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Duke Head Coach Ted Roof
The penalties and the kicking game gave us poor field position. Theturnovers offensively — you can’t make those mistakes and beat a goodfootball team. I was proud of the way we fought, but the execution wasn’tthere.
When you look at the run game, I thought that was a telling statistic. Wegot worn down, and some of those tackles that we were making for one- ortwo-yard gains in the first half turned into six- or seven-yard gains in thesecond half. You’ve got to get off the field on defense and our offensivehas to execute to keep our defense off the field.
(On Tom Santi’s TD reception) It certainly set the tone for the second half.I surely don’t want to say that was the only play that affected the outcomeof the game, but we’ve got to be able to get off the field on third andlong.
Zack Asack made some plays. When you get thrown in there as a true freshmanquarterback, it’s a growing process. I thought he did some nice thingstoday. He took care of the football and he finished a (touchdown) drive.He’s not going to do anything but get better and better as time progresses.
(On QB Mike Schneider) He’s fumbled a couple of weeks in a row. He’s got toget better at that. I’m not down on Mike Schneider, but he’s got to takebetter care of the football.
Virginia Head Coach Al Groh
The special teams were terrific today, starting with the kickers. They dida real good job for us. Kurt and Chris got good distance and kicked theball where we wanted it. We got really good coverage with our coverageteams, especially on kickoffs. Mike Johnson stepped up with a greatindividual play when Duke decided not to kick to him. That’s got to be partof our M.O. We have to be good on special teams. Every guy who participatedon one play on special teams today deserves a lot of kudos.
Defensively, we had good intensity today. I thought Al did a terrific jobmanaging the game. The game changed a lot. It went from a power game tokind of spread out, shotgun, ride-option game, back to a power game. We hadto get in and out of a lot of different schemes and communicate those to theplayers, and he really did a good job.
I thought Marques did a terrific job. He got the ball to the right guy andput it right where it needed to be. The pass to Tom Santi on the real longyardage situation – that’s either going to be a touchdown or a punt. Thatgave us a lot of juice and a lot of momentum. It was a terrific throw and anexcellent catch by Tom.
We kind of kept grinding. These things don’t happen automatically. You’vegot to have a grinding mentality. If you’re against good competition andgood competitive players, and Duke players played hard today. They had agood scheme. They’re going to make it sticky on you for awhile. You can’tget discouraged. You’ve got to keep grinding. I was pleased with that.
(On response to injuries to offensive line.) It was very pleasing to see.That’s what a team has to do. Jordy Lipsey had to go in and play for thefirst time ever when the game was still on the line. Our production withJordy in there was good. Eddie Pinigis did the same thing. Brad Butler hadto move to the left, and that was the first time he’d had any significantplaying time on the left side. And we had the two new guards. So threegames from the end of last season, we had a completely revamped offensiveline. That’s a credit to their resilience, and Ron did a good job of gettingthem organized at halftime. They can feel proud of what they did tonight.