ACC Kickoff: News and notes from around the Coastal Division

Q. Josh, as the leader of this offense and a leader on the team, what in your opinion defines leadership for you?

JOSH JACKSON: What defines leadership? Would definitely be just being a guy that other people can look up to and follow, I guess you could say, especially since we have a young team, just being somebody that some of those younger guys can look up to. And how I work and how I act around the facilities and outside of the facilities is something that they should try to follow and, I guess, mimic in a sense.

Q. Josh, you had your first season as starting quarterback last year. Second year, what's it going to be like having a year under your belt?

JOSH JACKSON: It's definitely great to have the experience from last year, but I don't think no years are the same, obviously. So we'll have different challenges and different teams we will play, and that past experience will hopefully have me a little bit more ready for that.

Q. Josh, eight of the top nine rushing teams last year have quarterbacks that run effectively. Last year you grossed almost 500 yards. The net was a little less than that, sacks and so forth. What's the importance, the value of you running the football in this offense?

JOSH JACKSON: I think it definitely adds another dimension to your offense when you have a quarterback that can run a little bit. That can definitely do nothing but help you.

Q. Last year offensively 5.4 yards per play. It's pretty impressive. Is it reasonable to think that you can total higher this year per play?

JOSH JACKSON: I have never even really thought about that stat to be honest. I mean, obviously we're trying to get better offensively, and hopefully we can get better at that.

Q. Josh, under Justin coming on to the team, looking at 19 wins in the past two seasons, and obviously a couple years ago having the opportunity in the ACC Championship, what has Virginia Tech under Justin Fuente been? How would you define the culture of this now?

JOSH JACKSON: I think not much has changed, I don't think, with our culture. I know we got back to the ten wins. We had nine last year. But our culture has always been blue-collar, hard, smart and tough football teams. With that, we always want to try to win the ACC Championship, and I don't think any of that has really changed.

Q. Josh, without Cam Phillips, who are you looking to? I know Eric Kumah got a lot of experience last year, but as far as your confidence around your wide receivers and your other targets?

JOSH JACKSON: Got a lot of confidence. I know they're young, but Sean Savoy, Hezekiah Grimsley, Phil Patterson, Kumah, as you said. And then there's another guy I've been talking about a lot is Damon Hazelton. He's a transfer from Ball State who I think will have a big impact on our offense.

Q. Josh, from year one to year two, what are some of the facets of your game that you've really concentrated on to improve from year one to year two?

JOSH JACKSON: Definitely just continuing my growth in the mental aspect of the game, knowing defenses and knowing our offense in and out is definitely something I've focused on, along with getting the ball out quicker, working on RPOs and throwing on the run and everything like that have been things that I've focused on this off-season.

Q. As I look at the names of the players who aren't here anymore, that graduated, you guys lost an extraordinary amount of talent, just three starters other than yourself back, and yet you're the lunch pail guy, you're the leader. Given the culture that Bud Foster has established, does it really matter who's gone and who's back?

RICKY WALKER: I mean, I guess for the fans it matters, but for us it really doesn't matter. You know, people ask me that question all the time. You're young and you lose guys. As long as Bud Foster is in Blacksburg, I think we're going to be just fine.

Q. Last year the team gave up 14.8 points per game, which isn't too bad, but what is it that you need to do this year to maybe knock that total lower.

RICKY WALKER: 14, I think that's still a little too much. But just first things first, we always preach stopping the run. I think if any defense can stop the run, you have a pretty high chance of winning the game, so that's definitely one of our goals each and every week is stopping the run. Other than that, just doing what we do best, preparing and winning ballgames.

Q. Obviously lost some key guys on defense, but have veterans coming back, yourself, Trevon Hill and maybe others. Who are some other guys that you're looking to see step up?

RICKY WALKER: Yeah, young guys, both our linebackers, Dylan Rivers and Rayshard Ashby, I'm excited for those two guys. Those guys, they had great leaders in the room last year in front of them, so I'm excited to see how they come to work and how they come to business. Anybody else -- young guys like Bryce Watson, Devon Hunter, those two guys I'm excited for, too.

Q. I know you are one game at a time. I know that's the mantra of the team. This is your last season, the last regular season home game was against an opponent that's pretty special on the calendar. What would it mean to be able to finish out your home career with a win against that program?

RICKY WALKER: It would mean a lot. You know, definitely a big game on Monday night. Nobody else is watching. As coaches say, there's nowhere to hide that night. Right now we're doing what we're doing best, we're preparing and working out and just giving us the best chance to win that night.

Q. People talk about the holes you have to fill on the defense this year, but special teams you have to fill the long snapper slot, kickoff starter, kicker, and you've also got to fill the punt returner. Who are some people you have in mind to fill those spots?

JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, we hope Oscar Shadley can handle the deep snapping duties. I'm not exactly positive who's going to be our kickoff returner. I feel good about our pool of guys that can go do that, Caleb Farley is a guy that will probably start off back there. When I say start off back there, I mean start practice back there. I think we've got a good pool of guys. Punt returner to me is the one that we're going to have a little bit of competition to find out who that's going to be. C.J. Carroll is probably the guy that I feel the best about right at this moment. But we've got some other young guys that have not done it in a game that we'll need to get ready, as well. We should have a good competition at kicker to see who actually gets to go out there and kick with two talented young men. I'm excited about what we've got there, it's just a little bit unproven.

Q. Josh had spoken about the fact that the culture really hasn't changed that much from Frank Beamer going to you. Going into your third season at Virginia Tech, 19 wins, eight losses, just what you can say about not every school has that from coach to coach, that transition that seemed seamless and back to success. What has led to that success in your opinion?

JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, people have often asked me about how to follow a Hall of Fame coach, and my answer is pretty simple, is be really careful about the Hall of Fame coach you choose to follow. Coach has been incredibly supportive of us. I think part of the reason we've had success is we've been able to devote our time and our energy on our team, to the development of our team, and not to some of the things that may happen in either corporations or schools across the country when there is a transition. We haven't had to expend energy on some of the distractions you may have when you go through a transition. I'm not sure exactly what the culture was when Coach Beamer was here. I wasn't in the locker room. I don't know. I know that I've always identified with what they were doing at Tech before I got there and thought it was something that was unique and something that I could kind of understand and identify with. I would imagine, I don't know this for a fact, but I would imagine that when we talk as a football team, the message is probably phrased differently, but the underlying themes are probably very similar to what they were when Coach was here, and I'm not certainly comparing myself to Coach Beamer, I'm just saying that I think all those things have led to a little bit smoother transition.

Q. I know you lament a little bit the ACC Championship game a couple years ago when you felt like maybe you let that game get away and had a legitimate chance to win it. You've been to, I guess, 25 straight bowl games. Is there a point where it's not enough just to go to a bowl game just to be close to winning a championship and you need to take the next step and compete for a championship, compete to get to the college playoffs?

JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, that's what we're aspiring to, absolutely. I don't know if you're asking me to lead that into now is the time because it's our third year. I just don't believe that you can put these things in boxes, progress in boxes. The third -- this has been a different situation than the previous job I had in terms of our progress. It's just different. So yeah, are we aspiring to that? Is that what we're working for every single day? Is that where we're headed? Absolutely. The time and when those things happen, I'm not certain on.

Q. Cam Phillips made so many big catches for you last year, and yet you have a great many returning players on your offensive side. What are the biggest challenges for your offense this year? What do you want to see them do better?

JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, I'd like to see us do a lot of things, without getting into just statistics speak. I'd like to see us be a more efficient offense, be a more explosive offense. I'd like us to have more chunk plays. We've got to continue to create that competitiveness amongst the skill players and the offensive line for playing time, and that comes through depth. And we're in the process of getting that done. I'm pretty excited about that. We're not quite there yet, but it's coming. That competitiveness leads to better practices and leads to more people playing. But in general terms, what I'd like for us to see -- what I'd like to see from us on offense is I'd like -- I think we've got to find a way to manufacture some more big plays or chunk plays, either through the running game and the passing game.

Q. Daniel, eight of the top nine rushing teams in the ACC have running quarterbacks. Last year you ran the ball very effectively in some games; in other games you didn't run the ball at all. What are your thoughts about the role of a running quarterback in the Duke offense? When is it important and when do you not run?

DANIEL JONES: Yeah, you know, I think that's a huge part of our offense. I think kind of as you watch college football the past few years, it's kind of trended toward that, where a running quarterback is a necessary part of the offense, and I'm certainly willing to do that. I look forward to those opportunities. I think that's a week-in and week-out game plan thing that the coaches are working on, and whenever that opportunity presents itself, I'm certainly willing and enjoy doing that. I look forward to doing that again this year, and I think we'll have plenty of help in the running game with Brittain and some of those guys. So really looking forward to a strong running game.

Q. What you can say about the weapons what you're going to have this season, some of those wide receivers coming in and just what you think about the table of guys that you'll have to throw to this year?

DANIEL JONES: Yeah, it's certainly an exciting position to be in as a quarterback with the receivers we have coming back and a lot of the same faces in the same positions to make explosive plays, make plays down the field, and I'm looking forward to that opportunity, for sure. I think this summer, growing with those guys, we've been able to, I think, take the next step with a lot of them. And older guys that kind of know what's going on and know what we expect has made it easier for the younger guys to step in and get going. Looking forward to finishing these last couple weeks before camp, and then obviously there's a huge amount of growth to be done during camp, so looking forward to that for sure.

Q. Comment on what confidence means to you, three wins during the season last year, knowing that you're the guy coming into this year, and it's your second time back in your hometown at kickoff. So there must be this confidence that's absolutely screaming through you?

