Coach Shafer Quotes Following Wake Forest
Coach Shafer Quotes
Wake Forest
Nov. 2, 2013
On the game as a whole and winning after a bad loss at Georgia Tech:
“Good victory, we’re a team that’s continuing to try and grow on the offensive side of the ball and when you are growing, your brothers on the other side have to do a good job picking up the slack. I thought our defense did that today. I’m extremely proud of [defensive coordinator] Chuck Bullough and the defensive staff for the job they did coming off a difficult loss a couple of weeks ago where we were all embarrassed, starting with me. We really challenged those kids to come out and play good football and they did and I’m so proud of the way those kids played, the whole team but especially the defensive kids. In the second half, it was brought to my attention that the sway in the game was our kids on offense at the end of the first half was 10 play drives. Then we come out, offense back up, 14-play drive. Twenty-four tough, hardnosed football plays that I thought we really expressed our will on a well-coached opponent in Wake Forest. I was extremely pleased with the kids in this victory, we’re back to .500. Now we’ve got a tall-task as we go over and play a talented Maryland ball club.”
On the defensive line and freshman DE Isaiah Johnson’s performance:
“As you guys know we’ve had some injuries up front with Johnny Raymond and Eric Crume banged up so we really challenged the defensive line that we needed some fresh faces to step up. We played a lot of our Okie package as well as our Georgia package which was manufactured as a four down look without a lot of guys who were able to play that are true down-linemen. I thought we were extremely creative and Isaiah Johnson was part of that and made a big play. We went into the game seeing if we could be at least plus one by the end of the game in turnovers and rush for 50 yards more than the opponent and we’d win that game and the kids did a good job. We weren’t at that at the half and Isaiah was a big part of that, getting that plus one.”
On freshman WR Brisly Estime and his performance against Wake:
“Brisly Estime is doing a good job, he’s a young guy and we’ve put a lot on his table, we want to continue to do that but I thought he handled it well today. We had a few snafus where maybe he wasn’t as organized as we wanted him to be, but that’s part of growing and we survived that storm and I was pleased with the way he played. I want to do a good job keeping [h-back] Ashton Broyld involved and try to be creative and work him into some different positions. I need to find a way to continue to get Ashton some more touches too because I think he and Brisly are two guys who can move around and be successful with their feet.”
On the reverse play that resulted in the second touchdown of the game:
“It’s actually pretty funny because all week long we tried three different kids on that play and it was interception, interception, duck, I mean it was horrible. It happened in practice, I told [offensive coordinator] George McDonald it’s out. He didn’t say anything but he did say a lot by the way he looked and I knew that they were going to keep working it and they got it right by game time and that’s what counts. It was good call by George, I don’t know if I would have had the intestinal fortitude to make that call but Coach McDonald did and those two cats did a good job making the play. Jarrod West threw a good ball, I got worried I started to run up to see if he was over the line of scrimmage because he kind of did a crow hop, he looked like a shortstop on a baseball field but he threw a strike down the field and we got the little guy [Brisly Estime] a touchdown on that play. It was a good job by those two.”
On utilizing sophomore H-back Ashton Broyld:
“We wanted to be able to have Ashton Broyld also play on the edge and do some things. Unfortunately the way the game plan went we weren’t able to get him the ball as much as I would like to but a lot of that has to do with the number of downs and the number of snaps you get in the first half and we didn’t have enough snaps, we had too many three-and-outs. We need to keep trying to exploit Broyld’s abilities.”
On the defensive plans for Wake Forest WR Michael Campanaro
“We wanted to be physical with him, we wanted to be able to change up the coverage, we wanted to be able to run some cover-two fire zones, which we haven’t done all year and that was a big part of the game plan with the thought that we could run pressures and constrict the field with corners dropping down and playing halves with the safeties which we’ve done a lot in the past but we’ve stayed away from it until this week and I thought the kids did a pretty good job, we did give up a bender on it which I was worried about. We were going to take Marquis Spruill in the empty package and walk him out and have him challenge Michael Campanaro to be physical with him but the plan was really to change up the coverage, match up with the nickel back on him every once in a while and throw some pressures that we didn’t throw at him in the past with double clean-up coverage.”
