people are loading up and we have to try to do some different things. We are always adjusting. That is what coaching is all about."
ON NC STATE'S SPECIAL TEAMS:
"You have to be solid. They take advantage of mistakes. They do a great job of putting a lot of pressure on you to try to force mistakes. You have to play very sound in special teams. You don't have to do anything spectacular, everybody just has to do their job.
"They work very hard at it, they have a great deal of confidence in getting the job done. But it's not like it's a lot of wild and crazy stuff, it's not that. It's solid, sound stuff that they do with great intensity. You have to make sure that you line up with the same type of intensity and be sound in the same manner."
ON PHILLIP RIVERS:
"If I had to describe a quarterback it would be that he gets the job done and wins. That's a pretty good description of a quarterback. There have been a lot of great quarterbacks, here and at other places, that have been unorthodox but have won football games. If you were drawing up quarterbacks, you wouldn't draw up Joe Hamilton, but he won a bunch of games. The objective is to lead your team to victory, and he does a great job of that."
ON IMPROVEMENT OF A.J. SUGGS:
"The biggest thing is when we work the no huddle offense, he has taken charge of that part of the game. He has put us in some very good plays. That to me is the sign of a mature quarterback."
"This week we have a package for Damarius Bilbo like we always do. The plan is to play him on the third or fourth series of each half, but the game situation will always dictate that."
ON BEING THE UNDERDOG:
"Somebody is the favorite and somebody is the underdog each week. It's good to be one or the other."
ON PLAY OF KERRY WATKINS:
"I don't know how to put that into words. He's got great statistics, he's made big plays, he's made the hard catches, he's blocked, he's been a leader for us. How you put what he's meant into actual words I don't know. Obviously he's had a great year and he's meant a lot to our football team."
ON WALKON P.J. DANIELS NOW A KEY MEMBER OF THE OFFENSE:
"That's a great story. You are so happy for guys like that who fight that long and that hard to get something. The great thing about him is, he's playing and he gets a scholarship, and he wants more. He wants to continue to be a great player."
"There were flashes [of his current good play] from time to time, but nothing consistently. The longer that he got on the field, the more comfortable that he got with the offense. The more he knew, the more consistent that he got. The kickoff return that he got against Wake Forest was the point where you said let's try this guy in the regular offense and maybe he can do some of the same things."
ON KEEPING TEAM TOGETHER:
"Adversity is never easy or fun, but it is going to be there. I've said several times that it's not if you are going to have adversity, but it's how you deal with it when you have it. Our guys are mature guys. We have a lot of seniors on this team and they have handled the tough times pretty well. Sometimes they go away immediately, but sometimes they persist in an ongoing manner. But they have handled themselves pretty well to this point."
"You handle adversity the same wherever you are. Either you panic or you don't. Either you complain or you don't. Either you go on to the next one or you live in the past. Those are your choices. I handle it the same whether it was at Troy State, with the Dallas Cowboys or here."
ON TECH'S DEFENSE VERSUS NC STATE:
"The biggest thing that we have to do against NC State's offense is to stop the run. Their freshman running back has really added a lot to their offense. Last year it was dependant more on Phillip Rivers throwing the football and some trick plays. This year they are attacking people with the running game and it is giving them more of a balanced offense. Then you have to keep Phillip off balance, you can't let him get into a groove. The one thing that we have is quite a few seniors on defense and hopefully we will step up and play the game that we need to play this weekend."
ON NC STATE'S DEFENSE:
"They are not the biggest group in the world, but they do have speed. That is the one thing that they have been able to win with. They create a lot of bad plays for offenses with their speed. They knock the ball loose a lot and create turnovers. The one thing that you have to do is focus in on where those guys are and make sure you are accounting for their blitzes. They are doing a nice job on defense; they don't allow you to run it and they put pressure on you when you pass it. Our job will be to try to get some ball control going and keep their offense off the field. That will be one of the keys for us on Saturday."
NC State Head Coach Chuck Amato
How good is the NC State defense?
"We are getting better. If you look at statistics of the conference, we're leading the total defense.. but statistics can lie. We're up there in scoring defense, which to me is the most important stat there is. Rushing defense is another big important stat. If we can play with the consistency and intensity, defensively that we did [versus Clemson ] for four games we will have improved.
"The [defense] has a lot of pride in themselves, they really do. We're getting better people, but we've got to continue to get people in the box. Skilled people are a little easier to find because there are more of them. The people who play up where the grunting and groaning goes on is where it all starts though. That's why we're doing what we're doing defensively.
"When you're getting that many (34) sacks, it's because there's a combination of coverage and rush. You get coverage sacks just like you get pressure interceptions. It all works together. We're covering people closer because of the man coverage we're playing more of this year than we have in the past, because I feel we have better people who are able to do that. Because of doing that, the sack rate has gone up - but you always have the problem of a big play when that happens."
