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STANFORD UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 13, 2014David ShawARMY – 0 COACH SHAW: I thought it was a good effort by our players. First and foremost, Lance Anderson did a phenomenal job on the defensive side. That is a tough thing in one week, which is really three days of practice. In three days of practice to get ready for this triple option, I thought it was phenomenal. Give a lot of credit to Lance. Give a lot of credit to our older guys on defense. Some new starters, but a lot of these guys played a lot of football. They were at Army last year, and though some of this is a little different because it's a new coaching staff, but the guys played well. They played the scheme extremely well. I thought Aziz Shittu played well, Blake Martinez played extremely well. Henry Anderson making tackles for loss and getting in there. And David Parry, because it starts up front defending the option, those guys played so well. Secondary was very disappointing. Saw a bunch of passes by this group last week so we knew the big play was a possibility. And second, Duane Akina got the secondary ready. When they dropped back to throw it, everybody was covering deep. They hit some balls underneath, and that's fine for us. Can't say enough about what the defense did today, it was outstanding. Offensively, we started fast. Scripted plays of the first drive was executed perfectly. We thought it was just a great drive. We had a lull in the middle there. Some things that weren't quite clean. A lot of things we addressed and cleaned up again, and then started at the second quarter and got kind of back into it. Got in the third quarter and got back to the running game. I thought Kelsey ran the ball well. I thought Barry Sanders had a big game, did some nice things for us. And Devon Cajuste, is just a tough guy to guard. He's just under 6'4", and 227 pounds and he can run and jump. It's such a great compliment to what that guy can do. Mike Rector can be explosive. We'll continue to work on our tight ends and get them involved, but we're trying to build a complete offense here. Q. You guys are three games in now heading into the bye week. How do you feel about where your offense and defense are right now? COACH SHAW: I think defense is exactly where we want them to be, playing extremely well. It's really three weeks in a row, outstanding performances by those guys. Got to give Lance a lot of credit for what they're doing over there. The whole coaching staff putting guys in position. But when it comes down to guys executing, and they're playing unselfish defense, they're playing Stanford defense. They're playing tough, physical, know where your help is. Starts up front, all those things that we say, top down. All those phases those guys are playing to a tee. Offensively, we're close. We hate being close, we hate being close. We have explosive capabilities. We really do, and that's run and pass. I think the second half our run efficiency really picked up. Our guys took a lot of pride in it, and I'll be honest, a lot of people when your offense gets a little stagnant like we were in the second quarter, okay, just jump in the no huddle and throw the ball every down. That doesn't solve the problems. For us, we wanted to get back to the running game. We've got our big people back in there. We ran the ball. We were physical, and that got it back. And once we have that component back in our offense, then everything is back. So once we got back to the running game, now the play action pass works, now the drop back pass works. Now we change and substitute people in and out. It was fun to get back to that on the offensive side. Q. Can you kind of speak to the stop at the end with the defense because of the shutout? They called the timeout. Can you share what you got during that break there? COACH SHAW: Well, there are certain situations where you've got a shutout, and you put the second team in there and the team drives down. You think about putting the starters back in there, but absolutely not. Those guys that are playing, there are juniors out there. Some guys that haven't played a lot of football and are ready to play football. We left them out there and let them stand up. They made a great play at the end, a great call at the end. Trying to guess what they're going to call. We blitzed the corner and left a receiver hoping just because we figured it was going to be the option. They guessed right, and that's a lot of what play calling is. It's intuition and guessing right, and Lance did that and the guys played it perfectly. Q. Coach, more on the defense, I know several years ago under Coach Harbaugh this team has three shutouts in the season, y'all got two already, and arguably the third game was even more impressive for the defense. Do you think this could be one of the‑‑ I'll say it, do you think this could be the best defenses that you've had here? COACH SHAW: I don't know. Those are discussions for when the season's over. We're off to a great start. The thing that I'll keep hammering home to our guys, because they should feel good about themselves on defense right now. That's great. We're only three games in, and we're where we are on defense because we're playing together. It's not one guy making every tackle. It's not one guy being the focal point. You see A.J. Tarpley make a play, the next play Blake Martinez makes a play. James makes a play. You see guys making plays and playing well together. I can't say enough about the secondary also. Just being able to keep those big plays down and coming up. Jordan Richards making tackles again, they're in a great place right now but because they're playing great team defense. Q. After that initial scoring drive that you had, they stopped you four times. What were they doing on defense against you? COACH SHAW: As I said, a lot of play calling is guessing right and sometimes guessing wrong. So we guessed wrong and they guess right a few times. There are a couple times we look like we're about to break out, and backside linebacker makes a play, and runs to the backside A gap. He chose the right gap to run through at the right time. Kevin missed a couple of throws, third down to Jordan, and