On what a win feels like for Coach Shafer and on the team’s attitude coming off the GT loss:
“It feels great, I don’t know if it is part of my personality trait but it takes me a long time to enjoy it. It will probably be 10:30 tonight, maybe 11 and finally [it will hit me]. It’s wonderful. You feel horrible when you lose, as a coach you just feel horrible. It’s the worst part of the business. You just feel horrible and when you win there’s that elation and you wake up in the morning and say, ‘Oh my gosh, we’ve got to get ready for the next one.’ So that’s kind of the way it works for me, at least, and I know most of the guys I’ve worked with we’ve talked about it a lot and when you have a bye week after getting your rumps kicked like we did against Georgia Tech it makes it even more difficult. I was really proud that our kids, they stuck their chest out, they went to work after that difficult loss. There’s been no separation with these kids. They’ve become tighter when we’ve had tough situations and I love them for it. I think that says a lot to their character, especially that senior class and a great group of captains. I couldn’t of these kids because they are of character, they are kids of character. We’ve got to keep finding ways to win and I don’t care how pretty or ugly they are as long as we find a way to get a ‘W’ for this team.”
On what the community means to the program:
“I also want to say thanks to our community. I’ve had so many people say, ‘Hang in there coach, keep fighting. I can’t tell you how motivating that is to me and our kids. You’re always going to have the nay-sayers, a lot of the guys in this [press conference room] are going to nit-pick through and that’s okay, that’s your jobs, you guys are supposed to do that, but you’ll never come in between our kids and our community. The ones that showed up today are the ones that I just sincerely want to thank because when we needed them they were loud on third down and fourth down today and that goes a long way. We’ve got a hardnosed town, I love this town, I love this town! I know one day it’s going to be great here. The thing is the foundation is being built with quality kids that do things right. When they stub their toe, like Ryan Norton did, they pay the price and then we’ll get him back next week and my heart goes out to Ryan and his family too, he lost his grandpa this week and we keep that family in our hearts and prayers but he’ll be back tomorrow ready to help this team kick some field goals. I’m proud of this team because they’re of character and we can’t wait to get after this Maryland bunch.”
On the new walk-on kicker Alex Hodgkinson:
“We got a kid from London, he’s a good looking kid, I don’t know much about him I don’t know if he can kick it through those uprights or not but we got depth if nothing more. He just got eligible right before the game so I wasn’t going to give him a shot to kick. Riley Dixon, couldn’t be prouder of him. He’s a young kid from Christian Brothers Academyin Syracuse doing a great job for us. The roll punt that we do has increased our ability to get down the field with more men and our coverage teams have improved so much this season. So I’m extremely proud, not only of those kids, but also of the coaches. Coach Daoust has done a great job organizing our special teams and we have had extreme improvement, so I couldn’t be prouder of him as well.”
On the lack of offense in the first half:
“We had a battle, it’s not always going to be sexy We played football. Back in the day that was normal, back when you and I were playing (smiling), that was a normal game. A 13-0 score was a normal game. You should say, ‘Yeah it was good, a well-fought game like we used to do.’ It was ugly, we had a couple of offenses that struggled to execute and you had a couple of defenses that played good football, they really did. Being an old defensive guy, I found that game to be extremely sexy in the first half (smiling) I think it was about execution, or lack thereof, and you had that going on on both sides, but when you have lack of execution on the offensive side of the ball you probably have pretty doggone good execution on the other side, defensively. We gave the game ball to the defense, Coach Bullough and Marquis Spruill and Jay Bromley because I thought it was a great fight and they’ve got to put that ball away and enjoy it at the end of the season now because we’ve got to get ready for Maryland.”
On the field goal fake:
“When Jonathan Fisher kicked that ball from three feet off the ground I said, ‘We can’t have that.’ We needed another week to get him to have the ball come up higher. I just felt like if we had that one blocked there then it’s not a two-point conversion if they run it back, it’s a touchdown. I felt like Charley Loeb could get it in and well, what the heck. Loeb’s a senior kid, I love him like a son, he’s going to go into coaching, (smiling) he’s going to be a great recruiter because all the moms are going to want to at least bring their kid for a visit so I figured we would give Charley a shot to get it in the end zone and he came up just a little bit short but I don’t regret it because we were playing really good defense and they would have had to have a 99-yard drive.”