DANIEL JONES: Yeah, I think as a team it was important for us to kind of find a way to right the ship and finish the season strong last year. I think we've talked about a lot of people in the same positions last year went through that kind of correction toward the end of the season. That was valuable experience for all of us to go through that, and I think that'll be big for us going into next season. You know, as a quarterback, you learn a lot in that situation, and being in a similar position this off-season as I was last season, you continue to grow, continue to learn, and how you develop yourself, but also try to bring along the guys around you.

Q. You brought up a couple minutes ago Brittain Brown, just what you can say about what his ceiling is as a running back in this offense? DANIEL JONES: Yeah, I think his ceiling is huge. I think I've been fortunate to play with some great running backs since I've been there, and he's certainly not dropping off at all from those guys. He's the complete package. He's physical, he's a big guy, he can run through people, but also run around people and make people miss. You know, like they say, a running back is a quarterback's best friend, and having a strong running game will be big. I think the offensive line and seeing those guys up front, if it's as talented a group as I think we have, and watching those guys kind of grow together and pushing the running game to where I think it can go, this year will be a lot of fun.

Q. What do you really like about your throwing game at this point?

DANIEL JONES: You know, I think we have just kind of a multitude of weapons all over the field. I think we have people who can shake it up and make people miss in small spaces, maybe some of the shorter stuff, and I think we have guys who can really push it down the field with their speed and kind of more long-distance speed. And I think that's exciting as an offense, just how many different ways we can throw the football, and we'll continue to grow with that throughout camp and throughout the season. Q. How would you describe your leadership style?

JOE GILES-HARRIS: I'm more of a lead by example kind of guy. I'm not the most vocal person out there. I don't like to get in people's faces. But I try to do the right thing and try to have people watch me and follow me, and that's the biggest thing I've been focused on this off-season, trying to become a better leader.

Q. The schedule last year was a little bit streaky, obviously a four-game win streak to start, three-game win streak to finish the season, not the best of times in the middle. How do you reconcile that as you get ready for this season?

JOE GILES-HARRIS: You take away what we had last season. At one point we were at the top of the mountain, you're feeling good about yourselves, and next thing you know you're trying to crawl out of a ditch. The lessons you learned from crawling out of that ditch and how we finished the season is something we've taken full advantage of. We have to be consistent, we have to be humble, and we have to be ready to go, and that's the biggest thing. Learning from those mistakes and knowing what to do to avoid that this year.

Q. Just curious with your defense sort of getting some preseason hype, for lack of a better term, what's your take on this defense and how good can it possibly be this year?

JOE GILES-HARRIS: I think we're a really talented group this year. We're excited about it. We've got a lot of guys back. We had a D-line that was phenomenal last year. Our linebackers are back. We're ready to go, and we've got a secondary who's explosive, fun, fast and exciting to watch. The sky's the limit for this group. We're excited. You get a little bit of noise talked about you, but that doesn't really mean much until you have to get out there and play football. Everything sounds nice in the off-season, but until you get on the field and start playing -- we look at last year and we did a lot of great things last year, but we want to be better than last year. We're a different group, and we're excited about where we can go.

Q. Joe, for a number of games you guys got stops, forced turnovers, got punts, had a great deal of success. What do you feel like you can do better this year defensively, and what do you have to do better to achieve your goals?

JOE GILES-HARRIS: Definitely I think we can be more consistent. There were games where, like you said, we were getting stops, we were playing well, but there was also moments in games where we had mental breakdowns and we beat ourselves more than we let somebody else beat us, and that's our thing. We want to be consistent. If you're going to beat Duke's defense, you'd better give it your whole shot. That's our goal. That's what we think about. You never want to beat yourself. So I think being more consistent, doing the little things, paying attention to film a little bit more, knowing the playbook a little bit better, I think that will all pay off for us.

Q. You've watched Daniel go through his reads and his progressions over the last couple of years. What do you like most about his evolution as a quarterback?

JOE GILES-HARRIS: What I like most about Daniel is he's just, as I said about Coach Cut, he's consistent. He's a consistent leader. He's a good leader, and he's our leader. The best thing about him is he's a smart kid who works his butt off in the film room day in and day out. There's days where I will be leaving our facilities, and Daniel has been in there after school or whatever, Daniel has been in there since like 8:00 in the morning and it's like 10:00 at night and he's still watching film. You kind of look at him and you're saying, hey, how much are you going to watch, how much can you get. It's always a little bit more. He never short ends anything, he never backdoors anything. He always gives his all, and that's the best thing about him. He's a student of the game, and he's one of the best there is.

Q. There's a tendency in our business, I think, to look at returning starters. In your offensive line you've got three you have to replace, and yet Daniel, who should know, says this is the most talented offensive line that he's played behind. From your point of view, what's more important maybe than games started, not just for the offensive line but for a team as a whole?

DAVID CUTCLIFFE: Well, I think when your quarterback can say that confidently, he believes in those young people. They believe in him. I do think that's what -- everybody talks about their team's chemistry. Chemistry is only built through being great teammates, so that's the most critical thing we do starting in January. You come back from a bowl victory hopefully, but you've got a whole brand new football team. You do have to replace starters. But if you've got a good football program, it's not done with people who haven't been around, that they don't know each other, they don't know what's required from them. I will say this: You're asking about our offensive line, I think Coach Jim Bridge has done a tremendous job. He took our offensive line in preparation for the bowl game, and that's why we continued that, and I hired him as the offensive line coach. I'm excited to see where we can get to.

Q. With the reinstatement of Austin Parker, does that give your offense a bigger sense of confidence to finish drives?

DAVID CUTCLIFFE: Yeah, I think you hopefully always finish a drive with a kick. Anything else is not so good. You've got a guy that's both place-kicked and punted. Those plays, people forget that a punt is an offensive play. It's a play that can average more than any play you've got. I think his teammates -- and Joe and Daniel are actually roommates of Austin. He could bring a lot to this football team. He's very fortunate to be where he is right now. He knows that. His maturity, his growth could impact the 2018 team.

Q. In July every year, what gets you excited the most about what the upcoming season is going to be bringing?

DAVID CUTCLIFFE: When you see what these young people do -- I come in early still in the summer, and I'll come out of my workout, and we have a 7:00 a.m. workout group in the summer, and they're in there four days a week. And I just watch them work in that weight room. The energy and the challenging of each other and the competitiveness, you know, I think we should celebrate young people like that that are willing to do that with their summers. So as I look at the team in July, it energizes me to give them my best. That's what my job really is is to give the players the best opportunity to win, which means I've got to give them my very best.

Q. You've talked about being around football a long time, and obviously a big issue is the safety and the concerns and changes in rules. What do you do differently? And over your time in football, what has changed as far as looking at concussions differently or other injuries?

DAVID CUTCLIFFE: Yeah, I think it's all injuries. I've certainly, through decade after decade after decade, literally, seen it change, and it's been necessary and it's been good. We've learned how to coach differently. The numbers have dropped that we're allowed to have. We used to have 200 people on the practice field. You could get a lot of reps and a lot of different things. We're not out there very well. Besides just managing head injury, you've got to manage heat illness. This is a generation that's never known anything about air-conditioning. I grew up in the state of Alabama without air-conditioning, but I think heat is an issue. They grow up with a delete button in their hand, caller ID. They turn you off. So we've learned how to practice more effectively and quicker. We're going to continue, if we're smart, to see the game morph. We don't have to ruin the game, we don't have to put it where we don't recognize it as football. A lot of people have asked me about the kickoff, both at the NFL level and the collegiate level. I think we've already admitted we've got an issue. I think there's a way to lose that play without losing a competitive part of the game, which the onside kick or the things you need. But I'm excited to see what the future brings as opposed to these people that want to act like it's doomsday for football. God bless football. A good friend of mine named Peyton Manning ended his retirement speech with that very line. He played a long time and took risks with his health, and he still would tell you -- and I know he had a lot of success. I didn't have a great deal of success as a player, had some, and as a player I would say, God bless football.

Q. It seems to me you have pretty good depth at tight end. What comfort is it when you're in a 3rd and medium or goal line situation to have somebody like Daniel or Davis to throw the football to?

DAVID CUTCLIFFE: I think we've got the best depth we've had at Duke, and I'll think about it quickly, but I think it's the best depth I've ever had at tight end. Daniel Helm, boy, does he look good, and our guys are go-to guys. They're situational guys, but they're go-to guys. I think one of the things you'll see with the tight ends is you'll expand that role. It won't just be goal line and 3rd downs. I think we've got to get to the ball first down. That's one of the things I like about this team. You asked earlier about the weapons around Daniel. I think we can run the ball, but I also think when it looks at our receivers, people that are going to catch the ball, we've got three senior receivers and two senior tight ends, and we've got backs that can run routes and catch the ball. I'm anxious to get started and see what we can accomplish in that regard.

Q. You had spoken about the changes in football over the years. Coaching as long as you have and the recruiting side of things with the early signing period now, social media, verbal commits, sometimes words mean nothing anymore. How have you had to grow as a coach and kind of evolve with the culture of knowing that everything, like you said, is fast, it's here and now, there's a delete button, and you can obviously see a lot of things that are going on. A kid might say they're coming to play for Duke, and you go on Twitter and no, they're not. So how have you handled that?

