In his weekly press conference, Brown highlighted offense, defense, and special teams as they equip for Saturday against Virginia Tech.
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00:00Good morning everybody. Hope you had a great weekend.
00:04Really proud of the guys, excited about the win.
00:08Hard fought win on the road.
00:12First time we've won two in a row
00:16to start the season since 08 and 09.
00:20Jeremy told me this morning it's the first time we've ever beaten two
00:24ACC opponents in the first two games. So that's
00:28something that these kids have accomplished. And both these games were really like
00:32openers. They were teams that we hadn't played before
00:36since we've been here, didn't play them last year. There were teams that
00:40had changed coordinators, had changed head coaches.
00:44We had a little bit more on Boston College than we did Syracuse, but
00:48because they had a couple games, but they changed a lot of things coming into our ball game.
00:52So these young people on our
00:56team and our staff's been incredible to fight COVID.
01:00All the different changes that have occurred going on the road
01:04for the first time is different and I'm really, really proud of them.
01:08Really excited about the win. Happy that we're in the top
01:12ten, understanding that early
01:16rankings don't make any difference. And I told them that. I said the good
01:20thing for you is that people have given you the respect that they feel like you should
01:24be there. The tough thing is you've got to earn it to stay.
01:28And that's very, very important going forward.
01:32And usually we improve the most from one week to the first week
01:36to the second week. This should be like our second week.
01:40And we're playing a team that we played last year that there's still a lot of unknowns
01:44for us, but at least it's an opportunity for
01:48us to get better. Players of the game for Boston College,
01:52for us against Boston College, Michael Carter was the
01:56offensive player of the week. Just had an amazing day. He's got
02:00such great vision. He took care of the ball. So he's the offensive player.
02:04Defensive player, there's so many great plays on defense, but
02:08Trey Morrison made the play to win the game.
02:12Without question at the end. And special teams player of the week is Jonathan
02:16Kim because he's 11 for 11 kicking it out of the end zone. So he's
02:20taken away the threat of a kickoff return right now and he's a real weapon
02:24for us. Defensively, a lot of the guys played well.
02:28Chas Surratt played well. Tyrone Hopper played well. Taman Fox,
02:32Tamari Fox, Jeremiah Gimel. So many guys up front
02:36were physical, but they threw us a curveball. We thought they'd line up
02:40and be physical and run Bailey, the big running back, a lot during the ball game.
02:44And we had a...we worked on five defensive
02:48linemen all week and four defensive backs and then they come out and throw the ball
02:5256 times. So it caught us completely off guard. It's not at all
02:56what we thought. Djurkovic's an outstanding quarterback
03:00and he's much better in our game than he was in the opening game
03:04with Duke or his second game with Texas State, even though he had a tremendous drive
03:08at the end of the game to win. But we hit
03:12him and we tried to tackle him and they say he's 225. I think he's
03:16more like 245. We could not tackle the guy and he had
03:20a great presence of throwing the ball downfield while we were hanging all over him
03:24and I can't imagine a better tight end
03:28in the country than Hunter Long. That guy got hit, he blocked, he
03:32covered punts. He was targeted about 20-something times
03:36and catches the ball a lot. But we
03:40need to tackle the quarterback when we get him in our grasp
03:44and we need to force more turnovers on defense. I do think
03:48we did lose this game both times last year that we had it
03:52at Pittsburgh when we had to make a play at the end of the game and couldn't make it.
03:56At Virginia Tech, there's six overtimes. We had opportunities to win and we didn't
04:00make the play. So that's huge progress for us
04:04that we could win a tough game on the road where a lot of things didn't
04:08go our way. And again, Tyrone
04:12Hopper's the one that forced the quarterback out of the pocket for the two-point
04:16play. He had to throw back across his body and made it an easier
04:20interception for Trey. So good for Tyrone Hopper.