Wake Forest
Nov. 2, 2013
On the game as a whole and winning after a bad loss at Georgia Tech:
“Good victory, we’re a team that’s continuing to try and grow on the offensive side of the ball and when you are growing, your brothers on the other side have to do a good job picking up the slack. I thought our defense did that today. I’m extremely proud of [defensive coordinator] Chuck Bullough and the defensive staff for the job they did coming off a difficult loss a couple of weeks ago where we were all embarrassed, starting with me. We really challenged those kids to come out and play good football and they did and I’m so proud of the way those kids played, the whole team but especially the defensive kids. In the second half, it was brought to my attention that the sway in the game was our kids on offense at the end of the first half was 10 play drives. Then we come out, offense back up, 14-play drive. Twenty-four tough, hardnosed football plays that I thought we really expressed our will on a well-coached opponent in Wake Forest. I was extremely pleased with the kids in this victory, we’re back to .500. Now we’ve got a tall-task as we go over and play a talented Maryland ball club.”
On the defensive line and freshman DE Isaiah Johnson’s performance:
“As you guys know we’ve had some injuries up front with Johnny Raymond and Eric Crume banged up so we really challenged the defensive line that we needed some fresh faces to step up. We played a lot of our Okie package as well as our Georgia package which was manufactured as a four down look without a lot of guys who were able to play that are true down-linemen. I thought we were extremely creative and Isaiah Johnson was part of that and made a big play. We went into the game seeing if we could be at least plus one by the end of the game in turnovers and rush for 50 yards more than the opponent and we’d win that game and the kids did a good job. We weren’t at that at the half and Isaiah was a big part of that, getting that plus one.”
On freshman WR Brisly Estime and his performance against Wake:
“Brisly Estime is doing a good job, he’s a young guy and we’ve put a lot on his table, we want to continue to do that but I thought he handled it well today. We had a few snafus where maybe he wasn’t as organized as we wanted him to be, but that’s part of growing and we survived that storm and I was pleased with the way he played. I want to do a good job keeping [h-back] Ashton Broyld involved and try to be creative and work him into some different positions. I need to find a way to continue to get Ashton some more touches too because I think he and Brisly are two guys who can move around and be successful with their feet.”
On the reverse play that resulted in the second touchdown of the game:
“It’s actually pretty funny because all week long we tried three different kids on that play and it was interception, interception, duck, I mean it was horrible. It happened in practice, I told [offensive coordinator] George McDonald it’s out. He didn’t say anything but he did say a lot by the way he looked and I knew that they were going to keep working it and they got it right by game time and that’s what counts. It was good call by George, I don’t know if I would have had the intestinal fortitude to make that call but Coach McDonald did and those two cats did a good job making the play. Jarrod West threw a good ball, I got worried I started to run up to see if he was over the line of scrimmage because he kind of did a crow hop, he looked like a shortstop on a baseball field but he threw a strike down the field and we got the little guy [Brisly Estime] a touchdown on that play. It was a good job by those two.”
On utilizing sophomore H-back Ashton Broyld:
“We wanted to be able to have Ashton Broyld also play on the edge and do some things. Unfortunately the way the game plan went we weren’t able to get him the ball as much as I would like to but a lot of that has to do with the number of downs and the number of snaps you get in the first half and we didn’t have enough snaps, we had too many three-and-outs. We need to keep trying to exploit Broyld’s abilities.”
On the defensive plans for Wake Forest WR Michael Campanaro
“We wanted to be physical with him, we wanted to be able to change up the coverage, we wanted to be able to run some cover-two fire zones, which we haven’t done all year and that was a big part of the game plan with the thought that we could run pressures and constrict the field with corners dropping down and playing halves with the safeties which we’ve done a lot in the past but we’ve stayed away from it until this week and I thought the kids did a pretty good job, we did give up a bender on it which I was worried about. We were going to take Marquis Spruill in the empty package and walk him out and have him challenge Michael Campanaro to be physical with him but the plan was really to change up the coverage, match up with the nickel back on him every once in a while and throw some pressures that we didn’t throw at him in the past with double clean-up coverage.”