DAVID CUTCLIFFE: I think the first thing I tell young coaches in the recruiting process is let's not forget to respect the young people. It's not their fault, and it's not necessarily a good trend for them. You've got to quit thinking about yourself. When I hear people talk about wanting change in our profession, they talk about our profession. I think we'd better remember that the student-athletes are the reason we have a job. The very thing you just said, young man will commit 100 percent and parents jump in there, and all of a sudden -- well, I just want to go visit. I'm 100 percent committed. It's no different than if you are engaged to be married and you tell your spouse-to-be that I'm getting married but I want to go on three dates. Let me tell you how long you're going to be engaged. Ten seconds maybe. But I think -- I don't have all the answers. I think we've got to remain scholastic particular in football. My meaning of that, we've got to coach and recruit at the same time. That's okay, we've done it forever. Let's get out of the summers being too critical. I don't like the seven or seven stuff. I don't like the gurus that snatch kids and start marketing them physically or otherwise. I think we've got to go into high schools, we've got to honor the high school coaches, which they're not loving this early, early, early stuff. I even had one coach tell me that a father -- because the kid committed, said, Coach, we're not going to play his senior year because I don't want him to get hurt. Wow. I think there's a way around it. I don't want a kid to commit to us that I don't know, and it happens occasionally, they will decommit, which is not really a word. I don't want to contribute to this. I make it hard for them to commit, believe it or not. That's what I think about it.

Q. Just to speak on your weapons that you have in the run game this year, obviously Georgia Tech has a plethora of backs every single season. Just what you can say about what you're excited about this year with the guys in the room that you have running the ball with you in this option offense.

TaQUON MARSHALL: Well, we've got a lot of guys returning, so we've got a lot of guys that are experienced. We have a lot of playmakers on the offensive end. So I'm really excited to see what the guys are going to bring to the table this year. I'm just going to put the ball in their hands and let them work. I'm really excited about that.

Q. Eight of the top nine rushing teams in the ACC have running quarterbacks. Most assuredly you and Georgia Tech are in that group. From a defensive point of view, what makes it so much more difficult to stop a team with a running quarterback as opposed to one that just hands off or throws the deep ball?

TaQUON MARSHALL: It's a bigger threat. I mean, when you have a guy that can sit in the pocket and throw but can also break away when he needs to, it just adds another aspect for the defense that they have to cover. That's one of the things that's hard. That's why a lot of teams are now going towards the dual threat guy who can run and pass.

Q. How is it that you could have such a great year last year knowing that that is your first year under center?

TaQUON MARSHALL: There's no pressure to it really. Just going out there, playing football, doing something that you've always done, something that you love to do. So you just go out there and try to do it to the best of your ability, try to help your team out and put them in the best position to win the game.

Q. Obviously in this offense there's all of that emphasis on the run, but what have you done to improve your game, and what can you say about what you've really been focusing and zeroing on as you move into the fall as the leader of this offense?

TaQUON MARSHALL: This off-season I've really been working on the pass game. Last year I struggled a lot hitting some of the guys that were wide open, just throwing the ball in general. So that's one of the main things that I've worked on this spring and one of the things we've been working on a lot this summer, so that's one of the main focuses that I've had going into fall camp.

Q. Y'all bring back a lot of offensive linemen, but when you did try to pass last year, you gave up a high number of sacks. What have you done to try to avoid giving up the sacks when you do try to pass?

TaQUON MARSHALL: Well, we're always constantly working on the blocking schemes, better ways to do things, better ways to block up front. That's always going to be the case when we're working on the pass game.

Q. So many years in Coach Johnson's offense there's been a big play deep receiving threat. Last year so many times defenses would start concentrating on whether you were going to pitch or keep, and then all of a sudden you would sleep Ricky Jeune deep and hit him for a touchdown. Who's going to be the new Ricky Jeune this year?

TaQUON MARSHALL: Well, we have a couple guys. There's not going to be one specific person this we're going to target. He have a couple of guys that we can throw the ball to. There's not one specific person. We have some receivers that we're going to put the ball in their hands and let them work and do what they're able to do.

Q. Nine months have gone by since you've felt that feel of victory. How do you process all of this during such a long layoff?

TaQUON MARSHALL: Well, last season was last season. Coach Johnson says all the time, this is probably the only sport that you really get to start over completely. Everyone's record is 0-0. You get to start over. Going into September 1st, we know that's a game we get to start over with, so we're going to take it one game at a time and then work from there.

Q. Brant, you have a new defensive coordinator and from what I understand a whole new defensive philosophy. How will that translate to what we see on the field on Saturdays?

BRANT MITCHELL: We're really excited about it. I mean, coming into this season, the guys are extremely energetic, very excited, and guys are buying in. I mean, we believe in it. We've been introduced to it. Now it's time to start translating the things that we've learned from past defenses and bringing it over to what we're running now. I think as we work into fall camp coming soon, the transition is going to be -- it'll be a challenge. Obviously there will be a learning curve. But we're excited about it, and we're excited what it's going to do to our opponents. Q. Last year three games were decided by a total of six points. That means nine points going the other way and the record is 8-3. Your reaction?

BRANT MITCHELL: It's frustrating. My freshman year when we had the 3-9 season, it was tough then, too, because we still -- I mean, just like you said, we were one possession here, one possession there, one step, one missed tackle away from having a successful season and going to a really good bowl game or even further than that. But yeah, to look back on it, it's really about the details in the game and what you can do to prevent the big plays from happening because that's really what it is. I mean, we go up against every opponent just the same, and we hang in there with everybody, and we compete just as hard as anybody else. But that's just what football is. It's a game of inches, and it's a game of big plays and whether or not you can stop them or not.

Q. What's possible this year based on what happened last year?

BRANT MITCHELL: I think the sky's the limit. If we can come out and focus, like I said, on the details and not giving up those big plays that in turn lead to touchdowns scored and ultimately losses, if we can prevent that from happening, I think we can go as far as we want to go.

Q. Coach, Nate Woody, you heard a little bit from Brandt what he had to say about this explosive type defense, that there's going to be more energy and more brought to the table. What have you seen from Nate Woody and what has this 3-4 done to expand what you want to do defensively with Georgia Tech?

PAUL JOHNSON: Well, I think to start with, let me say that certainly I have a lot of confidence in Nate. I've known him through the years, all the way back to when I was coaching at Georgia Southern and he was at Wofford College. I've watched from afar for the last few years and watched how his career has gone. He's been very successful at Appalachian State. And I think the philosophies kind of mesh. I felt like we needed a shake-up on defense a little bit. I wanted to be more aggressive and simpler so that the guys could utilize their speed and quickness and could play fast. I think it's important no matter what you do to be able to play fast, and hopefully he will bring that. We're in the infancy of it, early stages, but I think our players really enjoyed spring ball. They really enjoyed being around the defensive staff and kind of the energy and the positivity that they brought. And the proof is in the pudding. We'll see when you start playing. But I think the offenses are too good today -- if you can't create some negative plays, and we've really struggled with that the last few years, and you've got to be able to finish games and create negative plays I think to be successful.

Q. TaQuon mentioned that he needed to work on his passing a little bit. Given the style of offense that you run, where do you find that balance of having passing time in practice and everything else that he needs to do to run that style of offense?

PAUL JOHNSON: Well, you know, it's a big misconception. We probably spend as much time passing in practice as any team in the country. I mean, we go through practice every day where we throw one-on-ones and we throw 7-on-7, we go through 3rd downs in team. So it's not like we don't work on passing. I think balance is crazy. That's my opinion. I think if you looked at the two teams who played in the National Championship game a year ago, they weren't very balanced. They were both run-first. If you go back to when Auburn won the National Championship, they threw the ball less than we do. But because they were in the gun, nobody thought about it. So I think you have to be good at what you do. You have to be efficient. And the one thing that I'm a firm believer in, you asked TaQuon a little earlier, how do you flush -- you go from one game to the next game to the next game. Well, it certainly becomes a little easier if your system stays the same. So each game plan you're going to have the six basic plays that are always in it, so hopefully you get better and better and better at understanding those, and you don't have to just take a board and start over. So that's been my philosophy throughout. This will be my 40th year, I guess, getting started. We've had some success. Certainly some years have been better than others. But I'm looking forward to this year. I think we've got a good group of seniors, a good nucleus returning. We've got a really tough schedule again, but anxious to get out there and get started and see what we can do.

Q. Can you talk about that nucleus that is returning? You obviously talk about having consistency, repetition, doing things the same way. It's got to give you good comfort heading into the season.

PAUL JOHNSON: Yeah, well, we've got nine starters on offense returning and really will return Andrew Marshall who would have probably been a starting offensive lineman had he not gotten hurt and missed the year. That gives you a lot of experience. I think that we're probably better in the two-deep than we've been in a while in case someone gets hurt. Defensively we have to replace the secondary, but we have some guys who have played up front and at linebacker. Certainly Brant Mitchell, this will be his third year being a starter. Bruce Swilling, who's playing the other linebacker, got to play a whole lot a year ago as a true freshman. We've got guys who have played up front, and I think of all the people who have enjoyed the change defensively, they've probably enjoyed it more than anybody else because it's not so much cancelling gaps and taking on blockers. They're getting up field and having a chance to make some negative plays. You know, we'll see when we start playing. We feel like we've got some guys that can be good enough in the secondary, but all that's going to depend on can you get pressure and all the things that evolve. But I really believe if we stay healthy, we've got a chance to have a pretty good team.

Q. We've come to this event some years where you've been replacing most of your offensive line. We've come to this event some years where you've been replacing almost all of your backs or your quarterback. This year you have three of your five offensive linemen back, and from what I can tell the entire backfield other than Ricky Jeune. I don't really see any gaping holes. What's your comfort level running this offense to have this much experience?

PAUL JOHNSON: Well, I don't know that I ever have a comfort level. But it's great to have some experience. And we've got -- you said three of five. I could make a case that we've got five of five. We've got a lot of offensive linemen if they can stay healthy that have started and played. Like I said, we're excited to get Andrew Marshall back. I think he gives us more depth. And you know, depending on how it works staying healthy and if guys will work hard, I think we have a chance to be a pretty productive offense. Q. Do you feel like Clemson building that multimillion dollar facility gives them a leg up competitively? And then how do schools that maybe don't have that compete on the field with schools that are throwing that kind of money at it?

