UVA football coach Mike London talks with reporters on the ACC coaches teleconference on Wednesday.
MIKE LONDON: Opportunity to go out on the road again and play a very good-playing, physically tough-playing good panther team. They are well coached. Coach Narduzzi has a reputation of being a good defensive coach. You can see their defense is — they are. They’ve been playing extremely well. They’ve had some injuries, but they’ve also had opportunities to put people in the right place so they’re very efficient on offense. So you know, we gotta play our best football game to date regardless of who we play. This is a very good football team and we gotta bring our best game next Saturday.
Q. Coach, thanks for your time today. Can you talk a little bit about what Mike Archer, a veteran coach who has been around for a long, long time, has brought to your staff the last couple of years?
MIKE LONDON: Yeah. You know, you talk about guys that have been at other places, they’ve done other things. It’s always a benefit to have a guy that’s had a career that he’s been assistant; he’s been a head coach. He’s been an NFL coach. Obviously spending a lot of time there with the Steelers as a linebacker coach. I believe eight years. And been a head coach of LSU. There’s a level of experience and things he’s been through and things he’s done that you rely on. Very good football coach and very knowledgeable. He’s familiar with Virginia. He’s familiar with the ACC, for that matter, but having a guy like Mike Archer makes you a better staff and his contributions have been big for us.
Q. Hey, Coach. You’ve obviously had a tough time against a very tough non-conference schedule. Is the fact that you’re starting conference play fresh, what does it mean mentally, psychologically to the team that it’s almost like starting over?
MIKE LONDON: Well, you have the mindset of you’re starting conference play, as you said, Coastal Conference and opportunities to play well there. And then, you know, things go on from there. So there’s still goals and opportunities that are still attainable for this football team. Goal for us after having come out of this non-conference schedule is put a four-quarter complete game together. We’ve gotten close, gotten close to 12 seconds, not good enough. We didn’t play well enough our last game. Played a half at UCLA. We finished a game against an FCS opponent. So now we gotta put four quarters together and finish a game against good quality opponents, because everybody we play now is a good football team. But now that you get into the conference play where you’re 0 and 0 and you have opportunities again to, as I said, to realize some goals and opportunities that you set at the beginning of the season.
Q. Does it help at all, I mean the Coastal division of the ACC is a league without — they’re all good, competitive teams, but there’s not like a killer team like the Florida State of two years ago or Clemson maybe this year in the division. The opportunity is there; you guys have played almost everybody in this division close over the last year or two, that there’s real belief that you can compete in this division?
MIKE LONDON: I mean absolutely. It’s a mindset. You know, it’s a growth mindset that they listen, you play better. You eliminate mistakes. Our issue about giving the ball away, turnovers, about getting turnovers, you know, explosive plays, you know, things like that. The more you can do of those things, the more opportunity you will have to be competitive. And you’re right, like I said, I respect all the coaches and the teams that are in Coastal and in the ACC. But you know, you gotta play the game, and you have to play the game where you improve in certain areas, and where you don’t do things that are going to cause you to be on the other side of not having opportunities to win. So but you’re right. You gotta play your best, but everyone that’s left on the schedule we’ve played, and you know, you have to eliminate those errors and capitalize on some good things, and I believe good things will happen for this team, to this team. The team’s mindset has been outstanding, and we’re ready to play another football game.
Q. Mike, talking about the turnover margin and the fact you haven’t created any turnovers, is that something that you were successful in earlier? Are you doing the things you’ve always been doing? I mean Coach Narduzzi said sometimes it’s just luck.
MIKE LONDON: Well, I mean the ball does bounce different ways. I mean it’s crazy sometimes what happens. Like I said last year we had scored some touchdowns on defense. And we practice the turnover drills. We emphasize it. I believe at times it comes in droves. Sometimes it just happens, you know. You know, we gave the ball away five times, you know, and that can start things for teams, and I’ve started it for a team that won the game significantly. So we just have to keep emphasizing the fact that be in the right position, be in the right gap. You know, when you’re tackling, make sure you’re securing your tackle. And things will come, things will happen. And you practice the drills, and you just believe in the fact that it’s just physical gain, and you know, hits, tackles, missed opportunities, missed sacks, missed tackles can lead to turnovers, so we have to be on the plus side of that and we’ll continue to talk and you’re just a game away or play away from changing, going from zero to plus one or minus one. And our mindset is don’t give the ball up and try to take it away.
Q. On somewhat related, your pass breakups are way down this year. To what do you attribute that?
MIKE LONDON: The guys up front not knocking the ball down. Pass break up could be accredited to defensive line getting their hands up, to a defender who goes up and breaks the pass up. So there’s a number of things that could be attributed to that. But obviously part of all disruption is the ability not only the turnovers, but the pass deflections, whether it’s your DB or linebacker knocking the pass down or having your linemen with the hands up in the throwing lane. We had an opportunity to reemphasize the drills and the importance of being in the rush lane and hands being up, all those football fundamental things. So I expect those things to improve. They’re going to have to in order for us, as I said, to get opportunities to be successful and win games.
Q. Just kind of following up on the turnover question, are you surprised or is it just crazy that you haven’t been able to generate any turnovers at this point?
MIKE LONDON: Well, I mean what you know is that when you’re in the plus category, that you give yourself opportunities to win games. You always try to be plus one, plus two, your percentages of winning the game go up. Plus three, they’re incredible. You just have to keep talking about it and show the clips, show the ball security issues on the running back or opposing ball carrier might have and say, listen, keep hunting after this ball. So as I said before, I believe it’ll happen. It’ll come. It’ll come, because you keep emphasizing those things. So our first conference game is against a very good Pittsburgh team, who runs the ball. They’re very physical. So it’s going to be important for us to tackle, to rally around and try to get our hat and our hands on the ball. So we’ll keep encouraging our players to keep doing the right things, and this thing will turn.
Q. Can you recall during your coaching career at all having gone this many games into a season without having one?
MIKE LONDON: You know, early on, yeah, maybe one or two. But when I was at Richmond and William & Mary after a couple of games, but like I said, then all of a sudden it started to pick up because again, it’s about possessions, and you know, you have talented offenses or we have talented players that we emphasize, the more times we have the ball, the more we score. So it happens. You don’t get down on it. You keep talking about it. You keep preaching it. You keep encouraging the players to do it. As I said, I believe it will turn and things will happen that you’ll see the benefits of all the hard work that’s going on now.
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