Jordan ran a beautiful route. Ball went over his head, and a couple times Kevin threw the ball high on purpose to get the ball out because he was under duress. Protection wasn't quite where we needed it to be. But once again, we came back, we settled down. Kevin got back into rhythm, and the guys played really well in that second half. Q. They were pretty good at punting the ball or keeping the ball away from Montgomery. Is that something you expect to see the rest of the season? COACH SHAW: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Hopefully, that leads to positive field position. We've had some teams now punt the ball away from Ty, punt the ball out of bounds, punt the ball high and short. We'll take all of those. That helps field position. Hopefully if they kick it right to him, it helps field position also because he's that dynamic of an athlete. That's part of the reason we put him back there. It's almost an intimidation factor. If you kick one high and deep to him. He's got the whole field and a chance to break them. Q. Do you expect anything less out of Kevin to bounce back after last week? He's very efficient and started out very efficient in the first quarter. COACH SHAW: Absolutely expected it from him. His week of practice was that way also. Just very efficient, very businesslike. Once again, it's as I said about this team before, it's kind of a different team for us. There is not a lot of vocal leadership. There are just guys going back to work. Our Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, we're just workmanlike practices. Not a lot of rah‑rah, or nothing. It's just guys getting back to work. But it wasn't like it was so quiet it was dead. It was guys working. It was physical. We had to get guys cut, so we've been working on playing cut blocks and playing physical. So it was a good week of practice for everybody. Kevin in particular because being a senior captain he took it upon his shoulders to play one of his better games. I tell you, he was great today. Q. (Indiscernible). Talk about the receiving corps. These big, strong, fast guys that can go get it. COACH SHAW: We're excited about them. You've got a quarterback that's going into his third year as a starter. You have Devon who is a fourth‑year senior with one to play. You have Ty who is a fourth‑year senior. You have Michael Rector who is a junior. You have guys that are explosive and should affect the defense. If they get one‑on‑one, we're going to get opportunities to make plays. We took some shots with Ty earlier in the game and he played offense was off. Kevin worked the check down, scrambling when nobody was there. I loved this receiving corps. When our tight ends continue to mature, I think it's going to be a dangerous group hopefully second half of the year. Q. (Indiscernible). What's number one on your get‑better list? COACH SHAW: I think it's just not even get better, it's just make the next step in our progress. We're in progress with a lot of things. The running game is still in progress with our guys, with our guys up front and our runners. It's still in progress, and that's something we're going to stick with because it's going to pay dividends. As you saw today, we have explosive capabilities at the running back position. They just need a crease. I think continue to work on our tight ends. You know, Hooper had a phenomenal game last week, and then had a couple of drops today. That's just part of the process of growing up. He's just a sophomore, red‑shirt freshman, keeping those other guys involved. Once again, defensively, it's still playing team defense, not getting high on ourselves because we've had three good games. Hey, it's three out of 12. We've had nine more guaranteed. Let's go play it. So I think that's the big thing for us. We have a couple guys coming back from injury.  Remound Wright coming back, he'll start getting carries again. And we'll get Joe Hemschoot back hopefully in a couple of weeks, back and ready to roll. Q. You guys went no back, five wide receivers down in the goal line. That is one of the first times I remember you guys doing that. If you could talk about the thought that went into that? COACH SHAW: I think the big thing for is us is we want to present as many things as possible to the defense and still be efficient while to doing it. We've got the receivers to go five wide. We have a couple personnel groupings with two tight ends and three receivers and no backs and personnel groupings with three backs. So it's up to us to present as many different looks as possible as we can, and still just be efficient. So when we go empty with no backs in the back field, Kevin directs the protection, and checks to the right play and got the ball out, and Christian McCaffrey made a catch and had a nice play. Q. Were you guys surprised at all by (Indiscernible)? COACH SHAW: We worked on it. We worked on it. Not that specific one, but one very similar to that. Q. Had they done that before? COACH SHAW: They've done something similar. It was a little bit different, but we've talked about it all week. Knowing that it's probably going to show up. They're a well‑oiled machine for the most part, so you better be in position. If you're out of position, you're going to give up a big play. And Coach Alamar preached it all week. We're ready for on‑side kicks and fake punts, and our pass, just like the Cal game last year, our guy was in the right place, made a heck of a hit, and it turned into a touchdown for us. Q. The running backs, you said back in August we're going to give them all a run and see how it shakes out and what the order is. Quarter of the way through the season, anymore clarity of the order of the running back? COACH SHAW: No clarity in the order, but clarity in they're all pretty good. Which is good, that's what we thought. We'll continue to talk to all of them about being a unit and being a group just like the receiving corps. There is going to be one game where somebody goes off, and the next game somebody else is going to go off and being there for each other and helping each other. But when it's your turn, go out there and make a play. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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