On what a win feels like for Coach Shafer and on the team’s attitude coming off the GT loss:
“It feels great, I don’t know if it is part of my personality trait but it takes me a long time to enjoy it. It will probably be 10:30 tonight, maybe 11 and finally [it will hit me]. It’s wonderful. You feel horrible when you lose, as a coach you just feel horrible. It’s the worst part of the business. You just feel horrible and when you win there’s that elation and you wake up in the morning and say, ‘Oh my gosh, we’ve got to get ready for the next one.’ So that’s kind of the way it works for me, at least, and I know most of the guys I’ve worked with we’ve talked about it a lot and when you have a bye week after getting your rumps kicked like we did against Georgia Tech it makes it even more difficult. I was really proud that our kids, they stuck their chest out, they went to work after that difficult loss. There’s been no separation with these kids. They’ve become tighter when we’ve had tough situations and I love them for it. I think that says a lot to their character, especially that senior class and a great group of captains. I couldn’t of these kids because they are of character, they are kids of character. We’ve got to keep finding ways to win and I don’t care how pretty or ugly they are as long as we find a way to get a ‘W’ for this team.”
On what the community means to the program:
“I also want to say thanks to our community. I’ve had so many people say, ‘Hang in there coach, keep fighting. I can’t tell you how motivating that is to me and our kids. You’re always going to have the nay-sayers, a lot of the guys in this [press conference room] are going to nit-pick through and that’s okay, that’s your jobs, you guys are supposed to do that, but you’ll never come in between our kids and our community. The ones that showed up today are the ones that I just sincerely want to thank because when we needed them they were loud on third down and fourth down today and that goes a long way. We’ve got a hardnosed town, I love this town, I love this town! I know one day it’s going to be great here. The thing is the foundation is being built with quality kids that do things right. When they stub their toe, like Ryan Norton did, they pay the price and then we’ll get him back next week and my heart goes out to Ryan and his family too, he lost his grandpa this week and we keep that family in our hearts and prayers but he’ll be back tomorrow ready to help this team kick some field goals. I’m proud of this team because they’re of character and we can’t wait to get after this Maryland bunch.”
On the new walk-on kicker Alex Hodgkinson:
“We got a kid from London, he’s a good looking kid, I don’t know much about him I don’t know if he can kick it through those uprights or not but we got depth if nothing more. He just got eligible right before the game so I wasn’t going to give him a shot to kick. Riley Dixon, couldn’t be prouder of him. He’s a young kid from Christian Brothers Academyin Syracuse doing a great job for us. The roll punt that we do has increased our ability to get down the field with more men and our coverage teams have improved so much this season. So I’m extremely proud, not only of those kids, but also of the coaches. Coach Daoust has done a great job organizing our special teams and we have had extreme improvement, so I couldn’t be prouder of him as well.”
On the lack of offense in the first half:
“We had a battle, it’s not always going to be sexy We played football. Back in the day that was normal, back when you and I were playing (smiling), that was a normal game. A 13-0 score was a normal game. You should say, ‘Yeah it was good, a well-fought game like we used to do.’ It was ugly, we had a couple of offenses that struggled to execute and you had a couple of defenses that played good football, they really did. Being an old defensive guy, I found that game to be extremely sexy in the first half (smiling) I think it was about execution, or lack thereof, and you had that going on on both sides, but when you have lack of execution on the offensive side of the ball you probably have pretty doggone good execution on the other side, defensively. We gave the game ball to the defense, Coach Bullough and Marquis Spruill and Jay Bromley because I thought it was a great fight and they’ve got to put that ball away and enjoy it at the end of the season now because we’ve got to get ready for Maryland.”
On the field goal fake:
“When Jonathan Fisher kicked that ball from three feet off the ground I said, ‘We can’t have that.’ We needed another week to get him to have the ball come up higher. I just felt like if we had that one blocked there then it’s not a two-point conversion if they run it back, it’s a touchdown. I felt like Charley Loeb could get it in and well, what the heck. Loeb’s a senior kid, I love him like a son, he’s going to go into coaching, (smiling) he’s going to be a great recruiter because all the moms are going to want to at least bring their kid for a visit so I figured we would give Charley a shot to get it in the end zone and he came up just a little bit short but I don’t regret it because we were playing really good defense and they would have had to have a 99-yard drive.”