04:24Offensively, the running backs did a super job. Javonte Williams
04:28had a couple of great blocks and protection. Maybe
04:32his biggest play of the game is when there's
04:36a sack fumble and the ball's going back to about the 40-yard
04:40line. There's three or four Boston College guys going ready to either scoop it and
04:44score or lay on it. And he goes between them and fights them off
04:48and gets the ball and enables us to have a chance to punt. So a lot of those
04:52plays, they go unnoticed, but they're huge plays during the ball
04:56game. We felt like we've got to be more patient in our passing game
05:00for two weeks in a row. Last year, we had so many deep balls and we
05:04just could score so quickly. And right now, people are backing off
05:08and they're making us hold the ball longer and we've got to get the ball out of our hands
05:12and we've got to get the ball into people's hands more quickly
05:16and not have as many sacks. For instance,
05:20there's 7.46 left to go in the ball game. Someone was questioning
05:24play selection at times when we got down near the goal line.
05:28There's 7.46. We're on the plus 29 going in.
05:32We're 1st and 10. We're ahead 24 to 16. We've just
05:36got to score. A field goal puts them in trouble.
05:40A touchdown may end the ball game and kill some clock while we're doing it.
05:44We throw them first down and everybody's griping, why did he throw the ball there? Because we're
05:48running the ball well. And what you look at, there was a jump call where you
05:52try to get them to get offsides. And then your center snaps the ball
05:56if they are. Well, they didn't get offsides. We snapped the ball and we threw a fade,
06:00which would have been a run in that situation. So we've just got to be smarter as a
06:04group. And that was an error that was made that looks like
06:08it goes back to play selection. It really wasn't. It's something that's built into
06:12our plan that we didn't execute well. And then we go down and
06:16miss the field goal. It was a great kick, just a little bit to the left. It had
06:20the soccer curb on it. But we've got
06:24to be more patient. We took care of the ball pretty well.
06:28We just had the one turnover where we got hit in the back because of a poor protection
06:32shot back. And that led to a turnover that led to points.
06:36Special teams, we said Jonathan Kim doing everything
06:40perfect on kickoffs. Ben Kiernan's
06:44doing the same. He punted the ball directional
06:48punts and kept it out of their hands. And they had done a good job with their punt
06:52returns. We didn't have much chance to have punt returns. I think we had
06:56two. One of them was away from Daz. And
07:00we always want to catch it in the air. But that one, they directional punted across the field
07:04and we couldn't get to it. And the other one, we didn't do a good job of holding up their gunners.
07:08Their gunners played better than our hold up guys. So we've still got to improve in that area.
07:12And then there were a couple that we went safe punt because we thought they might fake the punt.
07:16The fair catch rule on the kickoff
07:20to me is a poor rule that should be changed.
07:24It was put in for the right reason.
07:28Rules committee was worried about concussions on kickoff
07:32coverage and kickoff return because you're running 30-40 yards and running
07:36into each other. So they wanted to have fewer kickoff returns.
07:40So they said fair catch the ball, move it to the 25, which is a good rule.
07:44It's fair and a lot of people are using it. Where you get a punt
07:48and you use a fair catch, if the punt hits the ground and rolls
07:52you get the ball where it ends up. On kickoff, it's a little bit different.
07:56You call a fair catch and the ball hits the ground
08:00wherever you touch it. If it doesn't go in the end zone,
08:04it's where you get it. If you let the ball go in the end zone, it's a touchback.
08:08Well, it's a live ball. So what happened with Michael,
08:12their kicker held the ball up four seconds a lot. They had a really good
08:16coverage team. So we decided on the deep kicks, we were going to
08:20fair catch the ball. Michael's one of our smartest players. He sees the
08:24kick, it's coming at him, it's high. He's got the fair catch signal up and all
08:28of a sudden it fishtails and dies. And he can't get to it. And then it rolls
08:32back and he touches the ball and that's where they get the ball. Which I thought changed the whole
08:36momentum of the ball game. It gave them some hope.
08:40It gave them some excitement. They had trouble scoring and it gave them
08:44a short field. But that's a rule to me that should be
08:48changed. If you're trying to discourage kickoff returns by
08:52fair catches, then treat it like a punt.
08:56If you call a fair catch and the ball's in the air, take it to the
09:0025 if they want a fair catch it and we'll have fewer returns.
09:04That's something I will propose to the rules committee.
