Meet the Press: Florida State Game
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – Head coach Al Golden, selected student-athletes and assistant coaches met the media on Tuesday to discuss the game against Florida State. See below for quotes and video clips.
Al Golden Pre-Game Press Conference
Oct. 16, 2012 (Florida State)
Opening Statement…
“We got a great opportunity this week with Florida State. Back in Sun Life for the second consecutive game. I think we all know what type of team we are playing: 6-1; No. 10 in the country; very veteran on defense; five seniors, five juniors, a sophomore; only given up 90 points on the year. I don’t think they’ve given up a 100-yard rusher yet. Two shutouts and (holding opponents to) about 23 percent on third down. Excellent kick return game with [Karlos] Williams and [Lamarcus] Joyner punt return game; [Dustin] Hopkins just broke the all-time scoring record in terms of his field goals. On offense, very good offensive line, veteran offensive line. [Nick] O’Leary and [Kevin] Haplea do a great job at TE for them. [EJ] Manuel is 19-5 as a starter. Over 70 percent completion percentage does a great job distributing the football to his playmakers. His completion percentage is high, not just high because of his decision making but it’s high because of his ability to pull the ball down and run and get positive yards. He’s something like 14 touchdowns and 3 interceptions on the year.
“Three running backs we’ll see. They’re all excellent running backs. [Chris] Thompsons’ having a great year for them. We’ll see all three in the game. They all bring something special. [Lonnie] Prior’s got six TDs at FB and a very unselfish player. Just a handful of speed and length at WR. Great challenge, I believe it’s the best team that we’ve played this year. Two other teams that are ranked higher than them right now. I think this is the most talented team that we’ve seen this year, the most complete team, and obviously coming off a big win against Boston College.”
On QB Stephen Morris’ progress…
“He didn’t practice today. He probably won’t practice tomorrow. The earliest we’ll have a shot to do anything would be Thursday. At the earliest and you’re not talking pocket stuff, just 7-on-7 and things of that nature. We have a long way to go. I would have to classify him as a game-time (decision) right now. I don’t know what that means in terms of our ACC report. Doubtful, maybe, if it came out Thursday. Probable, doubtful – one of those.”
On QB Ryan Williams…
“Ryan did a great job today. He threw the ball well. Practiced really well. Made all the throws. We’re excited about him. We don’t have really two separate game plans going in. Ryan ran the whole thing; Preston Dewey backed him up today. We’re proceeding like that; if Stephen’s healthy, we’ll give it a shot.”
On how he (Coach Golden) will make final decision…
“Just how (Stephen Morris) feels. They both are preparing. They both have to get ready. Stephen’s more mental right now. Ryan [Williams] is more physical, taking the reps with the 1’s. Again, I’m not going to put Stephen out there if he’s not healthy enough to execute. It wouldn’t be fair to the team, and it wouldn’t be fair to Ryan. I want to make sure we’re all preparing throughout the week and see how it shakes out.”
On Ryan William’s strengths…
“He has great pocket presence. He’s got vision in the pocket. He really has a nice touch on the ball. The one thing he does well is he’s got a good mind, good touch on second-level throws, level-two throws, in cuts, deep overs, corner routes and things of that nature. He is long. He’s not afraid to stay in the pocket and use his vision and his ability to release it high.”
On Florida State…
“You don’t get to where they are right now if you’re not a complete team. They’re a veteran team with an excellent defense – an in-your-face defense. They’re opportunistic, they create big plays. They have good field position, and the offense is really doing a great job right now of getting everybody involved. Their wideouts are excellent.
On running the ‘Wildcat’…
“We were trying to manufacture some more running yards and we liked it. It helped us in the low red (zone), too. I thought Mike James did a good job. Obviously you want someone there you can trust. Mike has command of that and runs it really well. We’ve used it at other times since we’ve been here. Mike did a good job with that Saturday.”
On running the ball…
“It’s critical. People are saying last week we held a team that scored 44 points-per-game to 18. They don’t understand that maybe the offense had something to do with that, running the ball effectively and holding it to 30 minutes. The offense had a lot to do with that. Now the defense played better, but the offense had a lot to do with it. You can’t abandon the run against this team. You’re going to get some negatives. They’re very good up front. The tackles are hard to block, but you got to have patience, or otherwise the game can spin out on you, and you don’t want it to spin out.”
On the Miami-Florida State rivalry…
“I don’t look at it in the sense that maybe some of our fans look at it. We should be mad that they’re up there right now. If you look at the way this rivalry has gone, it’s up to the other school to respond. I recognize that. I hope we all recognize that. It’s our job to respond. Whatever that means for the entire organization – starting with me – we have to respond. Obviously we have an opportunity to do that Saturday night. That means player development, recruiting, whatever we need to do with resources and everything; that’s what’s made these two programs so great. We have to chase them; we have to get to where we want to be.”