PAUL JOHNSON: Well, it certainly doesn't hurt them. I'm not sure that just that one aspect changes anything, but I think that just the overall commitment to the program, not just with facilities, but with budgets, with personnel, with all those kind of things. You know, every school is different. Georgia Tech and Clemson are set up differently as far as the schools go. We have far less students. Our fan base is probably not as big. We're not going to have as many people at the game. So we're not going to win an arms race with Clemson. But what we've got to do is sell what we have that's positive. And if I look, they're our natural rival from the other side. I think we're 5-6 against Clemson. We'd like to be better. So certainly it's not impossible for us to win. I think the last time they came to Atlanta, they were ranked in the top 5, and I think we did win. But you know, I think that what Dan and Dabo have done at Clemson is remarkable. They've been really consistent, and the commitment that they have to their football program is certainly visible. You can see that, not only with facilities but with personnel, with whatever you would need. But I don't think that everybody has to try to do that to compete. Everybody has to be positive with what they have. We've got a great school academically. We're in a great city. We have a lot of positives that we can sell rather than facilities sometimes. But you want -- certainly it's not going to hurt you to have those kind of facilities, that's for sure.

Q. In a lot of the preseason and the way-too-early polls, the emphasis is on returning players or maybe recruiting classes. You know it's a lot more complicated than that. What factors come to your mind when you think about whether a team wins or doesn't win?

PAUL JOHNSON: Well, I think preseason polls are ludicrous anyway because each team is different. If you go back out, I would be willing to bet if you go back and look for the last 10 years, you could probably find the same 15 or 16 teams in the preseason polls every year. What constitutes winning and losing? I think that you have to have a system that you believe in and the players believe in. You have to have good players, and you have to be fortunate. So much of it is staying healthy, getting the right bounce, getting the right thing. I mean, I look a year ago at our season, and it's hard to go back and pick games, but the very first game of the year, the opener, I felt like we were pretty dominant for most of the whole game. We found a way to lose at the end, to blow a lead in the fourth quarter and not execute. We came back, we go down to Miami, who won our division, and we have them 4th and 16 with a minute to go, and they throw a ball into double coverage, our safety mistimes, the ball hits our corner in the helmet and their guy catches it laying on his back. Well, you can say that's skill level; I say that's luck. So if the ball hits our guy in the helmet and bounces the other way, who knows, maybe we're in Charlotte instead of Miami. You can never gauge. It changes the whole thing. I want to clarify, I'm not taking anything away from Miami, they had a great year. But I'm just saying that's the way kind of games go. There's a really razor thin margin for most teams between winning and losing. There are very few teams who can trot out and win the game without their "A" game. There are a few but very few.

Q. I may have this mistaken, but it seems like the recruiting rules as far as visits in the summer have changed and a lot more kids are making a lot more commitments during the summer. What do you make of those changes?

PAUL JOHNSON: You know, I would rather see the recruiting slow down rather than speed up. But we'll see how many of those commitments stick. Unfortunately in our business, the guys who get all the press and all the notoriety are the ones who commit four or five times. If a guy goes through recruiting and he commits in July and doesn't take any other trips and signs in December, nobody ever talks about him again. But if a guy commits to school A and then he changes to school B and then he goes over to C and D, those guys get all the publicity and all the notoriety. It's really sped up, but I don't know, we've talked about, as coaches, a lot on how you slow it down, and that's the gorilla in the room. I don't know how you slow it down now. But you're right, it has sped up, and I don't think it's good for anybody, certainly not for the assistant coaches. I know that when we proposed an early signing period as a league a couple of years ago, what we talked about was having a signing period in like August to clean up the guys who were -- who knew they wanted to go to school there forever, you know, legacies, guys who grew up as fans. So you would have signed seven or eight guys, and it would have cleaned it up. But what happened is they felt like, well, if you move up the signing date, now you've got to move up the visits and you've got to do this and then we can take parents on the visits, and then we can -- so now every kid -- and you can't blame them, they all want to take five visits. It's a vacation for the family. Sometimes we create our own mess.

Q. I was just curious about TaQuon Marshall and what you've seen from him as far as growth both as a player and as a leader throughout this off-season.

PAUL JOHNSON: Well, I think the best thing I can say about TaQuon Marshall is he's a really good person, and I think he has the confidence of our football team. He's very dynamic. He's athletic. He can create a lot of big plays with his athleticism, and I'm hopeful and I really believe that after having a year in the system, he's going to be more comfortable and just be better than he was even a year ago. You know, I think he brings a lot to our team, and he's tried to take on a role as more of a leader, and I think our guys look to him to do that.

Q. Anthony, you lost four starters in the offensive line, which has the impact of -- will the quarterback have enough time to get you the ball? Obviously a point of great interest for you. How is that coming along, the rebuild of the line? Are you going to be able to have enough time to get open D?

ANTHONY RATLIFF-WILLIAMS: Yeah, I think that over this time in the summer off-season that we've taken the time to make sure that everybody is getting healthy, getting their bodies back together to where they were last year. That's kind of been the key, to make sure they're mentally and physically ready to compete. That's what we've been doing since the summer began.

Q. I know you're a former quarterback; there's a lot of questions about who your quarterback will be this year. Talk about what Chaz and Nathan bring to the table.

ANTHONY RATLIFF-WILLIAMS: Right. I feel that both quarterbacks bring their owness to the game, whereas Nate is a more vocal guy, more of a leader, laid-back, cool and collected in any situation. And I don't really prefer either one. I just let those guys play their game and do what they do. They give me the ball, give anybody the ball when needed. I feel like they're taking the time in the summer to compete and show which one is a better guy. We're going to win with either one.

Q. I wanted to ask you as a return specialist about this new kickoff rule, your thoughts about it and how you think it'll impact the season.

ANTHONY RATLIFF-WILLIAMS: It's very interesting. I think it's a very interesting rule to implement. You have to make a lot of smart decisions, I feel like. It doesn't take away from me being aggressive in the kickoff return game, but you definitely have to be smarter with catching the ball on the 25 yard line and being able to play the ball on the 25 yard line. I feel like the rule may not have been necessary, but it is being implemented, so just being smart and taking time.

Q. There is a debate between safety versus excitement. Do you think it might take some excitement away from the game?

ANTHONY RATLIFF-WILLIAMS: I think that depends on the players, the guys back there returning, those guys. Definitely when I get the opportunity to return it, I'm definitely trying to go for six. I feel like any returner in the country would do the same.

Q. It's not as simple as saying nobody saw you coming last year, but now everybody will see you coming this year, so what have you done to make sure that you're still the weapon you were last season?

ANTHONY RATLIFF-WILLIAMS: Right. All summer I've just been working on my game in every aspect, catching the ball, getting out of bounds, getting out of breaks, and just being not only a better student but football player in every aspect of film study and working hard and making sure the guys around me are doing the right thing so they're not on the radar, as well.

Q. How important do you think it'll be to have one stable QB in there to help you this year?

ANTHONY RATLIFF-WILLIAMS: I think it'll be very important for the team aspect and being able to have that one quarterback in, have that guy that guys can turn to when things aren't going the way they want them to go. We're currently working on that now and inputting that work to show who is the better quarterback and who is the better -- the guy that we need on the team. We're just taking our time and kind of sitting back and letting them do what they do and just catching the ball really.

Q. Aaron, just to speak on the defensive line in and of itself as a whole, what you can say you've done to evolve as a player and what you can say about the line going into this season?

AARON CRAWFORD: As a player, every year I really want to focus on my pass rush, improving that, trying to make sure we're getting to the quarterback on 3rd down. As a D-line as a whole, I feel like we have some of the best depth in the country. We have eight guys that can rotate through and really get out there with minimal dropoff. So with that being said, I'm excited to see how these guys prepare for the season and looking forward to getting after it. Q. Aaron, Coach mentioned you by name at the Pigskin Preview as somebody to watch for this year. What is your communication with him as to what his expectations are?

AARON CRAWFORD: I mean, Coach Fedora expects the best out of me whenever I touch the field. As far as his communicating expectations, we haven't talked much about it, but I feel I can speak for him when I say he expects me to go out there and dominate, lead the young guys, lead the rest of the D-line and make sure everybody is on the same page.

Q. You only lost five starters from defense, seven back. Yet there was a lot of leadership in the folks that graduated. Who will be the leaders this year?

AARON CRAWFORD: I think myself, Malik Carney are the two safeties, Cole Holcomb, Allen Artis, even Jalen Dalton, even though he missed a few games last year with injury. All these guys coming back. Like you said, we only lost five guys, and while those guys included M.J. Stewart and Donnie Miles, we lost a lot of -- Andre Smith, the leadership that we lost with them, it was great, but they kind of set the standard for how we need to lead the team from this point forward.

Q. Last year North Carolina gave up 31 points on average per ballgame. What's the conversation been like during the off-season to get those numbers as low as they possibly can be?

AARON CRAWFORD: First and foremost, stop the run. That's something we emphasize in practice every day. Definitely cutting down on the critical plays, the critical errors that happen late in the game especially. We've gotten to a point where the explosive plays that we've set up throughout the year have gotten lower and lower, but those critical plays that kind of explode and swing the momentum of the game, those are things that we need to stop going forward.

Q. What have you guys done as a group and maybe as individuals to kind of repair yourselves from going through a 3-9 season?

AARON CRAWFORD: I mean, I think guys are definitely paying more attention to taking care of their bodies. The coaching staff and the strength training staff has definitely been working with us to try to put us in the best position for us to be healthy going into the season and maintaining that health throughout the season. As far as that goes, we lost the majority of our games in the fourth quarter. We entered the game with however big of a lead, and throughout the course of the game, throughout the course of the fourth quarter, we let it slip away. So focusing on the little things at the critical times, two-minute situations, things like that, we're just kind of honing in on those.