09:08It just doesn't come up very often because squibs are squibs and sky kicks are sky kicks.
09:12This one was halfway in between and got us
09:16caught off guard. As a team we had entirely too many penalties.
09:20They're a well coached discipline team. They had 12. We had 10.
09:24Some officials call more penalties than others in a game. This was one where a lot
09:28were called. And the procedure, so you will know, is every Sunday
09:32we look at all the penalties and we decide what we think
09:36is a fair call. And we try to teach the players not to do it anymore
09:40based on that call. And then the second part of that is if we see one that
09:44we feel like should not have been called, we send that to the conference office.
09:48Because we want to know if they feel like it was a penalty, then we've got to start
09:52coaching things differently and they will get back to us Tuesday or Wednesday
09:56on whether they think that the calls were fair or not.
10:00And the second thing I thought we really have got to do a better job of,
10:04it's a continuation of last year, is we've got to do a better job of forcing turnovers
10:08on defense. We're protecting the ball pretty well on offense, but we're not forcing
10:12turnovers. We just had the one interception on the two point play again
10:16and there was a ball on the ground once we stripped from the quarterback and didn't get on it.
10:20So that's an area we can improve. Virginia Tech game,
10:24number one, excited that we can have the families of our
10:28players there. We can have 3,500 fans that our administration
10:32has decided how to divide up between students and season ticket holders and fans.
10:36So good, and to me, for mental health
10:40and just for parents to be able to see their sons play.
10:44And for family members to be able to see their sons play.
10:48They didn't get to it at Syracuse and they didn't get to it again at Boston College.
10:52Most of the parents came to the game against Syracuse and stood outside and waited.
10:56Or they had to go find a place to watch the game. I hate that for them.
11:00It's awful, but they will get to come this weekend and the players
11:04will get the normal amount of tickets that they would have gotten before COVID
11:08for their families. So that's really, really positive.
11:12Chris Wente is a friend of mine. He's done a tremendous job at Memphis
11:16where I was calling his games when I was at ESPN
11:20because they had a lot of Friday night games. And then
11:24I actually had one of his games where I did his pregame halftime
11:28when they played up in D.C. against West Virginia.
11:32So I've known Justin a long time. I knew him as the offensive coordinator at TCU in fact
11:36when we worked against Gary Patterson a long time ago.
11:40He's done an outstanding job. They should be a top 10 team.
11:44They're really good. They're 2-0 and they've had a lot of people out.
11:48They are really underrated and that shows you
11:52the fallacy of early season
11:56ratings in my estimation. Last year's game, six overtimes.
12:00The difference was they were much more physical than we were.
12:04We had 143 yards rushing and we only were 9 of
12:0821 on third downs and we gave up five sacks. They rushed the ball
12:12last year against us for 254 yards. And now in the first
12:16two games this year they've rushed for over 300 yards in both games.
12:20We thought Boston College was going to be a physical game. Our players
12:24won't have to worry about a change in game plan from Virginia Tech.
12:28They're really good and they'll line up and they'll run the ball. They're physical on
12:32offense. They've got three good quarterbacks that can run it and throw it.
12:36Khalil Herbert, their transfer from Kansas,
12:40he's gotten 316 yards in two games.
12:44He's averaging 12 yards per carry. I've never seen anything like that.
12:48It's unbelievable. And this guy is a
12:52great player. He's a lot of fun to watch. And then they've got the big, tall, fast,
12:56wide receivers. Their defense is very similar to what it was.
13:00They're going to be very aggressive. They're going to disguise a lot. They're going to come after you.
13:04And just three players that I just remember standing out from last year
13:08is Rashard Ashby, number 23. He's huge.
13:12He's an outstanding player. He's a middle linebacker. Number 5,
13:16Gerard Hewitt, a big defensive lineman
13:20that knocked us around last year. And number 8, Emmanuel Belmar,
13:24defensive end. All three of those guys are NFL
13:28superstars in the future. And they've got a lot of other guys on defense that'll be
13:32superstars, but those are three guys that just I remember standing
13:36on the sideline watching them early in the game last year and being so impressed
13:40with their physical presence, much less the way they played with their aggressiveness.