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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 22, 2010

Randy Shannon

THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by Randy Shannon, head coach of the University of Miami. An opening statement, and questions for coach.
COACH SHANNON: Tomorrow's night game against Pitt will be a great opportunity for us at the University of Miami to go out and play on national television again. It's an opportunity for us to come back after a loss last week against Ohio State, but also to bounce back and get back going and start back on the road of where we need to be at.
We feel like after the game last week, we feel like we're a better team because we learned a lot of things in that game about us as a football team. We also know the thing that's we have to go and correct in that loss that was very vital to us winning that game last week.
This last week, practice has been a lot of fun. There's been a lot of enthusiasm. Nobody held their head down. Everybody was upbeat, everybody was positive. Got a lot of works on ones against ones, and physical work, because both the defenses and offenses are similar. So it was good to go against each other.
Every day we had some type of one against one competition to emphasize the red zone, creating turnovers, and protecting the football and also wrapping up and getting the guy on the ground.

Q. What are the biggest things you took out of the Ohio State game? Things that you've been able to apply in practices and things to get ready for this game coming up?
COACH SHANNON: Well, probably more consistency. We looked at it and we always found out what can we do to get better? Offensively, consistency. We're moving the ball up-and-down the field. We punted the ball twice and holding to our game. When you punt the ball twice in the game, you feel like you should win the game.
But inside the red zone we had drop passes; we had illegal procedures; those things cannot happen. So we emphasized those things this week in practice. Not once, not twice, maybe not three times, but it was about five or six times each day that we emphasized some type of form of getting in the red zone, but also capitalizing on the opportunity.
But we worked on it. We worked every day we had the opportunity to do it. And those are the things that our offensive lines that we tried to concentrate on.

Q. How has Jacory looked in practice? Do you think he's going to regain that sharpness that he needs?
COACH SHANNON: Jacory, and I'll say this, Jacory was 26 for 39 in this game against Ohio State. He had nine drops by his receivers, running backs and tight ends, nine of them. If you take those nine drops, he would have been 35 for 39, so he was sharp in the game.
But like I said, the consistency, we have to get out the guys catching the football. We drop one in the end zone. We drop, I think, three of them in the five yards going in. And two of his interceptions basically went to the receiver's hand and went to the other guy. Those are things we've got to be consistent in to make our offense run like we want to run.

Q. To follow up on Jacory, interception-wise, what are you going to do to try to cut it down from last game and last year?
COACH SHANNON: Just like I just said. Jacory only had one interception really that was him. He had three drops out of the four interceptions with some type of form of tips and things like that and guys not being consistent on their routes. That wasn't Jacory. Jacory has one interception that we can account for as for what we're seeing on film.
Now for everybody else they're going to say he had four interceptions. But he's fine right now. He had a great week of practice. He's enthusiastic. He and the receivers have been doing a lot of route running and trying to, like anything, be perfecting on it. Like if we're going to run a comeback in the game, we're going to run it in practice each day 15 times. Each receiver's going to have an opportunity to run it 15 times. So we're going to do those type of things all the time in practice just to get everybody on the consistency out of them.

Q. Just wanted to talk to you a little about the history that you've had where Coach Wannstedt over at Pitt, and tell us what kind of relationship you have with him currently?
COACH SHANNON: Me and Dave Wannstedt's relationship goes back to when I was a player at the University of Miami. He was my position coach and also my position coach at the Dallas Cowboys. All those days that he's been a coach I've been a player, and also a coach also. We've had continual contact at least minimum of maybe 10, to 12, to 15 times a year.
And I've coached with him at the Miami Dolphins. He's taught me a lot. I've learned a lot from him. We have an open relationship that we can communicate and talk all the time.
Like I tell everybody, when I first took the job at University of Miami, I went and spent a few days up there with him talking about being a head coach and also talking defensive football.
When you have a person that you really respect and is truly a friend to you that you can look up to all the time, that is something that you can always have close to you and you can always admire those things.

Q. How has he influenced you as a coach?
COACH SHANNON: Oh, the things that he does as far as what he does staffwise. Making sure chemistry of the staff is always important to him, which I think is very big. Because if everybody had the same chemistry, you can be a successful football team.
Also the way he treats players. You've got to make sure the players understand the importance of being honest. Even though it may hurt a player being honest part about it and being tough with them. But making them understand it's not tough as far as getting on you, but also making you understand that this is important to all of us as a university and a football team.

Q. Do you feel you have an advantage or disadvantage going into Thursday night's match-up?
COACH SHANNON: No, the thing about it is neither one of us call the plays. I'm not calling defensive plays and he's not calling defensive plays. But our mentality is both the same. We both take chances on special teams. We both want to play tough, physical football, and we both want to run the football. And I think those are things that we have that are similar for what we'll both do.

Q. I was just wondering what you thought about your old college Coach Jimmy Johnson taking on the challenge of Survivor?
COACH SHANNON: You know what, I wouldn't doubt it. He's always got something creative. I think maybe two years ago he was thinking about going on there. We talked a little bit about it, but he didn't.
It's great for him because he likes challenges and he likes the water. If you look on the picture all the time, there's always water around. Jimmy's always going to be part of the water. It's good for him. We'll see what happens as it goes on.

Q. Given the fact that Pitt relied so heavily on the running of Dion Lewis and Ray Graham, trying to neutralize when they go deep with a pass and Jonathan Baldwin as a receiver, how do you foresee trying to address that fact and neutralizing Baldwin?
COACH SHANNON: Well, you can't neutralize any part of an offense. You have to make sure your guys do a great job on defense, and execute what we're trying to get done on defense. If the guys go out and execute the game plan and what the defense staff have presented to them throughout the week, we'll be fine.
I can't go in and say we're going to do this to a defense and try to take Baldwin out or Lewis or do those things. We've just got to execute our defense and execute it the way we've been practicing it.

Q. How is Ray-Ray Armstrong been doing this season?
COACH SHANNON: He's been doing great. Started off slow through spring football, and I think the more that the 29 days of practice in August, and coming out being very competitive and learning. And it's like anything, you make the biggest strides when you come here as a freshman to the next step of your sophomore year because of what you learn and what you see.
I think he's understanding each week the importance of being focused, but also going through the process of every week of staying hungry all the time. I think the more that he stays hungry and the more pressure we put on him in practice, the better he'll be as a football player, and the better we'll be as a defense and football team.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach.

End of FastScripts

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