Dino Babers Postgame at Virginia Tech
Dino Babers discusses loss to Virginia Tech.
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00:00 I want to open with Jaden Bellamy.
00:02 He got hurt in the game, and we had to take him to the hospital
00:05 and get him an x-ray.
00:07 X-rays have come back negative, so he's in route.
00:10 His family did go there with him.
00:11 They were at the game.
00:13 He's now in route back here so that he
00:15 can fly back home with us.
00:17 And we just didn't want to leave anybody behind.
00:20 So I want to open with that, and I'll go to questions.
00:24 Emily, you can start us off.
00:25 Just to follow up on Bellamy, x-rays,
00:27 was that like a head, neck injury or--
00:29 That's the stuff that I don't want to say,
00:31 because he may come back and play next week,
00:33 and I don't want to give the opponents any advantage.
00:35 But he is cleared from that.
00:38 Anthony?
00:38 I guess today, and we've been talking the last few weeks
00:41 about slow starts offensively.
00:43 What do you kind of feel like contributed most of that today?
00:45 You know what?
00:46 I want to go back and watch the tape,
00:48 but it's starting to be a theme, and I'm not
00:52 satisfied with that.
00:54 We have to find a way to stop that.
00:57 We've got to get in these games and not get out of them.
01:00 And I'm a little upset about that.
01:02 So we're going to go back, and we will do--
01:06 and I will do whatever we can to make sure
01:08 that we have an opportunity to find a way to start faster.
01:13 Jack?
01:14 So Coach, for these four weeks, Garrett
01:16 has looked pretty uncomfortable in terms
01:19 of getting rid of the ball, decision making,
01:21 leaving the pocket.
01:22 Why would you say that is?
01:24 I don't know.
01:25 We're going to have to find out.
01:26 It's no physical thing, if that's
01:29 where you're going with it.
01:30 But I would agree.
01:34 We'll go citrus, and then back to Emily.
01:35 You talked about after Florida State getting
01:38 over those opponents of North Carolina, Florida State,
01:41 Clemson, and then this stretch of the schedule
01:43 might be a little easier on the offense.
01:45 Why wasn't that the case tonight?
01:46 Well, obviously, Virginia Tech's got a heck of a football team.
01:49 And when you add in the crowd and the early penalties
01:52 that we had, we settled down the second half,
01:55 and that crowd didn't adjust it.
01:57 So maybe the crowd just got quieter.
01:59 But I don't have an answer for you on that.
02:01 But that's a good football team.
02:02 They ran the ball extremely well on us.
02:05 And well, I thought both teams were physical.
02:08 I mean, they had guys leave the game.
02:09 We had guys leave the game.
02:11 And we had a lot of guys playing to the very end.
02:13 I think Marlo went over double digit tackles again.
02:16 So I don't think it was about giving up,
02:17 but it was a very physical contest.
02:20 Emily, then Cindy.
02:22 Sounded from some moments on the broadcast
02:24 that there was frustration on the sidelines among the players.
02:26 Was that frustration with what was going on in the game?
02:29 Or is that frustration in any way
02:30 directed at the coaching staff or other players?
02:33 I don't think our family is like that.
02:35 I think it's all tied into what's going on in the game.
02:38 And guys want to have success.
02:40 And winning is important.
02:42 So taking the physical kind of aspects out of the game,
02:46 what is the mentality shift you want to see
02:49 in your team moving forward?
02:51 Well, I think the main thing is we've
02:53 got to go out and be a little bit more aggressive.
02:55 We're being aggressive on defense, but offensively,
02:57 I thought there were some plays to be made.
02:59 I thought we saw some guys making some plays out there.
03:02 But to do it consistently over a long period of time,
03:07 we haven't been able to do that.
03:08 And third downs, you can't get momentum in a football game
03:11 if you're not going to--
03:12 you'd better get touchdowns or you better get first downs,
03:15 one or the other.
03:16 Wyatt.
03:17 Coach, defense struggling against the run,
03:19 particularly on the outside, because getting the edge
03:22 and setting back.
03:22 Why do you think that is and what
03:23 do you see from that going to play?
03:25 I think the biggest thing is we just got to rally.
03:27 We've got to get more support.