Q. Obviously one of the stats that we look at is returning starters, returning career starts. Those are not great numbers for North Carolina. Of course you believe as a coach there are many other factors other than returning starts and starters. What are some of the factors that determine whether a season is a good one?

LARRY FEDORA: Yeah, I'm looking more at the culture of our team, the chemistry of our football team. We had a lot of young guys get reps last year, so they got experience, whether they were starters or not. They're back. So I would say probably the majority of our team played, even though they shouldn't have played last year. So we're going to take that and we're going to build off of it, so I don't think that we're going to have as many people out there on the field this year that are going to be wide eyed in their first game that have never stepped on a college football field. Whether or not we've got a lot of returning starters, we've got some experience.

Q. With the season approaching, what traits are you looking for in your starting quarterback, and what do they need to win the job?

LARRY FEDORA: Well, we're looking for separation. That's the No. 1 thing, somebody that takes over the team, and then the team becomes theirs. They've got to be able to do it not only on the field but off the field. We obviously -- they've got to be able to run the plays, run the offense, take command of the offense, have a presence out there that all the guys relate to. They have to be an influencer. They've got to be able to influence the guys around them. They've got to be able to raise the level of the players around them. They do that, then they've got to do the same things off the field. And when somebody separates themselves from the others, then we'll make a call.

Q. The addition of Robert Gillespie, what he's done with working with guys like Alvin Camarra at Tennessee, what he brings to the table and what he brings to the running back room for you.

LARRY FEDORA: Well, Robert is kind of a no-nonsense kind of a guy. He's a lot like I am. He brings a lot of energy. He's very passionate about coaching the running backs. He really is. He has a very high expectation level for those guys, and he plans on holding them to it, and he did a great job for us in the spring. It's been really nice to have him in that room.

Q. Last year you had three starting quarterbacks, this year you've got two candidates. Would you prefer to have one emerge or do you look at a season where you may have another situation where more than one guy starts?

LARRY FEDORA: Yeah, I think ideally you'd like to have one guy separate himself, but if it doesn't happen, then we'll work on it from there. But I think ideally you'd like to have a returning guy that's probably been starting for three years in your program coming back, but that's just not the case, doesn't happen like that every year.

Q. You heard Anthony talk a little bit about the new kickoff rules and how that's not going to change how aggressive he is attacking the ball on kickoffs. What do you tell him differently with this new rule and what are you expecting from him in that regard this season?

LARRY FEDORA: Well, there's so much that goes into it. It's not just get back there and run when you catch the ball. He's got to know where his alignment is, when the ball is in the air, how much he's drifted. He's got to be aware of all those things because there are points on the field where we told him he can bring it out, points on the field where he can't. He's got to be right on that. He's got to know what the wind is doing, he's got to know what the kicker is doing, what the approach is. He's got to be able to catch the ball moving forward and not be stagnant when he catches it so he can be running a flying 40 when he hits it, and then we give him one cut and he's got to go full speed. First of all, just being able to know that 11 guys are running down the field at you full speed and you're going to run at them full speed, that takes something, it takes a little bit of grit right there. I don't want to take away Anthony's aggressiveness. If I didn't have a guy like Anthony, we would probably be fair catching a lot, and I would imagine there would be a lot of teams that do that. I think that the new rule there's going to be more squib kicks, more bouncing kicks. I think there will be a wider variety of type of kicks that you see in college football now. You know, so the jury is out still a little bit on how we're going to approach it, but it is nice to know that we've got a guy that when he does get it in his hands, he can go the distance.

Q. The last four or five seasons you've had the luxury of having most of your offensive line returning. This year only one starter back. What's the rebuilding, the makeup of your offensive line coming along like?

LARRY FEDORA: Yeah, you would love to have all those guys back, but it's just not the way it is this year. But I will say every one of those guys except possibly one that's going to play this year, they've all played. They've all got experience. They weren't necessarily the starter last year, but they all played. And so it does -- I feel a little bit more comfortable knowing that these guys have been out there. They've been in the heat of the battle, so they're not going to be shocked. They know what it takes. Because we lost a couple guys to injuries last year, some other guys were forced into action and they got a lot of playing time. We may not have the starter, but we do have some experience there. And you know, that position, those five guys, until they gel together as a unit, I mean, you're not going to be as effective. The sooner they gel, the more effective you're going to be.

Q. How do the two primary players in the quarterback competition kind of compare to previous quarterbacks that have experienced success during your tenure at UNC?

LARRY FEDORA: That's good. So if I'm trying to compare those guys, I have a quarterback at Southern Miss, Austin Davis, who's playing for Seattle now, and he's going into his seventh year. I think Nathan is very comparable to him, his demeanor, his leadership ability, the way he throws the ball, all those things. I had a guy at Oklahoma State by the name of Zach Robinson who Chaz is a lot like. And as Chaz grows and matures in the offense, he's going to be a lot like him. Zach also went on and played in the league and had a lot of success.

Q. One of the places where a player could get hurt is when a quarterback runs the ball, and yet eight of the nine top rushing teams in the ACC have quarterbacks who run the ball really well. Your quarterbacks through the years have run the ball really well. What are your rules, thoughts about when the quarterback should run the ball and when not?

LARRY FEDORA: Yeah, I think years ago when everybody was in the pro-style offense, quarterbacks got hurt. They got hurt because they got sacked. They weren't used to getting hit, all these things. And now as you've recruited more -- I'm not going to say everybody, but us, we recruit more of a dual threat athlete, a guy that can run the football. That means that guy has run the football in high school, and he's taken hits, he's delivered blows. He's not afraid of the contact. Does that mean he won't get hurt? No. I mean, that's the nature of the beast. That's part of the game. But recruiting a -- and I would say a lot -- you've got a lot of better athletes out there than there were 10 years ago, 20 years ago that are playing the position. So I think for us, it's take advantage of what that guy can do. If that guy can run, then take advantage of it. If he can throw, take advantage of the throwing. If he can do both, take advantage of both. Now you've got 12 on 11.

Q. You spoke about having a dual-threat quarterback, but what you can say about the evolution of your backfield from last season to this season? I know you were looking for some guys to kind of show themselves out last year. What are you seeing going into the fall? LARRY FEDORA: Well, Michael Carter came in as a true freshman and really did some great things for us in that role at running back. Jordon Brown did some really good things, so they split the time back there. I anticipate that we brought in a young man by the name of Antonio Williams that I think is definitely going to help our football team. There at running back, I think we're going to be really solid. Whether we're going to be a one-back running back or running back by committee, that's still to be seen. Whoever has got the hot hand is going to be the guy that's playing. They know it's about production. That's the way it is on our football team. Same thing at quarterback, same thing at wide receiver, same thing at any position. Q. You mentioned traveling across the country to go to Cal this year. What are your thoughts on home and home against neutral site openers in general?

LARRY FEDORA: I like home and home series. They're hard to find. I mean, probably in scheduling is one of the toughest things that our administration has to do, to be able to find the people that are willing to do it. But I do like the neutral site games, also. I think it brings a lot of excitement because a lot of times it's maybe a regional rival or another well-known team. So I think that's good for your fans, also. You know, I think as long as people want to watch you play, it doesn't matter who you play. I think it's probably a good thing.

Q. With Kurt Benkert having graduated, you have a new quarterback. How important is it for you to be even more of a playmaker, running and catching the football, to try and take some pressure off this guy?

OLAMIDE ZACCHEAUS: It's important for me because I've been in the system for two years now, and just to make the transition easy for our new quarterback, Bryce, just to make plays anywhere I can, whether it be in the backfield or outside receiver or inside receiver, slot. I have a lot on my shoulders, and I'm ready to take that load.

Q. Just what you can say about Bryce Perkins, your new quarterback. Is this offense more exciting for you? How different is it knowing that he's a different style of quarterback and he provides that dual threat?

OLAMIDE ZACCHEAUS: It's different for me because it forces the defense to play a lot more man to stop the option that the quarterback has to run the ball. It's just a lot of one-on-ones for me, and it gives me a lot more opportunities out at receiver.

Q. Talk about how your role has evolved over your career. Did you come in as a kind of all-purpose guy like you are now?

OLAMIDE ZACCHEAUS: Sort of but not really. Came in as a running back, switched to receiver my first year, and then just evolved into more of a guy that can do it all. I have a background in running back, background in receiver, and it's just really gotten to the point where I need to develop both as far as a running back and a receiver, and also leadership throughout the years. I've kind of been a quiet guy, but this year especially I have to be more vocal because the team needs me to talk and be able to uplift and motivate my teammates.

Q. It's difficult to argue with the numbers you put up last year; what do you think you need to do or how do you improve on those numbers? Do you want to do more big plays, be more explosive, that type of thing?

OLAMIDE ZACCHEAUS: So that's something I looked at right after the season ended with our wide receiver coach, Coach Hagans, what could I do to get better. One thing we really emphasized was yards after the catch, I can improve on that, and not taking any catch for granted. I had a lot of drops last year, a lot of missed opportunities, to even have a better season, so just taking advantage of every opportunity that I have.

Q. Last year someone called it your breakout season, you made the Second-Team All-ACC. What are some of your big goals for this year?

OLAMIDE ZACCHEAUS: Personally, I want to be First-Team All-ACC and an All-American, and I feel like I've been putting in the work to do that. And as a team our goal is to beat Virginia Tech and not only go to a bowl game this year but win one, as well.

Q. Last year you win five of your first six games and then drop six of your last seven. How do you process that over the off-season?

OLAMIDE ZACCHEAUS: So one thing I was really thinking about was just through adversity or accomplishment, we have to be the same. We can't be -- just because we were doing well, we were 5-1 at one point, we can't let off the brakes or the gas. We have to keep pushing, keep striving to find ways to get better. And I feel like when we got to that point in the year, we got complacent, and you could see it in our play, especially the following week against Boston College. Just through accomplishment and adversity, we need to push through and hold ourselves to a higher standard.