On the Florida State defense…
“They’re playing 14 guys up front. More than 22 guys on defense, but 14 guys that they’re just rolling through there. They chase the ball, they’re aggressive, they’re strong. Everybody knows their role. They have some guys that have experience in terms of the number of starts. They have grown into this. That’s why they are where they are. They’re talented and they’re experienced and you need the combination of both. I don’t think there’s any question that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re asking a lot of young guys to grow up quick. I don’t know how it was put together three years ago, but clearly they have a lot of experience and veteran defense.”
On the BCS standings…
“I’m not going to diminish what this game means to everybody associated with UM. They would say the same thing. All I’m saying to you is everything we do, we have to design and understand that whether we like the model or not. The model is if we don’t win the [ACC Coastal Division], we’re not going to get back to the BCS and get that opportunity. If you start out with a 1-of-12 opportunity at the beginning of the year to get to the BCS game, if you win the Coastal, you jump to 50 percent. It’s as simple as that. We have to do everything we can do to make sure we understand. That’s our first way out. Once we get to there, then we can start talking about getting back to the national scene and those things. Let’s not complicate it. There are some teams in our league – Virginia Tech has figured out that formula – that model. Get to there, and if you have the type of team that’s special, you can win that and go to the BCS games.”
On Duke Johnson…
“We need him to play more. Clearly we were all surprised by his ability. He’s a tough kid. Randy (Duke) Johnson is a tough kid for him to do what he did. He did not practice at all last week, didn’t even lace up. He went out there and torqued on his foot, planted, and had yards after contact, didn’t just go down. He worked hard. I was surprised he didn’t have any ill effects, because we’re talking about turf toe. It didn’t go backwards. Today, he looked good. We have to get him back in gear a little bit.”
On catching the ball and overcoming drops…
“You can’t make any excuses. We dropped the ball certainly two weeks ago – had a couple last week, not to the extent of the Notre Dame game. Difficult environment last week. We just have to look it in, frame it and have confidence. Our guys will bounce back. They’re throwing and catching well in practice. They’ve done a good job all year. We had some in the Notre Dame game that were unfortunate. Phillip [Dorsett] bounced back, as did some of the other guys. This game we had some guys who dropped passes that didn’t drop them against Notre Dame.”
On Florida State’s front seven…
“The checkmate in football is if you can destroy with the four down guys without bringing a fifth or in terms of you stopping the run with seven, and not eighth or ninth. That’s where they have an advantage right now. Very disruptive with their down four, and that gives them an opportunity. In terms of combating it, you have to be patient. If you get some losses, you can’t abandon your game plan. There are some tactical things you try to do in terms of misdirection and moving the pocket that I see people deploy against them. There are some things to do, but at the end of the day, you have to block them.”
On Florida State QB EJ Manuel…
“He’s an excellent quarterback playing really well. His touchdown-to-interception ratio is excellent. His completion percentage is elite. We need to get pressure on him. No sacks the other day for us. We need some negative plays, we need to get some sacks, some TFLs, we need to get some takeaways. I don’t think you can win the game without those against these guys. You need those three areas. He’s dangerous in space. I’d prefer to keep him in the pocket if we could.”
On kicker Jake Wieclaw’s confidence…
“He’ll be fine. He’ll stroke it fine for us on Saturday. I got a lot of confidence in Jake. It was a tough environment the other day to kick in for sure. I opted to go for it a few times on 4th down. It was my decision. It was irrespective of Jake. It was a function of not getting the opportunity to go for the 2-point conversion. I didn’t know if we were going to get it back. Obviously if we convert the two there we’re trying to kick a field goal to tie it up, and get it back to kick a field goal to win. I have confidence in Jake.”
On the offensive line…
“I think our offensive line has been very good. I think there were some times when we had to abandon the run. That’s not on them; that’s on me. And on the fact we weren’t as good on defense where we could stay in there and play a normal game. To be honest with you, this is a great challenge. Greatest challenge of the year if you are on the offensive line. The greatest challenge so far this year and this season for us. The test is Saturday night. We’ll evaluate that.”
On possibly asking QB Stephen Morris to sit out…
“I’m not going to have that conversation with Stephen (Morris). If you want to have that with him, go right ahead; that’s not going to go very well. We all only get so many shots at this. I’m not going to ask him to sit out the Florida State game or for any game, to be honest with you. If he’s ready to go, he’s ready to go. If you see him out there, it’s because he is ready to go and he can execute in that game. If he’s not, then that question is answered.”
On Ray Lewis injury…
“It’s sad. If it is the end, and I don’t want to speculate, but if it is, for anybody that has given as much as he’s given to that organization and as much as he means to the Miami community, I hope he ends on the terms he wants to end on. If this is it, then how can you say he didn’t make the most of his opportunity from the day he walked here to the day he finished there? Tremendous opportunity and obviously how he played the game.”
