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Manny Diaz Press Conference Quotes: SMU
10/21/2024 7:42:00 PM | Football
DURHAM, N.C. – Duke football head coach Manny Diaz, offensive coordinator Jonathan Brewer and defensive coordinator Jonathan Patke met with members of the media on Monday afternoon for the program's weekly press conference.
Duke (6-1, 2-1 ACC) stays home to host SMU (6-1, 3-0 ACC) on Brooks Field at Wallace Wade Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 26. Kickoff is scheduled for 8 p.m., ET and fans can watch live on ACC Network.
Tickets for Saturday's matchup may be purchased online at goduke.com/footballtix or by calling the Duke Athletics Ticket Office at 919-681-BLUE (2583).
HEAD COACH MANNY DIAZ:
Opening Statement:
"This is a very exciting week in Durham for a multitude of reasons. Coming off the big win Friday night against Florida State When you win games like that, you get the opportunity to play in more big games and we now have two 6-1 teams on a primetime event this weekend. We're 15-2 at home playing against a team that's undefeated in our conference and I think has won eight or nine straight on the road, which is quite an achievement. We have such respect for Rhett Lashlee and his staff, who we know well. They do a good job and they've got themselves competing for an ACC Championship, but we're in the mix as well. We talk about controlling our own destiny and that's a great thing. To have this game at our stadium and have our student body do what they've done for these other two league games really gives us that boost. The more you win at home, the more fun home games you get and that's exactly where we're at. It's also a special weekend because we'll be welcoming back a lot of great former teams and great former coaches. Fred Goldsmith, Steve Spurrier and David Cutcliffe, I'm excited to see those guys back here in Durham with all of the former players who really this program belongs to. We're hoping that we can make them proud with how we play every week."
On what stuck out about Duke's defense against Florida State…
"It was really exciting to see. We felt like we had to dominate the matchup against their guards because their guards were inexperienced and I thought we did that. Kendy Charles, by far, played his best game. I thought he was dominant. He showed up by making tackles or just causing disruption and making it hard for them to drive the ball with the run game, which then put the pressure on their young quarterbacks, who ultimately made enough mistakes. They made enough mistakes in their passing game and had a hard time scoring. That really is what allowed our guys to tee off on their offensive line and those quarterbacks. If you just watch the energy that we played with on defense on that final drive, and just the relentlessness that Vincent Anthony Jr. or Wesley Williams had in rushing the passer, I think that's the only way you can play on that drive is because of the depth that you have and the reps that you're getting out of Ryan Smith and Michael Reese. We went five or six deep at defensive tackle, Christian Rorie and Preston Watson combining for the key fumble in the fourth quarter, so our ability to play a lot of guys on defense up front is what really helped us in that game."
On remaining grounded and not getting too caught up in the team's success so far this season…
"The cool thing is that we come in every Sunday and they lift weights with David Feely, so normally he resets the computer and reboots them pretty quickly. Look, we can play a lot better. I think that's a part of it, right? Florida State had a lot of difficult matchups for us, certainly against our offense with their defensive line. Those defensive tackles are top-100 NFL picks. We have a lot of respect for those guys but I'm proud of the way we were able to grind through it. They were having a hard time scoring and so when we got the flurry of turnovers, even the sequence down in the red zone after Ozzie Nicholas's interception, we felt like we had a chance to work a touchdown on second down. At that point, a 17-3 lead was pretty dominating against them and we were able to do that. Then in the second half, Florida State scored twice, once on a kickoff return and once on a field goal, and both times our offense answered. We came right back down on an explosive run and kicked a field goal after the kickoff return. When they cut it to four, we did the exact same thing. We had another explosive run by Star Thomas, got in the red zone and kicked the field goal. They never had the ball down by less than seven. I thought that was really, really crucial to our defense and our ability to call plays on defense. I just thought we managed the game well. But to that point, there's plenty for both sides, in all three phases, to improve on and that's been our focus."
OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR JONATHAN BREWER
On his familiarity with SMU and what makes their use of tight ends so effective…
"Well, it's a tight end matchup problem. I think for any defense you have to decide how you are going to cover the tight end. Are you going to cover them with a linebacker or are you going to cover with the safety, especially when you go man-to-man in situations. It's the same way we use the tight ends in our offense. Once those guys get isolated in man-to-man and they're covered by guys that maybe can't cover as well, that's a win for us. In our mind, if you look at the way we try to use Nicky Dalmolin, before he went down with his injury last week, and Jeremiah Hasley before that, it's the same approach."
On Duke's defense compared to the SMU offense…
"Well, we have a top five defense in the country. I'm anxious to see the SMU offense against our defense. I know what our defense brings to the table. We will score as much as we need to win a game, even if that's two points. I don't really look at the stats. I don't even care about that. It's about the team win and doing whatever it takes to win the game. We did that enough the other night, obviously we'd like to execute at a higher level and really put the game out of the question in the first half. We had the chance to do that and we didn't do it. We had to kick a field goal down in the red zone, which I think if we went up 21-3, I think the game would get put out of question pretty early and we would all feel pretty good. But we didn't do that and we have got to clean that up this week."
DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR JONATHAN PATKE
On the depth seen on the defensive line…
"I think we played 10 guys coming out of this last game up front. So when you play five defensive tackles, five defensive ends, you're growing. Christian Rorie, I think I talked about him last week, but he goes into the game and immediately makes a huge play. So as you start stacking good plays, you get more and that helps us grow our depth. But with the tempo and pushing the number of reps that you're going to get in the game to 80, 85, 90 snaps, you need to have great depth. We have to trust in our depth and have to roll out the guys early. We have to believe in our guys on that subject."
On the familiarity with the SMU coaching staff…
"You're going to face a very similar offense to us. Everybody has their own wrinkles based on their personnel, so you try to get inside of the mind of Coach Brewer because that's like trying to get in the mind of Coach Lashlee, who does a fantastic job. He's seen this defense when we were at Miami so he knows who we are and how we play. And he's a good football coach. We'll be ready."
#GoDuke
Duke (6-1, 2-1 ACC) stays home to host SMU (6-1, 3-0 ACC) on Brooks Field at Wallace Wade Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 26. Kickoff is scheduled for 8 p.m., ET and fans can watch live on ACC Network.
Tickets for Saturday's matchup may be purchased online at goduke.com/footballtix or by calling the Duke Athletics Ticket Office at 919-681-BLUE (2583).
HEAD COACH MANNY DIAZ:
Opening Statement:
"This is a very exciting week in Durham for a multitude of reasons. Coming off the big win Friday night against Florida State When you win games like that, you get the opportunity to play in more big games and we now have two 6-1 teams on a primetime event this weekend. We're 15-2 at home playing against a team that's undefeated in our conference and I think has won eight or nine straight on the road, which is quite an achievement. We have such respect for Rhett Lashlee and his staff, who we know well. They do a good job and they've got themselves competing for an ACC Championship, but we're in the mix as well. We talk about controlling our own destiny and that's a great thing. To have this game at our stadium and have our student body do what they've done for these other two league games really gives us that boost. The more you win at home, the more fun home games you get and that's exactly where we're at. It's also a special weekend because we'll be welcoming back a lot of great former teams and great former coaches. Fred Goldsmith, Steve Spurrier and David Cutcliffe, I'm excited to see those guys back here in Durham with all of the former players who really this program belongs to. We're hoping that we can make them proud with how we play every week."