Q. Chris, you only lost three players, eight guys return, and you have a lot more depth now, but the guys that you replaced, have to replace, are among the greatest in Virginia history. How do you replace their presence?

CHRIS PEACE: Those three guys, they're pretty good players. They taught a lot. We've definitely grown off them. But now it's a matter of everybody stepping in now, guys like Joey Blount, Brent Nelson, Chris Moore back there, along with Juan, those guys just pick it up where he left off at. I mean, Quin, Micah, me, J-Mack, we have to step in, fill in a bigger role this year. And then guys on the D-line, Mandy, Bernie, Eli all have to step in one more notch.

Q. You guys kind of took that first step last year, got to a bowl game and kind of found some success. What's it going to take to kind of go to that next level, compete for an ACC coastal and go even farther?

CHRIS PEACE: Just pick up on all cylinders this year. We all have to get stronger, bigger, faster again this year. You know, a big goal this year, not only to return, we have to actually win the bowl game now.

Q. Last year you led the linebackers for the ACC with the most sacks, 7.5. What is it about you that allows you to be that explosive?

CHRIS PEACE: I think the play calling definitely helps. Coach Mendenhall is pretty aggressive with the play calling and that allows me to actually get more chance to go after the quarterback. So that's a big credit to the play calling. And the guys around me, the D-line, they help make pressures, help the quarterback step up into me. So it all just clicks together.

Q. How have you seen this team yourself? With Bronco Mendenhall, how has this team evolved and changed for you for the better?

CHRIS PEACE: I would say everyone is completely bought in. I would say this year is -- this year and last year I've never seen so many guys bought in. When I first came here, it was just a lot of half and half here, half and half there, and just a lot of people dragging their feet. I don't think anybody on this team is holding anyone back or this program.

Q. Olamide set a single season record last year for receptions at 85. He averaged 10.5 yards per reception. Is it important to your offense for him to increase that yards per catch average?

BRONCO MENDENHALL: He's going to have to. So as strong as his numbers were a year ago, they're going to have to be better for our team to have success. And the good news was from what I saw in the spring, I thought his spring was the best of any player on our team, and I think his preparation to this point in the off-season has continued on that. But he has to be a workhorse. And knowing, as we've all seen him play, he's a dynamic player, so it can't just be number of touches, it has to be the number of yards that happen with each touch, that has to happen for our team. I think he's training for it. And what you also heard him mention is the team needs him to lead, the team needs him to be more vocal. Not only is he going to have to improve his own performance, which was strong a year ago, he's going to also have to -- for our team to have success, he's going to also have to take on the next component of caring for other people, as well, right, which is more of a responsibility and takes more energy and time, and he's doing that, and he's learning how to do that. The bottom line is he's going to have to do that for us to have success.

Q. I'm wondering how has the transition to the new athletic director Carla Williams impacted your football program?

BRONCO MENDENHALL: Man, I'm lucky that Carla is with us. What I was hopeful for -- when a change in athletic director was being made, what I was hopeful for and what I asked for is someone that had a coaching background, that was an amazing person who knew what exceptional college football looked like, and we got all three. We got a former coach, who also knows what exceptional football looks like, who's an amazing person. Carla asks questions first, probing questions. She listens intently before she acts, but when she acts, she acts decisively. And she believes that the athletic department cannot reach its full potential without a healthy football program. I believe the same. Not for the sake of football but for the sake of the whole athletic department. And I think for Charlottesville and the Commonwealth in general, it would be cool to have another great program just for people to support and get behind. And Carla, after asking probing questions, to her credit, has delivered on everything that I've asked for and supported, and she's supported those initiatives in terms of building an infrastructure that will actually allow us to get to industry standard before we show what we can do on the field, and I'm grateful. More than anything, I'd love for the results to reflect that in terms of payback to her for the support that she's given us to this point, even though it's early in the process.

Q. You lost Quin Blanding in the secondary, but there's still some playmakers, Thornhill and Nelson. Just talk about that group, getting beyond Quin Blanding.

BRONCO MENDENHALL: Yeah, so our secondary a year ago led the ACC in pass defense, which is part of defense. Quin was our best tackler of that group, and so we have a unique set of players that we can put in a variety of combinations right now, and I'm still kind of moving and seeing where that might fit, but there's a great chance that Juan Thornhill will replace Quin, meaning that he'll be in that position. And then between Brent Nelson and Joey Blount, you've got another nice set of safeties there. And then when you consider Tim Harris coming back with also Bryce at the other corner, not even to mention Chris Moore, there's potential that that unit could again be a really strong unit for us, as long as we address the tackling totals that Quin had. So I like the potential, and it's one of the few positions currently on our team where I see not only the quality of player but depth. And as we're talking about that position, that's more like what I would like the majority of our positions to look like. So it's a good point of reference for us.

Q. From the cheap seats, it would appear that you made a very large move when you came to Virginia, leaving a program that was very, very successful, among the nation's best for decades, to take over a program that had been less successful, and you came to an entirely different part of the country and a new conference. Now as you begin year three, what's this like for you? What's been the biggest challenge or challenges?

BRONCO MENDENHALL: Yeah, I think you would have to say challenges. But to be clear, that's exactly what I was looking for. So I was intentional, and I wanted challenge and I wanted change, and I wanted growth. And certainly we got all those things. Inviting 14 staff members to come with me, we basically did Lewis and Clark backwards and came across the country. It's been a galvanizing experience. I've learned and grown maybe in the last two and a half, three years in working with Virginia than I have over my career, and I want desperately for the program but more importantly for the people to have success. I've become friends with a lot of new people. I've become captured by the type of young people that come to UVA, and I'm driven to see this to fruition, meaning consistent and successful football year after year at UVA. After year one, there was an entire recalibration that had to happen from where I thought the program was to where it really was. I was significantly off. After the recalibration of year one, that got us to some success in year two, right. We're back to postseason. There's still another recalibration that's just happened after then playing in our bowl game and seeing our current level of preparation for what that looks like. And so now after a second recalibration, and this might happen multiple more times, it gives us a better chance for year three, but I love the challenge. I love the -- kind of the all-encompassing nature of what that requires, as does my family, and all the coaches that came. It is galvanizing to take on something difficult, but that's what I love. I love challenging things, and that's certainly what we have. But I love to see complete effort and commitment in pursuit of something like that, and the team is starting to do that. They're starting to realize this is worth it, and that's gratifying.

Q. Alex, one of two returning starters on the offensive line; just what you can say about other guys you're expecting to step up on the line with you and what you can say about the unit going into this year?

ALEX BOOKSER: Yeah, as of now, through the spring, we've had -- next to me at right guard, we've had Mike Herndon playing. He's a guy who's seen some time in games, a close friend of mine, somebody who -- maybe at a different school he would be starting, but because we have had such depth at offensive line, he's kind of had to wait around. And he's played a part on offense and on defense. He's a guy who's just a big team guy, contributes any way he can. It should be awesome to get to see him have his moment. And on the other side, at the other guard is another guy similar to Mike, Connor Dintino. He's had a lot of role-playing chances. He's played some fullback. He's gone between offense and defense, as well. They're both guys that have really been itching to play, and it's going to be exciting to see them get their opportunity.

Q. So you guys are somewhat low in terms of returning career starts in the offensive line, but I sense that you're not too worried about that. What are the biggest factors really not just for offensive line but for a football team in determining beyond experience, beyond technical game strategy, what are the factors that determine whether you ultimately succeed?

ALEX BOOKSER: You know, as a collective team, everyone buying into the same idea. You can have anybody you want, but if it's an individual effort, you can fall to lesser teams. The big thing for us is to all buy in to the same idea. Once we are all together, there shouldn't be anybody we can lose to because as we've proved over the last few years, when we really want to succeed and we're 100 percent bought in to each other and to the game plan, we can beat just about anybody in the country. So now it's about us harnessing that ability and really coming out every Saturday and proving that to the entire country.

Q. You've got a returning starter at quarterback who I think has just one start under his belt, but can you talk about how Kenny has responded as a leader and how he's leading the offense despite his limited experience?

ALEX BOOKSER: Yeah, you would think that Kenny has been in Oakland for four years the way he walks around campus, the way he acts, the way he presents himself, the way he goes about his work, watching film, comes with playbook. The guy is a pro. He's been a pro since he stepped foot on campus, and it's been awesome to have a guy like him in the locker room to kick people in the butt when they need it, be that guy. And as a senior leader, it's awesome to have a younger guy really embrace that role. He's not one of the younger quarterbacks who say I'm not a senior, I'm not supposed to be the leader of this offense. He knows that he's taking the reins, and this is his offense, and he's embracing it, and that's been awesome to see.

Q. I wanted to ask you about Darrin Hall, came on strong last season. What's his off-season been like, and what are you sort of expecting to see out of him this year?

ALEX BOOKSER: He is a physical specimen. He is one of the -- watching him work out every day is amazing. The guy comes to work -- it's like you can't find a way to make him show a sign of weakness, and you know whenever he comes into the game, big play potential goes through the roof. It's awesome to have him running behind us.

Q. Last year the offensive unit gave up 31 sacks. We're obviously talking about new personnel at the line this year. There's a fine line in getting people better and getting acclimated so that number comes down. How does that stat get lower?

ALEX BOOKSER: You know, that's something that falls completely on us. We've had a new offensive line coach come in. We do some things differently. But what it really comes down to is we didn't take the same kind of pride in our work that we did the year before. The year before last, I think we gave up nine sacks in the regular season, and we really couldn't find that same kind of -- for whatever reason, that same kind of success. But we know that it's a possibility, and we know that we can do that, it's just revisiting that and how were we able to do that. We know as a team that that's a possibility for us, and protecting Kenny is going to be huge for us this year. So hopefully that's going to be one of our biggest improvements as a unit this year.

