Press Conference: UVA football coach Mike London

UVA football coach Mike London talks with reporters after the 34-20 loss to Florida State on Saturday night.

Opening Statement “Obviously, we are disappointed in a loss, particularly one that led to some errors that we had early on with three turnovers in the red zone area.  That’s a good football team as we all know.  One thing is I am proud of the effort these guys had, that they gave.  Defensively, I thought we did a pretty good job.  There were some drives that they had … but for the most part the players played hard.  Second half, you give up two field goals, there are things you can obviously can correct; we have to correct.  There are things you can hold you head up about.  But there’s things that now we have to move forward on and get ready for, we’ve got a bye week, we have to get some guys healthy and finish out with two games left.”

Do you feel you didn’t take advantage of the effort by the defense? “When you have red zone turnovers short field like that, I believe that almost all of touchdowns – the turnovers led to touchdowns.  For both sides.  Particularly for us down there in the low red zone areas … first play of the game – those are the things that hurt you tremendously.  So, as I said, the defense did a good job.  We bent, sometimes we broke, but at the same time the effort that was given out there was a pretty good effort against this football team.”

Talk about the play of the offensive line. “You know, injuries are part of the game.  Leaving Ryan Doull and Michael Mooney at home, obviously thy have been starters for us, but you know it’s always about the next man up mentality.  That put a guy like Jack English in there, Jack McDonald in there, and Sadiq Olanrewaju got some reps.  That’s a good defensive front and Jack, both of them, had their hands full today.  But again, you have to go, you have to play and I’m sure this is a big learning aspect for them.  They’ll get better of it they’ll be because of it.”

You had a chance to make it a one touchdown game late, was it just poor execution? “That and defensively they executed we didn’t execute to get those yards.  You go back you look at the different aspects of the game and that was one that they out played us.  In that particular situation we needed to get the first downs and we didn’t and they did and they got the ball back. I believe if you look at the time of possession we probably led the time of possession once again.  It’s one of those things – it’s unfortunate you have the ball and need to be more productive.  If they score points we have to score more points and it didn’t happen today.”

What’s your challenge to become bowl eligible? “It’s one game at a time.  It’s one week off to get a chance to get healthy.  We just have to get a week to get ourselves back to being a healthy football team and then you take one game at a time.  The next game after that will be Miami.  And that’s the focus is the next game.”