North Carolina State University Athletics
NC State - UNC Coaches' Quotes
9/24/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 24, 2003
QUOTES FROM NC State's Chuck Amato
On the status of T.A. McLendon's strained hamstring:
"How is T.A.? Sore. What we put down there (injury report) is questionable. It is questionable. We'll just have to see how things go. Two weeks ago I said it would be a bonus if he played against Ohio State and he played maybe 15 snaps and they were bonuses, because we're a different offense with him on the field. He might be as good as there is in the country. In all phases, he's awfully, awfully good. I don't have to tell you people that. It doesn't take an Einstein to figure that one out. We're awfully good with him and again, I'm going to go on record as saying if he plays it's going to be a bonus for us this week. He's going to need to get a ton of treatment on that, a ton of stretching and a ton of rest. A lot of this has to do with the fact that if he would have been tackled 30 yards down the field (McLendon pulled up lame in the last 10 or so yards of his 67-yard carry in the third quarter of the Texas Tech game * his last play of the game) then we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. He hadn't run that far in over three weeks. Especially with the gate that he had.
"If we would have had T.A. for four full games this year, who knows where we might be because he is a special back. His first touchdown I think we counted that he broke six tackles. He broke a ton of tackles in that game for an unbelievable amount of yards after the first hit and there is not many that can do that."
On backup tailback Josh Brown:
"Josh has such good vision, he's so quick and he's kind of a darter until he gets out there and then he can make guys miss too. He's tough. He's not big, but he's tough."
On key injuries of several ACC teams this year sapping the strength of the league:
"I don't know about the others, but just look at our team. Chris Colmer hasn't played a snap. He's our most experienced offensive lineman, he's second string All-ACC and in my opinion he should have been first string last year with what we did and what we accomplished. T.A. has not really played a full game this year. Sterling Hicks is out and I know I leaving somebody out here. But that's football. We were so fortunate the last few years with not getting a lot of people banged up at one time and now all of the sudden we do and some of the other schools do. I would like to see what we would be like if we had all of them out there on the field."
On North Carolina quarterback Darian Durant:
"He is awfully good. He's got all the pitches. He can throw the deep one, the intermediate, the short one and on top of that he can escape. He can get out of rushes, he works the pocket and they run quarterback draws with him where he'll scramble 30 or 40 yards for a touchdown. He's a lot like our quarterback in that he makes their team go. On most teams their quarterback does make them go. Look at the quarterback at Ohio State and look at the quarterback last week for Texas Tech. Durant is as good as any of them. Take somebody like that off your football team and sure you have a second stringer and he's second string for a reason, but he's second string to an exceptionally good football player who makes things happen for your team and gives them a spark. He's somebody that can ignite the team at any time by making something really big happen. He ignites that team. He ignites the fans and everything else."
On true freshman backup linebacker Stephen Tulloch's increased playing time:
"He was going to play more because he caught my eye. He's just caught my eye ever since he got here. When he's on the field there is a spark. There is energy. There is emotion. He reminds me of Levar (Fisher). He's a fast Dan Burnette. I don't want Dan to think that he was slow, but he wasn't as fast as Tulloch. Up at Ohio State we played him more and I told Manny Diaz (linebackers coach), I said play him. Play him. Play him. Play him.
"There were a couple times in the Ohio State game that we had five freshmen in the front seven. There were a couple times the other day (Texas Tech game) that we had four out of seven being freshmen in the front and he was one of them. He's going to continue to get more and more playing time because he's a spark. Tulloch plays like a senior and you don't get that very often. His motor is red lined. It is all out. He can play when we go to our nickel type situation and he can play in base. He's smart. He's got great football sense. He's a natural. If you put all the linebackers in a football stance, his stance is the one that you're supposed to be in. He's got everything. He's coiled, his knees are bent, he comes out of his hips, he explodes into people, he's on his feet, he jumps over people. If he's supposed to go over there, he comes under this block and it's a natural thing for him.