Q. What did that win versus Miami do for the program? What stamp do you think that placed on it for what is Pitt football?

OLUWASEUN IDOWU: That really shows everyone and more importantly ourselves what we're capable of. The things being said, the belief that we have in each other, the belief that we have to win games before games, all the faith that we have was proved really in that game at the end of the season to give guys a lot of confidence coming into this next season, and for this next season, that kind of play is where we need to start and kind of carry throughout the whole season and improve on throughout the whole season. We can still get better from there. We're capable of great things, I think, as a team, and with our growth that we're going to have, we're going to have capable of even more. So I really believe in my teammates, and I've seen it. That game really proved it. Everyone has seen it, so we just need to do the same thing and then more after that.

Q. Seun, you lost Whitehead and Maddox, two of the better players in Pitt history, and yet as you look around you see so many familiar faces. Give us a contrast: Two great players you have to replace, but so many returning starters?

OLUWASEUN IDOWU: Yeah, it's kind of like a needle having a weight on it, know what I'm saying? With that one needle it's a lot of weight to carry on. When you have a bigger service area, you have a lot more needles and things like that to stand on, per se. A lot of that pressure is distributed. You have guys being able to do their job at different levels all throughout the field, able to make plays wherever we can. We have a lot of knowledge coming back. Those we've lost those very good players. We have a lot of knowledge and a lot of skill and talent coming back and improved talent and growth coming back to the same team, and I think we can do a lot with that.

Q. I wanted to ask you about Rashad Weaver, seems like a guy that could have a breakout season. Tell me about him. OLUWASEUN IDOWU: Really focused player. A lot of guys, we have a lot of good D-ends. He had a really good season last year, improved, pretty focused, working on his technique in every little thing he could possibly tweak to get better, and I think he's going to do more. I think a lot of our D-ends in general have improved a lot over the years, and there's a lot of depth at that position, especially on the D-line, especially on the defense in general. There's a lot of depth, not a lot of drop-off, which is a great thing to see for that defense. And he's one of the guys -- we also have other guys, as well, that are going to do a lot of great things this year, and I'm really looking forward to what the defense is going to look like this season.

Q. As this is your fourth season coaching at Pitt, what things have you learned from past seasons that's going to help you this season?

PAT NARDUZZI: Well, I think when you think about past seasons and in past games, I think the one thing you do learn every year is who you're playing, you learn about the ACC conference, the talent in this conference, the coaches in this conference, whether it's an offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, special teams. You find out what they like. Two years ago, it seemed like the whole division was brand new and you didn't know what you were going to get out of Fuente or Bronco Mendenhall. There's some consistency. There's not been a lot of coaching changes, which is nice. It's nice when you can have a two or three game summer scouting report on someone when you can really say, hey, what are these guys like against us, who are they as personnel-wise. You start to learn a little bit more about your opponents. Those are the biggest things I think you learn as a football coach this time of year.

Q. This is kind of a two-part question. Were you hoping to redshirt Kenny Pickett last season, and is it a blessing in disguise he got the action that he got?

PAT NARDUZZI: Yes and yes. Is that easy? Kenny Pickett, we wanted to redshirt that guy. We knew he was talented. We had brought in a transfer in Max Browne from USC who we thought had talent, started off a little slow, had a great game against Rice, was having a great game at Syracuse when he dislocated his shoulder. I told this story earlier today. I come out on the field, and poor Max is laying on the ground with that shoulder dislocated, screaming, whining, kid was really hurt. I felt awful for him. As I'm looking down at him, I'm going, Kenny is going to have to play, Kenny has got to play, and we put him in that game. There was no let me think about this for a week. We knew he was talented. We thought we could skate through the year without having to use him. We felt like we had a decent backup and a guy that could win games for us based on everything he did in practice. So we wanted to redshirt him, couldn't. It's a blessing in disguise because we're able to slowly bring him out without breaking his confidence and throwing him out there to the wolves early, which we could have done. And we could have a crappy quarterback right now going into 2018, but we did it the right way, the slow way, which I'm sure a lot of fans would like to have thrown him out there early, but who knows what would have happened. But we slowly developed him, and he was down reading off of cards for four weeks. I mean, he was a scout team quarterback and a darned good one, but we're happy with where he is right now. He's got really -- he only played in four games, so if that redshirt rule, the four-game redshirt rule is retroactive, he's really a true freshman right now, and if I had a good lawyer, I'd probably say he's got four more years to go, which would be really nice.

Q. Over the past couple of seasons, your defense has given up more yards than points at times than I'm sure you're comfortable with. You have so many players coming back from that unit. What are you challenging them to improve on this year?

PAT NARDUZZI: Well, obviously you can't give up the big play. When you look at a defense, you want to be stingy. You'd like to stop the run and stop the pass and stop it all. Realistically in the offenses we're facing today, it's not happening a bunch. But I think as you recruit to the talent you need on your football team that you eventually will get better. We made some major strides, I think, last year. I think we probably got as far as we could do with our coordinator there at the time. Josh Conklin did a heck of a job when he was there, he took a head job. And I really think we upgraded in the hire of Randy Bates, I really do. And that's no disrespect to Josh. It's just a different guy that brings some different ideas and a different way of doing things with a ton of energy. So I'm excited about where we are as a coordinator, I'm excited about the players we have. A year ago last June, I walked out on the field, we get about 30 minutes a day to work with them, I should say 30 minutes every other day, two days a week we worked with them. I looked at the linebacking corps and Seun was one of them and I'm going, God, that's all we've got. Almost a little scary. But now I walk out there this June, I'm going, whoa, there's a lot of guys there that can play for us, which they couldn't play for us a year ago. So it's another year of development. We can't draft them, you know. It's a little easier, I think, in the NFL. It's not easier to win, but it's easier when you can say I want that guy, I want to pick that guy. I don't care if it's the first pick in the draft or the 24th pick, but you're recruiting him, and you've got to develop him into young men, and they give it everything they've got, and that's the fun of coaching. If we all had great players, what fun would it be to coach? But that's part of the development part that I enjoy, especially at Pitt.

Q. Can you talk about the development of the defensive line as a unit since you arrived at Pitt in terms of is this what you want it to look like in terms of athleticism, skill set, et cetera?

PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah, it really is. When you walk into our practice facility this fall, this August, you're going to see a group that we've worked awful hard, number one, recruiting them and getting them on campus; and then Charlie Partridge, our defensive line coach has done a great job developing them. Which I say develop them, I'm talking about developing them in the classroom, okay, and on the field, because they go together. If you're not doing your job in the classroom and you can't be dependent on going to class or turning your work in on time, then you're probably not going to be very dependable when you get on the field. Each one of our coaches deal with our players individually, but Charlie Partridge, there couldn't be a better guy not only as our D-line coach, but our assistant head coach. He develops those guys. Like Alex talked up front, it starts up front with the O-line and your defensive line. These two, if you don't have them -- I know Alex Bookser put all those sacks on the O-line. I'll correct him. There's a lot of things that go with sacks. Number one is a quarterback that can get out of his way and not just run into a guy and take a sack. So I wanted to change what Book said as a young guy, and he took it all on him, which is what you want your kids to take ownership of those 31 sacks. I didn't even know we had 31 sacks, but those were a lot of ones that we kind of gave away and didn't know where to go with the ball. So I hope that answers your question.

Q. Last year Seun had 11 and a half tackles for loss. What is it about your style of defense that allows a young man like that to succeed to that level? PAT NARDUZZI: You know, I think it's an aggressive attack style defense. We're attacking, we're not sitting back. We could give up less passing yards, but we're trying to be a dominant defense. That's how you win championships with defense. You don't win championships being average. So we want to be an attack style. And when you can put people behind the sticks, whether it's a 3rd and long or 2nd and long, so we're going to be aggressive -- if you talk to anybody in the conference about what we do or how we do it, it's an aggressive style defense where we're coming at you. We're not going to sit there and just defend you, we're going to attack you and make you defend us.

Q. Last year was not a terrific year for the coastal vis-á-vis the Atlantic. Was that a one-year trend? Listening to all the coaches this morning, everybody feels like it's going to be a really strong year.

PAT NARDUZZI: Yeah, I mean, all those guys that make that decision are probably sitting in your chairs right there. I don't worry about where anybody else is. I worry about Pittsburgh, the University of Pittsburgh, how we're doing things. And we want to be that best team in the country. We want to be ACC champions. We want to be in the playoffs. That's all I'm worried about. I can't control what anybody else does. We want to try to make everybody else look bad and make sure Pitt is at the top of the Coastal.

Q. Pitt has had two of the real marquee wins in this league the last two years, obviously Clemson and Miami last year. How can those games be springboards into this season?

PAT NARDUZZI: You know, I think any time you can beat two of the best teams in the conference in back-to-back years, it lets our kids know that, hey, if you pay attention to details, you can do it every week. You have to have focus, you've got to have leadership, and they don't let Coach Bates or Coach Narduzzi or Coach Watson, our offensive coordinator, go out on the field and get in the huddle. You guys got to take that game over on the field, and you have to do it every down, and I think our kids realize that. You grow up, you've got a different chemistry of your kids, and I listen to our kids talk today in different settings around the Westin today and just listening to how they are regurgitating the information we're throwing. They are buying in and believing what we're talking about, and that's how you win football games. But we've got 18 seniors this year. We had a very, very small senior class last year. I think we've got great leadership from the top down. We're developing our young leaders, as well, from our seniors down to our freshmen, and that's the encouraging thing about it.

