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STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 30, 2017

David Shaw

Stanford, California

Stanford - 34, Arizona State - 24

Q. Coach, did you have a favorite Bryce Love run today?
COACH SHAW: Hopefully the next long touchdown. Just take your pick. I thought that balance. To keep your speed and stay in balance and then another I've never seen anybody get hit and stumble and then get back up to full speed. I've just never seen that before. It's unbelievable.

Q. Was Keller Chryst cleared or not? What was his situation this week?
COACH SHAW: It was a wise decision for us to hold him. He was probably close to being ready but we're not going to take chances like that.

Q. As far as the doctors were concerned, it was okay for him to play?
COACH SHAW: Like I said, it was close.

Q. So if he's okay this week, who will start next week? I can predict your answer, but I'd like to hear you say it.
COACH SHAW: Then go ahead and answer my answer (laughter). This week hasn't ended, so we'll start talking about next week tomorrow.

Q. What's wrong with Nate Herbig?
COACH SHAW: He should be okay next week. It was kind of a late week thing that came on. It was kind of a medical thing. They thought he was going to be able to go and he was in a lot of pain yesterday.

Still wanted to try to go, so we went to warm up this morning and just couldn't go. But he should be okay for next week, but we'll see, though. He should be fine.

Q. I'm curious why you use Ryan Burns on the third and 38. Was that going to be a long bomb that he was capable of throwing or what was the reason that he was in?
COACH SHAW: It was a quarterback draw. It was a quarterback draw, just trying to get some yardage back. Ryan is big and fast -- if he gets in a lane he might be able to get some more, and maybe we get a fourth and short. But third and long, hopefully just get them to play soft like we did. We missed one block, he might have gotten at least some more yardage.

Q. I'm wondering if you knew when they announced over the PA that he had actually broken the record that he had not actually, not yet broken the record. Did you know that at the time?
COACH SHAW: I had no idea. I heard people cheering and I figure that that's what it was. I didn't really care because we're still in the middle of the game. It's nice when those things happen and you've got a big lead or something. But if it's not a big lead, I hear people cheer and I had an idea what it was, but I didn't really care at the time.

Q. We all look at Bryce's big runs, the long runs, but on that last drive he had that 11-yarder where he got the record, where he's dragging three guys. Before I think he had a 20-yarder where at the end he was near going out of bounds, he has the wherewithal to stay in bounds. Are those little runs that are critical, do they sometimes get overlooked by people outside your program with Bryce?
COACH SHAW: Absolutely. Absolutely. And the teams that we're going to play, they always make comments also, because it's -- the big ones are obvious. Everybody can see those, but it's the 4-yard run that he makes an 11-yard run. It's the one that could be three yards or hit in the backfield that ends up being nine yards.

That's the hidden yardage that great backs give you. Once again, for not being the biggest guy he runs physical. He runs tough. He breaks tackles. He gets through people. If he gets in clear he's gone.

Q. Some ups and some downs, but big plays from the defensive side of the football. How would you sum up their day?
COACH SHAW: I think, offensively and defensively, once again, our calling card, we played hard. There were a couple of opportunities we had to make this game a little bit easier on all of us. We needed to stop a little bit earlier in the game defensively. But our guys kept fighting.

Our guys up front, the front seven, we hit the quarterback a lot. We sacked him a couple times. We put pressure on him. We made him move. This guy's shown now if he can stay clean in the pocket he can hurt you down the field. He's been throwing for 300 yards a game, making big plays down the field. So, thankfully we didn't let him get too comfortable in the pocket.

And our guys in the secondary played really well. I give a lot of credit to Alameen Murphy who had to hold by himself outside until we got Elijah back. But our guys defensively played really, really well.

Q. How would you assess Costello's plays in this name? He didn't have the numbers, but he did have a couple of really sharp passes on the money.
COACH SHAW: I thought he played well. Guy making the first start of his career, I thought he played really well. He played really smart, handled a lot for us. He'd love to have one of those fade balls back at the end of the first half. I think if he makes a little better throw we go with a touchdown instead of a field goal.

But besides that he made some big-time throws to JJ, one for a touchdown and another one for a big game to get us down there. Made nice throws to Kaden Smith and to our tight ends inside.

It was nice to see those guys made some plays for him. And that's the thing; we've got a young quarterback. Guys gotta make plays for him. Let's not put it all on the young quarterback. We ran the ball, we played really well up front, offensive line-wise.

I thought we had great protection, not good protection, one of our best protection games. And we ran the ball extremely well. I thought the quarterback played well. And at the end of the game, you guys know how we are -- we get a two-score, we're running the ball. We're going to run it.

Q. Alijah Holder comes back and it seemed right away you guys were maybe more comfortable going with three down linemen, and suddenly they weren't able to run the ball as effectively, and got a lot of three-and-outs in the third quarter and shut them out in the third quarter.
COACH SHAW: The biggest thing was Coach Anderson doing a great job just mixing it up. This is a team, if they get an idea what you're doing, they kill you.

So us mixing up our calls, mixing up our personnel groupings, mixing up our signals, trying to keep them off balance a little bit, just so our guys can be effective.

If you stand pat against those guys, we've seen what they can do to people. So they've got a big receiver. They've got a really good running back, an NFL back. They've got an athletic quarterback. They got out a couple of times and thankfully we kept him at bay. But I give a lot of credit to Coach Anderson as mixing up our calls on defense.

Q. On your first viewing of the game, what are some of the bigger things that need to get cleaned up between now and heading on the road?
COACH SHAW: That's a big box with everything in it. I thought we took a nice step forward. Even without Nate, it was tough, but we took a step forward on the offensive line. Played probably one of our best games of the year up front.

We've got to continue to get other backs involved. We can't put the entire load on Bryce. Although, he's doing a heck of a job. Cameron Scarlett is an able-bodied back, has done a totally good job when he has an opportunity. Had a couple of nice runs today. Gotta mix it up there.

But I think we can get more out of our receiving corps. These guys are blocking really, really well. Working hard. They're making some plays. Great play by Donald Stewart early in the game, also on the sidelines. And he's just coming into his own. JJ Arcega-Whiteside, we'll see if he's ready to go next week. Probably not. But Trenton Irwin. Kaden is a tight end. Dalton made some plays in the passing game. Connor Wedington.

We've got a good group of guys. We're going to continue to develop and grow and learn. We don't have a senior in the group. These are two juniors and a whole bunch of sophomores and freshmen. We've got a good group of guys we want to continue to develop because they're a great complement to Bryce. And as more people will try to load the box, we'll still run it. But we'll have a chance to have outside, and in the slot, one-on-ones, we have to win.

Q. They run a lot of direct snap stuff earlier in the year. They did it with three different people, I think, today. Were you surprised or disappointed how effective they were with that in the first half, especially?
COACH SHAW: Absolutely. Because we loaded the box. We had a bunch of guys in there. They did a really good job executing. Second half was much better for us. And guys that got off blocks. We had guys that squeezed their running lanes.

Because that's the thing, it's one thing to be blocked, but you get blocked and it's two-wide. But if we can squeeze that running lane and make it harder to get through, which our guys did a great job in the second half, Diron Reynolds, our defensive line coach, was on his guys about pushing those holes tighter and getting penetration and we were able to do that in the second half.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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