"We'll probably just rotate him in more (to get more playing time). Pat Thomas is on just about every special team we have and plays on every defense we have. He's playing like Levar (Fisher). He's playing 65 to 85 snaps in a football game. That's a lot of snaps and it's a lot of wear and tear on the body. They're running into people constantly. If it saves 10 of his snaps and 10 of this guys snaps that makes them that much fresher and gives them that much more of a chance of getting to the ball instead of just touching it."
On rotating a lot of freshmen into the defensive lineup:
"They're good. They're good. They're good. Mario Williams is good. And guess what? They're all going to get better. It is so hard for coaches to roll players, at any position really, but especially defense. When you don't have a real big dropoff between your 1s and 2s, it is to your advantage to roll - like we did with the front the other day. One reason that Mario (Williams, defensive end) caught some people's eyes was because the week before he played like 68 snaps and this past week he played 39 or 40 snaps. A fresh second stringer is better than a tired first stringer; especially when there's not a big dropoff. What it does is it builds morale. Kids know they're going to play no matter what the score is. It's not just going to be during mop-up or it's not just going to be during mop-up from the other side. The other thing it does is that it really builds depth. Freshmen love it. Seniors hate it. "Oh, if I'd had more at bats I would've had two more sacks or another interception or seven more tackles." You see if you do this, it will be very difficult to break that record Levar Fisher set with all those tackles because he played 70 to 100 snaps a game and he'd pick up four or five more tackles on special teams. We found out that you can do it and those kids needed to do it on Saturday. It was hot."
On the rivalry between NC State and North Carolina:
"The players know it. Even though we have a lot of kids from out of state, they know it. You can sense it. They look at the paper. they look at the internet. They look at all those chat rooms and that other stuff that I don't know how to get too (message boards). I'll read it every now and then when Annabelle throws it on the table and says "you ought to read that." They all had a rival in high school. No matter where they're from they had a rival and this is our rival. Not to take anything away from any of the other schools that we play, but this is the one that has turned into a huge football rival, at least as far as we're concerned and I think it's both ways. In basketball in this state you're scheduled to play your rival twice, you could meet them a third time in the ACC Tournament and even a fourth time in the NCAA Tournament. In football you only get to play them once. So you have 365 days between those football games. That's what I think it makes it so neat. There is so much on the line that day. It just makes you just want to get after each other. That's the way it's supposed to be. You know what, that's how we should play every game."
On the game not being picked up by network TV:
"It's our faults. I can understand why they passed on us. They had to make the decision on Monday or Tuesday of last week and I can understand that. It's our faults. Going into last week when they made that decision one team was 0-2 and the other team was 1-2. That's why it's our faults. You get on the tube if you can do it."
NORTH CAROLINA COACH JOHN BUNTING
Opening Statement:
"State week. It is always an exciting week, we hope we can make it exciting. They are an awfully good football team. But I'm going to begin by stating something that you probably already know a little about. Sunday morning we were all very deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Jason Brown's brother Lunsford, who was fatally wounded over in Iraq from what I understand outside of a prison near Baghdad. I spent the day with Jason and his family up there along with Corey Holliday. Today he returned and he wants to get on with his business at hand this week with his second family Carolina football. We are looking forward to having him back with us. He is a great young man. He represents everything that Carolina is all about. He is very, very bright, a great student, great family. It is just tragic. We will have him at practice today and we will be waiting for some of the other details to come in relative to his brother and the other arrangements.
