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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 6, 2010Ralph FriedgenTHE MODERATOR: We now welcome Maryland head football coach Ralph Friedgen. We'll ask for a brief opening statement, then go to questions. Coach. COACH FRIEDGEN: We have an open week this week. I've been recruiting. Back, going to practice today and tomorrow, get ready for Clemson. I'll open it up to questions. Q. We're seeing more touchdown passes out of this conference than ever before. From your perspective, is it a by-product of having so many upperclassmen quarterbacks or is there a bit of a shift in the league that it's becoming more 'pass happy'? COACH FRIEDGEN: I think there's a lot of good quarterbacks in the league. We have a young quarterback that's only played two games and thrown five or six touchdown passes. I just think there's a lot of good quarterbacks and a lot of good receivers. You're seeing more production out of them. Q. How is Stinebaugh doing at this point from what you've heard? COACH FRIEDGEN: Well, right now it looks like he has an MCL. Going to see the doctor today. Right now we don't think it needs to be operated on, but he's going to examine him today and find out how serious it is. It possibly could be operated on. If it's not operated on, they think four to six weeks he'll be out. Q. On your special teams units, beyond having Tony and Torrey as your returners, you've been using a lot of wide receivers. How significant is it to be able to get production out of guys like that? COACH FRIEDGEN: I've never had that before on any team I've coached. We have so many wide receivers contributing on special teams. It's a real bonus. I think our wide receivers are pretty physical. I think they're really motivated to do well on special teams. I've been very, very pleased with their effort and their enthusiasm and their leadership. I think it's been one of the reasons why we're playing pretty good special teams. Q. Coach, punt returners. Tony Logan had another really long one Saturday. What qualities make an outstanding punt returner? What do you look for? COACH FRIEDGEN: The first thing you look for is somebody that can catch the punt. If you can't catch the punt, you're not confident about catching it, it doesn't matter how good a runner you are, because it's going to be a factor, always going to be a possible turnover. I think the next quality they have to have is they have to make one guy miss, make the first guy miss. Not always are you going to get that guy blocked. If they have the ability to catch the ball, make that guy miss... Last one, they have to have good speed and vision. If they have those two things, you got a chance to have a pretty good punt returner. Q. Obviously Tony has most of those qualities. Can you talk about what you've seen from him. How does he rate? COACH FRIEDGEN: Like I've said before, last spring, I bring everybody in for their exit interviews. Last year Tony had some concerns about what his role on the team was. I told him, You need to be our punt returner and you need to do a great job, but we need to do a better job of getting you where you can make one guy miss. I don't think we did a very good job of that last year. He would have a fair catch, have two guys hitting him. I think we've done a better job with that. With his success, guys are more motivated to give better effort to get blocks for him because they know it's a potential touchdown every time the kid touches the ball. The touchdown this past week was an all-out rush which we almost blocked it, yet they came down and formed a pretty good wall for him. Here we are trying to block a punt and he's running it for a touchdown for 85 yards, however long it was. I think our kids are pretty motivated to do what they can to make him be successful and he's pretty excited. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks for being with us today. Enjoy the week and we'll talk to you next Wednesday. COACH FRIEDGEN: Thanks. End of FastScripts |
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