Is this defense like last year's defensive scheme?
"It ain't even close. We're doing more things that I want to do, that we did when I came from Florida State because I liked it. But the first couple of years we couldn't do it because we didn't have the people that could do it. We didn't have the speed up front defensively. We had to move Brian Williams from safety to corner because he was the fasted kid on the team. We didn't have kids that could cover. I like to play bump-and-run, I like to get in people's faces and challenge people in all phases of defense and there are times you can't do that consistently. We're getting better personnel to allow us to do some of these things.
"I read one of Coach Mike Krzyzewski's books, and boy he's got a lot of them. I couldn't tell you the title of it. The thing that was so neat, when he first got to Duke, he mentioned he wanted to play man-to-man defense and that was his thing. He didn't have the people to play, they were a zone defense prior to that. If I had read this book two years ago we would have done it here. He's awfully successful in what he's done over there. He put in that defense and he recruited people to play it. He knew he was going to take some bumps from doing it, but in the end result it was going to be what he knew best and what he wanted and what he felt it would take to win and Atlantic Coast Conference Championship and national championship and look what it has done. You get back to what you do best, what you do best and what you believe in, then you go and teach it to those youngsters. We're teachers. I told the coaches just this morning, we've got four more games, which means we've got two tough practices a week, eight more tough practices. I told them they did a great job of teaching last week in a a cramped amount of time. We've got two tremendously difficult practices and our practice schedule is a teacher's lesson plan. Are you going to go out and waste time talking to your players on the field as opposed to teaching them and repping them? Repetition, repetition, repetition! talk to them after practice, when we get on that field we have to see how good was our lesson plan? We have to teach our lesson plan better than the team we're going to play this week and we've got to coach harder than we've coached last week. It comes down to that teaching aspect.
"We are playing a 13 game schedule. If we were playing a regular 11-game schedule like everybody used to play, and we eliminated the two 1-AA teams from our schedule this year and right now were 7-0, 4-0 in the league, would people be complaining about our schedule? One was on the schedule, we pick up a 12th game but almost couldn't find [an opponent]. Then thank goodness we got into the Black Coaches Association Bowl and we play a team that they picked for us to play. What would be said then? People that talk about it have had a chance to play us."
Did you expect to be this good only three years into your head coaching career?
"I am an optimist, but this is a dream. It's one of those years. If the season would end today it would be absolutely unbelievable, but we've got four more tough, hard games - two of the here and two on the road. We become the bullseye right now. But it is great, I couldn't imagine at this point [doing so well]. We're still a young team, but we do have more seniors on this team than we have had in the past, but we have a lot of young people playing on that football team. Three of the four starters in the secondary are sophomores, true sophomores at that. Couple games this year, two of the three linebackers have been true sophomores, that have started. Up front, that's where the junior college transfers who have only been here the same time as the sophomores have been here, have made a impact and helped us tremendously, but they are like true sophomores. They've only been on campus for about 16 months now and they have been a big help to the program. If we need to continue to go that route to help us until we get what we want, then we will. I would rather have high school people come here. It would be so great to have Terrance Martin and Shawn Price and the two JCs we brought in this year for four years, those people in [particular because they are so talented. By the time they get to a point where they are comfortable with what we're doing and learn how hard we want them to do it, they're done, they're finished. We couldn't afford to redshirt them because we needed them."
How important is scoring early?
"It's one of those things that just happened and has magnified. Now, the kids talk about it. 'We must score the first time down.' There have only been two games where we haven't. We missed a field goal [versus Clemson] and then the other time was in the opening game. It's something called execution. They go out and execute what the coaches have asked them to do on all of those plays and formations. You might have hit a team with something they haven't worked on a lot, but we've been good at it and it gets the tempo going and sets the tone for the game."
How are you reacting through these times?
"I've got to stay me. I'm not going to change for anything. I'm not going to change for [the media]. I don't care what people say about me or perceive me, I'm Chuck Amato. I'm going to be me whether we win or we lose. I don't like to lose, nobody likes to lose. I'm going to be the way I am. I get upset, I get over losses quickly, just like I get over wins quickly because you have a new mission to accomplish in seven days, really in six days. You have to get over the high or the low that happened to you that particular weekend and put your mind into getting refocused for a new situation. This is what we have to make our players do - win or lose. That one is gone, we must move on."
What are your thoughts on the game versus Georgia Tech?
"It's going to be a tough game. Don't forget, a year ago Georgia Tech was picked to be the team that was going to knock Florida State off. They've got a lot of players returning from that team. They lost a quarterback and they've had some injuries and tailback and defensive end. They're offensive line is considered to be the second best in the conference behind Florida State. Their quarterback played really well in the Virginia game this weekend and they've got great skill at wide receiver. They've got the ability to be a quick strike team as well. Again, with the big physical front they've got, we're going to fine out if we can face that this weekend."