"Quickly going back to last week, once again I think that our football team made some progress last week. That's good. We fought to the very end. It was obvious that we weren't going to cash it in, or there were people asking me at the end of the game why were we still trying to score. That's what we are trying to do. We are trying to score, we are trying to get better on every single play. It is important to us to try and get better on every single play if we can. That is why we called timeouts and that's why I was proud of the defense for hanging in there after the interception to force them to kick a field goal. That's big for us right now. That is important for us right now. And then for us to go down and score at the very end, that's important for us right now. And that is the way it is. This is a huge game for us. We are playing a fine team, playing a fine team over in Raleigh. Last time we went over there probably had the biggest win for me personally and for maybe us as a program, when we were able to go over there and beat a fine team in Raleigh. Of course we had five guys that went to the NFL. Three guys that start in the NFL on that defense. They have got an outstanding quarterback. They have speed that everybody dreams about.
"We are going to have to play extremely, extremely well. Much better than we have, in order to slow them down some. We have to play a great game on offense, we know that. We got to score points, particularly when we get in the redzone. When we get in that scoring zone, and its first and goal on the four, we have got to score points. We have had some players that have played well. Jaworski Pollock's played well.
"Michael Waddell has done a great job on returns. Dexter Reid leading the ACC in tackling, had his best game of the year up there at Wisconsin. Mahlon Carey played very well, with the exception of a couple of plays. He's coming along, I think the guy is going to be a really great player. Brandon Russell is having his best year here as a senior and he made a big catch down on our sideline on the deep over route. We are all in this together, we are going to keep playing hard.
"We are going to keep trying to get better each week. We better be a lot better if we expect to play with N.C. State."
Q: Bobby Blizzard, has he gotten better?
"I saw Bobby late Sunday afternoon and he had a smile on his face, which is good. Obviously he was concerned about Jason, but I saw him smile and that's good. It is my understanding today that he will go out on the practice field. He will go out in lite equipment. He will put a helmet on for the first time in a long, long time. He will participate in some of the individual drills as we start practice. That will probably be the extent of it and we will see how he feels after that."
Q: Talk a little about N.C. State's talent level under Chuck Amato and their team speed.
"Well they do have tremendous team speed. Their skill positions are as good as we have faced. Their as good skill-wise as Florida State's wide receivers. The difference there is that as much as I thought Rix was a very good quarterback, Rivers is as good as I have seen since I have been back in the college game. I said that three years ago, when we played him. I think he's tremendous and a great talent. All he has done is get better and better because he is so experienced and it is obvious that he prepares extremely well for every game. He seldom takes a sack, he doesn't very often get hit. The ball comes out fast, he knows where everyone is. What they have done with formations and shifts and motions, it can really frenzy your defense. It can really stretch your defense in terms of just trying to get your guys lined up and then trying to cover guys that can really run."
Q: With your experience in the pros, do you think Phillip Rivers is an NFL quarterback?
"Oh I think so. I really do. I said that two years ago and a couple of my scout buddies stropped me and said I was wrong. But that guy is extremely productive. The Ohio State game, you guys saw it. That was as good as I have ever seen. He was rifling that ball in there. They had no chance."
Q: What has Mahlon Carey done to get better in the past two games?
"Well, number one, we are sticking with him. He is a talented kid. He is a great kid, another kid from a great family down in Atlanta, Georgia. He has got speed, he has got size and he is a very good tackler. And I said from day one, when this training camp started, we have got to find safeties who can tackle. They are going to have to do that. We are not going to be able to make them all up front. Where he has gotten better over the past two weeks is that he has studied very hard, he is taking it more seriously."
Q: Are there any changes in the lineup?
"Two things come in my mind right away. We believe Lionell Green will start for us at corner and I need to get Chris Hawkins back on the field. Chris Hawkins had a very fine camp until towards the end when he wore down some. He and I have talked about that and I kind of wish I would have put him in there, in the game, to give DJ (Derrick Johnson) a break. Sometimes things start to go bad and sometimes they get better. I am going to stick by players to see if they can get better, but they didn't get better, they got worse. I feel bad for him. He is a heck of a kid, he has done a lot of fine things for us, but more than likely we will start Lionell and DJ will start at nickel, but we are going to get Chris Hawkins ready to play."
