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ACC Coaches Teleconference: UVA football coach Mike London

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Mike-LondonUVA football coach Mike London talks with reporters on Wednesday’s ACC Coaches Teleconference.

COACH LONDON: We’re traveling on the road going to play Louisville Cardinals. A very, very good football team. They have a very talented group of receivers. Obviously the quarterback situation seems like it’s kind of resolved itself. They have three that have played in games before. Bolin did a good job last Saturday. Listening to Coach Petrino, the offense has done as well as they’ve done in recent games. They have two others that can play quarterback, play in the wildcat formation, run the ball. They present a challenge because they have quarterbacks that do a lot of things for them. Defensively they’re very good, very fast, great linebacker group of individuals. It will be important for us to make sure we take care of the football and be productive when we’re on offense. A good football team. Again, our last on-the-road game, opportunity to win a conference game, then get back to the last two games here in Charlottesville. Looking forward to playing them. Questions, please.

Q. To look at it, being on the other side Miami team, what can you say about looking at that game, interim coach on the other side, what you took away from that game?
COACH LONDON: During the course of the year, as you listen to coaches talk about how games are played, games always coming down to those four or five plays, the details of the plays, having to make a play, the ability to do it and give you an opportunity to win a game, same thing for us in that game with Miami. Just a matter of plays. One side making a play rather than the other side, which is a direct result of the opportunity to win a football game. Coach has got them playing well. There’s a rallying cry. They rallied around each other. They’re playing as a team to our game and the game before that. The rest of the season is the rest of the games that are left and how you finish up. For us, it’s finishing up strong, finishing up on the road, finishing up strong at home. That’s a good football team. They’ll continue to get better once they decide what direction they’re going in. But I just congratulated him, number one. Number two, just be in it for the long haul. Don’t let the highs get you too high or the lows get you too low. We’re concentrating on our game and I know they’re concentrating on theirs. So that’s kind of the gist of the conversation I had with him.

Q. As far as knowing that Louisville is obviously the next opponent coming up, what can you say about their offense, how it opened up against Syracuse, what you’ve seen on film most recently from Louisville?
COACH LONDON: Obviously they got the wide receiver skill positions with Quick and Staples, guys that can go get it. Very athletic, long receivers. The quarterbacks that have played in the game have been productive for them. Most recently, the game with Kyle Bolin, facilitating the football. You look at them from the standpoint they can throw the ball and they have three quarterbacks that can touch the balls in ways whether it’s by running, run-pass combination, or being back in the pocket and throwing the football. Very productive offense, one that we’re very familiar with in terms of last year. We know they have a vertical threat. They’ve been playing well of late. So we have to play our best football.

Q. We’ve heard you talk after games and before games repeatedly about presnap penalties. Do you have any new theories on how to eliminate them?
COACH LONDON: Everybody talks about the things that can cause you to lose. Presnap penalties, jumping off-sides, things that aren’t post-snap. You can argue an interference call, a holding call. One of the things you have to continue to keep working on is those presnap penalty issues. You can pipe in music, do different things. We’ll continue to do those things that try to manufacture noise, going against ourselves, hard-count situations. You just got to focus in. That’s the gist of it for us. We got to do a better job of eliminating those presnap penalties.

Q. A lot of them seem to be on the offensive line. They seem to come early. Is it because they’re not familiar with a certain opponent maybe?
COACH LONDON: Well, the biggest thing is not listening to the snap count. Obviously you go in multiple snap counts, silent count, on one, on two, different things like that. We just have to wire into the task at hand. If 10 guys got it, one guy jumps off-side, obviously the one guy didn’t get it. We need to make sure we eliminate those things that happen like that.
Whether it’s a silent count or an audible count, whatever it is, all 11 have to be in tune to what’s going on. We got to make sure that those things are done in order for us not being a first and 15, second and 10, creating those situations we don’t want to be in.

Q. In conference games only, Louisville ranks number one in the ACC in rushing defense. What makes them so difficult to run on?
COACH LONDON: Obviously talent. Obviously with guys like Fields at linebacker, Kelsey at front linebacker, they have a safety involved in the run game, Clements, he does a great job. Defensive lineman up front Rankins, that is also a very stout guy. They do a good job of filling the holes, then running down running backs, limiting those yards after carry, closing off holes, rush lanes, they do a good job of doing that. They’re very active. You’re right, they’re tops in the ACC in a lot of categories, you know, sacks, total yards. They’ve given up 21 points a game. First downs, limiting the first-down opportunities for teams. Very talented, very aggressive, and they run. Whether they’re running out of mistakes or running to close off running lanes, they do a good job of doing that.

Q. I think they started the season slowly and reversed that trend dramatically. I don’t know if you looked at them much at the beginning of the year. What’s the biggest difference between now and early for them?
COACH LONDON: You look at them, they played some pretty good teams. They lost to some pretty good teams. When you have kind of the shuffle in and out of the quarterback situation there, sometimes that leads to it as well. It appears that they found the groove into utilizing what the quarterbacks do for their strengths. They found the strengths of each individual, have kind of fused them into the style of offense that they play. That seems to be a very positive thing for them, how they’ve been able to be successful. Like I say, we expect all three of the quarterbacks, all three of them to play in their strengths, the things they’ve been using them for. Just have to be ready for anything and everything. Like I say, they’ve done a good job of being productive and efficient with the guys that they have back.

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