DURING OPENING STATEMENT, AS IT REGARDS TO TRANSFER RULES, THE EARLY SIGNING PERIOD AND REDSHIRT RULES: This past December was the first early signing day, something we've championed from the ACC for a number of years, and after visiting with our coaches this spring and as recently as this morning, it's been a positive addition to the recruiting calendar. There's also been significant discussions surrounding the redshirt and transfer rules. We'll need to evaluate both of these over the next year and beyond, but I don't think there's any doubt that the benefit for our players far outweigh any negatives that might come with it.

As it relates to the transfer process, we believe the changes are in the best interest of players and specifically their ability to control who they talk with during the process and their ability to ultimately transfer where they want and need to go. It also eliminates any restriction on them from receiving athletic aid at a new school.

The football redshirt rule, which allows a player to participate in up to four games without losing a year of eligibility is another positive for our players and programs. The opportunity to have limited game experience without penalty, especially when you consider the length of the season and possible attrition during the season, should be an overall benefit of the game, the players and the coaches.

As a former player who sat out a year with an illness and spent that year not playing the game, that's a tough thing to do. And for a player to have the opportunity to play in three or four games gives the coaches the opportunity to certainly evaluate them better, prepare them better for when they're playing on a more regular basis, and it gives players the opportunity to hang in there, so to speak, as they get through what would have been a redshirt year of not playing at all. So I think it's a tremendous change for the players.

The early signing period as well as the new redshirt rule were both initiated by the ACC. We're fortunate to have Blake James, Miami's athletics director, as chair of the Division I Council. His leadership and ability to effectively communicate on behalf of the various constituents continues to be appreciated. And currently I think it's worth noting that the ACC has more individuals on more committees in the NCAA than any other conference, so we're extraordinarily represented across the board and in some very key leadership positions.

Q. Starting in the beginning of the new millennium, the ACC had some rather lackluster bowl seasons, especially in the Orange Bowl. But as you mentioned, since the CFP was announced, the ACC has been in the national Conference Championship every year. How do you explain that?

JOHN SWOFFORD: Well, I think that -- I don't think it's explainable in one or two aspects of it. I think it's multiple, and I think it really started in the early 2000s when we began talking about expansion and the need for expansion, should we, should we not; if so, why. And we felt like looking ahead, sometimes you have to try and be visionary, you know, as a business, as a conference, as an individual, and most of us felt very strongly that with the way things were progressing, where college athletics was going, how the football side of things was beginning to dominate, if you will, the business aspects of it and the revenue generation aspects of it because of its growing popularity, we felt like we had to do two things as a league. One was to grow and enhance our footprint and our marketplaces and our television sets, and the other was that we had to get more competitive top to bottom in football. Those were the two items that we beat to death, quite honestly, meeting after meeting after meeting, and we got there. But the success on the field doesn't happen, and certainly I think we enhanced ourselves football-wise by the schools that we have brought into the league since the decision first was made in 2003, but then '04 and '05 is when Miami and Virginia Tech came in, and then Boston College right on top of it, which gave us the opportunity to have a conference championship game, which we had to have 12 schools in order to do that. Then later the opportunity to bring Pitt and Syracuse into the league, who have not had as much recent success in football but have tremendous tradition and history in that sport, which can help tremendously in rebuilding it and putting it back together and having that same success going forward possibly. It also affected our ability to do some things television-wise and marketing-wise that we would never have been able to do as a nine-member conference, for instance. Then Notre Dame and the arrangement with Notre Dame, which I think has been a tremendous plus for the league as well as for Notre Dame. Then the loss of one school and the immediate decision to bring in Louisville, to bring us to where we are today from a membership and market standpoint. Plus all of those schools have excellent football potential. And when you couple it with the nine schools that we already had, it just has given us so much more depth, and instead of one or two really good teams, we have a lot more than that right now. And I think that will continue. But the biggest thing is the institutions responding to the challenge to improve football, to bring our football nationally up to a level similar to basketball. I think we're in the best shape we've ever been as a league at this point in time in a real balance there with football and basketball, because basketball is so important to the history of our league and what we became, how we were perceived. And our football, while we had some, over time, great players and great teams along the way that won some National Championships and some Heisman trophies and those kinds of things, we weren't doing it with nearly the frequency or with multiple teams the way we had been able to do things in basketball. And as I said, the business model was changing. About the early 2000s was when the football revenue from television equaled basketball television revenue in this conference and now a number of conferences before then, that had already taken place. But the biggest thing is the schools responding, investing in the sport, investing in facilities, investing in hiring quality coaches and investing in recruiting.

Q. Football post-season of course is ratings driven, rankings driven. Do you feel like the ACC gets a fair shake under the CFP rankings system as opposed to under the BCS? Is that part of the equation?

JOHN SWOFFORD: I think so. You know, I've said this before: I think the CFP has been the greatest startup I've ever seen in college sports, I think. It doesn't mean it's perfect, but one of the reasons I can say that is we've been in it the first four years, so I get that. But at the same time, I do think it's been to our benefit, and I think some of that is the eyeball test. I think we finally have put together a period of time where our league has improved consistently in football. It's not a flash-in-the-pan kind of situation, and there will be a year, I'm sure, where our champion or another team is not in the playoff. I mean, it's already happened to some really good conferences. That's part of the deal at this point in time. But we'd like to put that off as long as we possibly can. But I think the CFP has been really good for the ACC and really good for college football.

Q. Some of your cohorts have said they expect the NCAA to adopt some, if not all, or most if not all of the Rice Commission's recommendations for basketball. What's your sense on that, and do you agree with everything in that report as it's being implemented?

JOHN SWOFFORD: I do think the vast majority of it, if not all of it, will be adopted. And I think it needs to be adopted. That doesn't mean that I agree with every piece of it, but I think what we need to do right now with college basketball is to show a commitment to adopting those concepts. And they'll be more than concepts when they're adopted in August. But I think we'll need to understand that in taking those concepts in a very short period of time and turning them into legislative protocol, doing it that quickly, I think we can expect that a year from now or two years from now, it may need tweaking some. But I think the bones of it are outstanding, and I think we're at a point in college basketball where we need to take those steps. I don't think it'll be perfect in August, so I think we're going to need a mechanism to adjust to some degree going forward, but I think it's important to take that first step, and I think it needs to be a giant first step.

Q. By sheer coincidence, the same year you were born, the NCAA started keeping track of college football attendance, so 70 years ago. And for the first time, it's declined four years in a row. Yet the SEC lost an average of 2,500 fans per game last year, their worst decline in 25 years. Even in an era where I imagine TV money makes up for a lot of problems, how are you addressing as a league, how are your schools addressing a significant red flag when it comes to declining attendance in major college football?

JOHN SWOFFORD: Mainly talking about best practices among ourselves. That's one of the great things about a conference is schools can spend time together and share ideas and what works and what doesn't work, because we're in a period now where people's ability to watch a game is phenomenal, you know, whether it's your phone or your living room, and it's a quality experience, particularly in your living room. Some more than others, but you can still do other things, keep up with the game, see the highlights, and all of that is good. So maybe sometimes to gain something, you give up a little something. But I think the biggest approach is -- and every school is a little different. School A may have a parking problem, school B not at all, but I think what our schools are finding is sharing that kind of information about the in-stadium experience and also modernizing stadiums and bringing them up to snuff, so to speak, so that the in-game experience is as good as it can be, and that can start on the field with the product, and it can also start on the field with keeping the game going. We're continually working at reducing the length of games. I really harp on this all the time with our officials particularly, so I'm pleased to tell you that the ACC in terms of conference games, we had the shortest length of conference games of any of our peer conferences last year and I think the year before, as well, if I'm not mistaken. And that's a good thing. We keep looking at rules changes that also may shorten the game because Major League Baseball is dealing with this right now, with attendance down and people complaining about the length of games and rules changes they're trying to make without taking away the soul of the game itself. But I think it's a trend we have to keep an eye on. You want to be developing young fans. You want to be developing students into fans while they're there because generally they're the ones who go on, and as they have some successes in life, give back to our booster clubs and our universities. So it's an all-encompassing issue that is about the field, it's about fans' total experience from parking to concessions to bathrooms to comfort in their seats to reception they can get on their mobiles while they're in the stadium. You know, all of those things come into play, and I'm sure I've missed a few. But it is a concern that we talk about often in our league meetings.

Q. The Supreme Court decision on sports gambling, where do you think the ACC overall and college football really should go in terms of injury reports?

JOHN SWOFFORD: Well, I just had a lengthy conversation with our Coastal Division coaches this morning about that issue. You may remember, we have had not a rule but a gentlemen's agreement among our coaches to share publicly injury information. We were the only conference that was doing that, and ironically, we decided not to do it this year, so we won't be doing it this year. But my guess is that -- I think the ultimate question with us is how do you protect the players and the integrity of the game, and what's different now that some things are legal from when it was illegal, and what does that change. But the ultimate question is how do we protect our players, because obviously a lot more people -- if it's going to be legal, and we're in ten states, we have schools in ten states, so it's going to be challenging because some states will pass it and others won't, I feel sure. So we'll have to see how it plays out, but my guess is we will have a national -- I won't even call it an injury report because I think that we need to include other situations that would be in sync, be consistent across the country. I think that's critically important, and would include not only injuries but if there's disciplinary action where a player is suspended for a game or for whatever reason, that would need to be a part of it, as well. And I think that reduces to some degree people you don't really want coming around players and managers and doctors and anybody associated with the program, coaches, trying to get information in another kind of way, in an underhanded kind of way. My general feeling, and I sense that our coaches' general feeling is the same, that that's probably something that needs to happen on a national basis. I don't think it'll happen for this season. I suspect it'll be for next season, but I'll be surprised if that's not in place.