On what stuck out about Duke's defense against Florida State…
"It was really exciting to see. We felt like we had to dominate the matchup against their guards because their guards were inexperienced and I thought we did that. Kendy Charles, by far, played his best game. I thought he was dominant. He showed up by making tackles or just causing disruption and making it hard for them to drive the ball with the run game, which then put the pressure on their young quarterbacks, who ultimately made enough mistakes. They made enough mistakes in their passing game and had a hard time scoring. That really is what allowed our guys to tee off on their offensive line and those quarterbacks. If you just watch the energy that we played with on defense on that final drive, and just the relentlessness that Vincent Anthony Jr. or Wesley Williams had in rushing the passer, I think that's the only way you can play on that drive is because of the depth that you have and the reps that you're getting out of Ryan Smith and Michael Reese. We went five or six deep at defensive tackle, Christian Rorie and Preston Watson combining for the key fumble in the fourth quarter, so our ability to play a lot of guys on defense up front is what really helped us in that game."
On remaining grounded and not getting too caught up in the team's success so far this season…
"The cool thing is that we come in every Sunday and they lift weights with David Feely, so normally he resets the computer and reboots them pretty quickly. Look, we can play a lot better. I think that's a part of it, right? Florida State had a lot of difficult matchups for us, certainly against our offense with their defensive line. Those defensive tackles are top-100 NFL picks. We have a lot of respect for those guys but I'm proud of the way we were able to grind through it. They were having a hard time scoring and so when we got the flurry of turnovers, even the sequence down in the red zone after Ozzie Nicholas's interception, we felt like we had a chance to work a touchdown on second down. At that point, a 17-3 lead was pretty dominating against them and we were able to do that. Then in the second half, Florida State scored twice, once on a kickoff return and once on a field goal, and both times our offense answered. We came right back down on an explosive run and kicked a field goal after the kickoff return. When they cut it to four, we did the exact same thing. We had another explosive run by Star Thomas, got in the red zone and kicked the field goal. They never had the ball down by less than seven. I thought that was really, really crucial to our defense and our ability to call plays on defense. I just thought we managed the game well. But to that point, there's plenty for both sides, in all three phases, to improve on and that's been our focus."
OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR JONATHAN BREWER
On his familiarity with SMU and what makes their use of tight ends so effective…
"Well, it's a tight end matchup problem. I think for any defense you have to decide how you are going to cover the tight end. Are you going to cover them with a linebacker or are you going to cover with the safety, especially when you go man-to-man in situations. It's the same way we use the tight ends in our offense. Once those guys get isolated in man-to-man and they're covered by guys that maybe can't cover as well, that's a win for us. In our mind, if you look at the way we try to use Nicky Dalmolin, before he went down with his injury last week, and Jeremiah Hasley before that, it's the same approach."
On Duke's defense compared to the SMU offense…
"Well, we have a top five defense in the country. I'm anxious to see the SMU offense against our defense. I know what our defense brings to the table. We will score as much as we need to win a game, even if that's two points. I don't really look at the stats. I don't even care about that. It's about the team win and doing whatever it takes to win the game. We did that enough the other night, obviously we'd like to execute at a higher level and really put the game out of the question in the first half. We had the chance to do that and we didn't do it. We had to kick a field goal down in the red zone, which I think if we went up 21-3, I think the game would get put out of question pretty early and we would all feel pretty good. But we didn't do that and we have got to clean that up this week."
DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR JONATHAN PATKE
On the depth seen on the defensive line…
"I think we played 10 guys coming out of this last game up front. So when you play five defensive tackles, five defensive ends, you're growing. Christian Rorie, I think I talked about him last week, but he goes into the game and immediately makes a huge play. So as you start stacking good plays, you get more and that helps us grow our depth. But with the tempo and pushing the number of reps that you're going to get in the game to 80, 85, 90 snaps, you need to have great depth. We have to trust in our depth and have to roll out the guys early. We have to believe in our guys on that subject."
On the familiarity with the SMU coaching staff…
"You're going to face a very similar offense to us. Everybody has their own wrinkles based on their personnel, so you try to get inside of the mind of Coach Brewer because that's like trying to get in the mind of Coach Lashlee, who does a fantastic job. He's seen this defense when we were at Miami so he knows who we are and how we play. And he's a good football coach. We'll be ready."
#GoDuke
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