Cade Klubnik, DeMonte Capehart, Khalil Barnes, Tre Williams and Tristan Leigh all entered the media center Monday to face the media to break down what went wrong against NC State and look ahead to the Tigers' matchup Saturday against Notre Dame.
Cade Klubnik:
- On intensity of playing Notre Dame: "If this team isn't motivated, I don't know. We're crazy. We're motivated, we're ready for whatever comes into Death Valley."
- On NC State loss: "We would like to not be down 17 for our intensity to get hot as an offense.... But there's not a lot of teams that would fight till the end like we did."
- "There are not many teams that would fight til the end like we did (at N.C. State) ... really proud of those guys."
- "We have goals as an offense in certain games...one goal that I love is I would love to start the first drive of the game and the first drive of the second half...get points every time"
- On his talk with Swinney at the end of the game: "What he's done for a long time now is win and for a long time, that's kind of all I've done...we kind of spoke on that and kind of spoke on we're not used to losing."
- He says Swinney's message was "we're never going to get used to it."
- "It's a winning program at the end of the day. When we have a record like we have, nobody's used to it.... I'm not going anywhere. I'm sticking to this place. I trust everybody here."
- "More than anything, and this week, just encouraging guys that we don't need to be pointing fingers...I never say something just to say it."
- "Everybody wants to throw 60, 70 yard touchdowns...I can't just sit back there and wait all day."
DeMonte Capehart:
- Nick Eason "means everything to me...he's literally a generational coach."
- On his increased role: "I think it's just building my coaches' trust...once you build trust then you're good to go."
Khalil Barnes:
- Calls free safety the hardest position in the secondary. "I just gotta keep watching tape...I just gotta kind of reset and keep going into the playbook with free"
- On defensive success not being enough: "it's tough...this is like a year-long job. Nobody does this to not get the result you want.
- Barnes on Notre Dame: "they have weapons, they have a vet quarterback out there that they trust...it'll be hard to make them one-dimensional"'
Tre Williams:
- Coach definitely told me at the beginning of the year 'hey, the plan is to redshirt you' but if we need you, we need you."
- Once he played vs. NC State, he said "it felt routine, I tried not to make something too big and too small...it's time to go do your job, don't mess up."
Tristan Leigh:
- "Monday, coach Austin talked to me and he told me that they were going to put me at right guard...I had excitement, I think it's cool. I want to be able to play any position."
- "I knew a pretty good amount of the guard's rules, I just had to ask some more technical details like where your eyes are at."
- "We're going to continue to try to meet that standard," Leigh says of being 4-4. Focused on Notre Dame and says "this is the biggest game of the year because this is the one we're playing."
- "Cade is great and all the backs are great but we see it as a full effort"
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