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STANFORD UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 5, 2013David ShawWASHINGTON – 28 COACH SHAW: Questions? Q. Do you feel this is one of those games where you're going to have to watch film to let it all digest? COACH SHAW: Yes, but I mean, I already know so many mistakes that we made, but they're complicated by playing against a good team. A team that's maybe not as good, you make some mistakes and they don't hurt you as bad. But you have to play extremely well against this defense. Justin Wilcox, he knows how I feel about him. I have so much respect for him as a coordinator. We've been extremely good all year on third down, and they really took it to us on third downs. Keith Price, can't say enough about Keith Price. Athletic, smart, great kid, tough competitor. We probably should have had four to five more sacks tonight, but we couldn't bring him down. He's that good. You combine that with the running back and the receivers and the big tight end. You know, we knew this was going to be a slugfest, we knew it was going to go back and forth, and thankfully we held on at the end. Q. Were you able to see that final play there for Washington on the sideline there, and then I guess in the moment waiting for it to happen, what was that like? COACH SHAW: Yeah, I saw it live very quickly, and I didn't see the ball hit the ground. So the guys upstairs said they saw a replay from behind, especially, the view that I didn't have, you could see the ball go through, hit his chest, bounce off the ground and into his hands. Q. Ty Montgomery, you guys didn't have a great night offensively as far as total yards, but what he did on special teams and the touchdown catch, what can you say about his performance? COACH SHAW: Much was made about last year's game with Ty and him having a rough game. We all had a rough game last year. But what I love about Ty right now and his mentality is this wasn't a way to get back at Washington or wasn't a redemption by any stretch of the imagination; it's just his growth. I mean, he's a better player now than he was a year ago. He's gotten better every single week. We missed him a couple times last week. We didn't need it with 55 points, but there were two touchdown opportunities that we had that we just couldn't get him the ball. He's so fast. He's so explosive, and he's a great kid. The challenge for him though is to continue to get better because he can. Q. There was a moment when he went out of the game and he was being tended to. Do you know what was happening there? COACH SHAW: Exhaustion. Exhaustion. He was tired. Tired, cramped up a little bit, but it wasn't the cramps, it was just he needed to blow. All those long runs and all those big plays, and not to mention, when he wasn't carrying the ball, he was blocking his tail off. He did a great job blocking. He and Devon Cajuste did a great job blocking and that is exhausting. That's tiring. They have big safeties and our receivers were trying to get to those safeties, and he got a little tired so we tried to spell him a little bit, but when we needed him, we put him back out there. Q. How does a game like this prepare you for some of the challenges you guys facing? COACH SHAW: Just the fourth quarter. You know, we talked about being finishers, we talk about training for games like this, because that's our conference. This is the way it's going to be from here on out. There's going to be a one‑score lead in the fourth quarter, maybe a ten‑point lead in the fourth quarter. Either we're going to be up or we're going to be down, and that is just the way it's going to be. So for mentality‑wise for us, we don't change anything. Thankfully, I believe we recruited pretty well right now, so we have a deep team. Because of the high octane offense like that that goes this fast with this many plays, you have to be able to roll your guys and you have to get rest for your guys. We've got to be two‑deep at every position. We played a lot of guys on defense, and thankfully they stood up pretty well. Q. Looking ahead at UCLA and Oregon especially, what did you do tonight that you feel good about going into those games, and what are your concerns? COACH SHAW: I have no idea who we play after Utah. It's tough enough next week; it's one of the loudest stadiums in our conference. They play extremely well there, and everyone said UCLA was going to go in there and blow them out, and that was a tough one. Utah turned the ball over a ton. If they didn't, that game would have been a lot closer, and it might have even gone the other way. This is a team that plays great at home. I have a lot of respect for their coaching staff. In all three phases they do a really good job, so we'll have to come ready to play. It's going to feel like a short week with the travel and finishing the game basically on Sunday, so we've got to make sure our guys are ready to go next week. Q. Ty Montgomery, the game he had tonight got you going with a dazzling play, and that play before halftime, you could argue was maybe the difference in the ballgame. COACH SHAW: I would say Ty was the difference in the ballgame. Just his presence, great reverse also. The two great kickoff returns, great job blocking, great job being unselfish and doing whatever we needed him to do. He's a special player that we think his future is extremely bright, and he's only going to get better. He's just scratching the surface. Q. Last year you played in so many tight games, one touchdown games, field goal games, how much is that experience paying off? Is there any scenario that these guys haven't seen already? COACH SHAW: Oh, gosh, it seems like we've seen a bunch. I don't know if there's anything we haven't seen. But I do know with the older guys on this team especially, the older guys on this team, we've been through this. It's not a beauty contest. It's a football game. You walk out of it with either a win or a loss, and our guys understand that. So no matter how imperfect their whole game is, we get to the fourth quarter, we've got to finish, and our guys finished well today. Q. Coach, when your quarterback is out of rhythm and you're only able to complete four passes for 30 yards in the second half, how does that affect your play calling especially in the fourth quarter and down the stretch? COACH SHAW: It doesn't affect the play calling. It wasn't just the quarterback out of rhythm. It was their defense. They're extremely good. They're well‑coached and they're very good. There were not a lot of passing lanes. They did a good job squeezing the receivers, getting underneath the receivers. The corners and safeties played deep, so it was hard to get the deep shot. We tried a deep shot early in the game and it got intercepted. Great play by them. They make it tough on you. This is a defense that makes you try to go the long way without giving up big plays. For us we had to manufacture big plays. We did it on the reverse. We did it on the press coverage with Ty Montgomery, and we did it on a couple of runs that got first downs. So it wasn't just us. They did a really good job on defense. Q. You're 5‑0 now. We've seen a lot of different scores here, a lot of different types of performances. How do you feel about your team right now overall? COACH SHAW: We are a tough, mentally tough team, which, of all the things you can ask for as a Coach, that's what you want. You want guys that don't blink. They can be up three scores, four scores, five scores whatever it was last week and keep fighting. It can be a battle. You put the film on without knowing the score, and you can't tell because the guys just play hard. Not perfect. We have to improve so much. So many things that we can do so much better. We've been doing so well on third downs. We have to go back and look at our third downs again. Red zone‑wise we have to have touchdowns, can't kick field goals. We got to the red zone fringe area a couple times and crossed the 50. We need to get to field goal range. We punted in the middle of the field which we can't do. We have to get more yards and get ourselves in position to score. There is so much more we can learn. So many different ways we can get better. Of the bottom line is we have a bunch of tough guys that can will come and fight. Q. Can you just talk about the role of your punt and kick coverage today and how important you thought that was? COACH SHAW: I would say it was the one thing that's not gotten any coverage all year. Pete Alamar has done a phenomenal job with our coverage unit. I think we've got really good personnel. Our punters and kickers have done a phenomenal job. Our hang time and punts and kicks have been outstanding. That is the first part of the kickoff coverage, the first part of punt coverage is getting the right kick that goes in the right place with the right hang time. Those guys have been taking out those kickoffs from the 1‑ and 2‑yard line which don't seem to be long kicks, the hang time has been phenomenal. You're seeing guys like Usua and Joe Hemschoot get down there and make plays. They've done a really good job, and it's got to continue because we have to play field position. Those are the biggest swings in field position are on special teams. Our guys have done a good job. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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