03:28 We had corner support.
03:29 And then we had corners doing it really well.
03:31 And then we lost both corners.
03:34 And that's not an excuse.
03:35 We're playing with the next guys.
03:36 And they came in and did a nice job.
03:38 We played a lot of guys today.
03:39 But that's part of the game.
03:41 Sometimes the corners have to cover people.
03:43 And sometimes they need to come up.
03:45 Safeties, defensive linemen, there's enough to go around.
03:48 There's not really one position.
03:50 But they did some unique things.
03:54 They did some unique things in the run game.
03:56 Jack and then Emily.
03:58 Jeremiah Wilson's a guy that started
04:00 for most of the early season.
04:01 We saw his playing time kind of wane.
04:04 And he was on the depth chart with the Greg Delaney
04:06 or Jeremiah Wilson.
04:08 Didn't really see him today.
04:10 Why was that?
04:13 We had somebody ranked higher.
04:15 They were playing the guys that they wanted to play.
04:19 Emily and then Anthony.
04:21 At this point, four down games for the offense,
04:23 are you considering any changes to offensive personnel?
04:26 Everything is open.
04:27 What about-- are you considering bringing Beck back down
04:30 from the box to the sideline, where you guys had success
04:32 last year with him?
04:34 That I have not thought about yet.
04:38 Anthony.
04:38 I think the last couple of weeks,
04:39 you talked about Garrett saying the offense needs
04:42 to find identity.
04:43 And then there is an identity.
04:44 And so I just want to ask, when you
04:47 were looking at the table in these last couple of weeks
04:49 with a bye week, what did you feel
04:51 like the offensive identity was?
04:52 I thought that we were missing out on plays.
04:54 Guys making mistakes, rolodexing, one guy, one guy,
04:58 one guy.
04:59 And you could see the clarity that if you cleaned up
05:02 the mistakes, that you were going to have success.
05:04 And again, the same thing happened again.
05:06 You had some guys.
05:07 You had some plays.
05:08 But you couldn't make it continuous.
05:09 You couldn't keep doing it.
05:11 Is that more so contributed to guys
05:13 kind of being in the starting position for the first time,
05:15 especially the receivers?
05:17 A lot of guys were in the starting position
05:19 for the first time.
05:20 I mean, we even lost an offensive lineman at halftime
05:22 and had to play someone that really hadn't
05:24 played a lot this year.
05:25 So there's a lot of guys in there.
05:29 That's interesting.
05:30 When you're dealing with lopsided results,
05:31 as you guys have over the past few weeks,
05:33 how does your message change to the guys
05:35 each week to try to motivate them,
05:37 whether that be before the game or in halftime,
05:39 coming off of these games?
05:41 Motivation, a lot of times, is a self-motivation.
05:45 The main thing is when you talk to people,
05:47 you need to tell them the truth.
05:49 That's the main thing.
05:50 Because then they'll listen to you.
05:52 They won't just hear what you're saying.
05:53 They'll actually listen to what you're saying.
05:55 So that's where it all starts, when you talk about motivation,
05:58 telling them the truth.
06:00 Take two more for coach.
06:01 I'll start with Emily.
06:02 The past few games, guys on both sides of the ball
06:04 said that they felt that the game plans have been there
06:06 and that it's just been execution issues.
06:08 Do you think that was the case this game?
06:10 And when does the game planning come into question
06:13 when nothing seems to be working?
06:16 Everything is under review after a game like this.
06:19 And then Wyatt, the last question.
06:21 Coach, Jones was very effective in the read option.
06:24 Say it again.
06:24 I didn't hear you.
06:25 Jones, the quarterback, was very effective in the read option.
06:28 What was the plan to kind of keep him in the pocket?
06:30 And how do you feel like that played out today?
06:33 Well, the biggest thing is you keep him in the pocket
06:35 by what you do with your line stunts and your linebackers.
06:38 Now, that's a big old cat.
06:39 I mean, there's a couple of times we hit him
06:41 and we didn't bring him down.
06:42 But he's really, really good.
06:46 He's 230 pounds or something, matter of fact.
06:48 And he was really, really effective running the football
06:51 down there, downhill.
06:53 Thanks, coach.