Quotebook and videos: Alex Atkins, Adam Fuller, John Papuchis on BC week

Florida State coordinators Alex Atkins, Adam Fuller and John Papuchis speak to the media on Monday ahead of the game against Boston College on Saturday (8 p.m. on ACC Network). Below you will find videos of the three coordinators as well as full transcripts of their press conferences.

FSU offensive coordinator/offensive line coach Alex Atkins

How do you use halftime when Tate takes over late in first half? More coaches talking to him or letting him talk to players?

"I guess the storyline would be there's some big speech or a moment where everyone came together and rallied. Not really, man. He put the work in all week and the week before. The speeches and motivation don't mean anything if he didn't put the work in in practice. What he did a good job of was being locked in at practice and when his moment came, his opportunity came, he was ready for it. But if he didn't put the work in before, it wouldn't have mattered. Coach (Norvell) does a good job of preaching, 'You never know when your moment is going to come. Just make sure you're prepared for it.' He was prepared for it."

Was there a moment you saw things click for Tate after early struggles?

"Of course, you only have what you have to go off of, but on that play (his interception), he got hit so struggled is a tough word. I think he knew the gameplan coming in, he knew how we wanted to attack, we know his strengths and the offense is built to have the strengths of the players. So he came out and did his job. That's all we ask him to be is be yourself. You don't have to be more than you. The work you put in will show and be yourself when you go out there. It wasn't like there was an eye-gazing moment. Nah, man. I think when he came into the huddle, Coach (Norvell) said, 'Take a deep breath. Let's go to work.' That's was it. Let's go play."

Play-call on game-winning touchdown to Johnny

"Tate did a good job because that wasn't the first option. The first option was taken away, that was the second option. He did a good job with his eyes getting back to it and he delivered a good ball. That's what you talk about. None of this works unless Tate was mentally locked in in practice, understands the gameplan. Tate, he's been here for awhile with us. He knows what's going on, he understands the expectations of the offense. He did a good job. That was just him doing a good job of first thing is taken away, what's my second option? He got to it and threw a good ball."

Any discouragement about how FSU OL depth has been hit this season?

"Those guys, it's the same thing we just talked about with Tate. When your opportunity comes, are you ready for it and have you prepared for it? That's the same with players and coaches. I've got to make sure we have a good plan when these things happen that it's not a moment of, 'What are we going to do?' If we get to a moment of what are we going to do then I did a poor job. I've got to make sure we understand if a guy goes down, who is going in, what's expected and were they given enough reps during the week to be able to perform. So that's what we do. Of course, nobody wants these players to get hurt. That's not the goal. We feel bad for that. But the game, we always say, has a 100% injury rate. If you play this game long enough, eventually you're going to be hurt. You can ask anybody that plays it. We just want to make sure that we have a plan moving forward and we give the guys the confidence to go out there and perform when their number gets called."

How rare is it for a guy Johnny Wilson's size to be able to do all he does on a football field?

"Johnny's a good player. Of course, we're going to see the highlight plays, but when you look at plays away from the ball, you talk about blocking, being engaged in practice. Guys that get to come out to practice, we've seen Johnny do this so it wasn't overly a celebration. We were happy he got to display the work he's been putting in. But Johnny is a little different, man. You talk about that height, size, strength, mentality. That's what I want to give more credit than anything, his mentality. I saw it in mat drills. When he first got here, the first couple of mat drills, he was struggling. That told me who he was because he bounced back and started working hard. He didn't let it get the best of him. When I saw that, I knew Johnny was going to be fine. We'd like to get some bigger guys in here from the basketball court, but I understand both ways."

How valuable is Darius Washington's versatility, how he was able to step in for Robert Scott?

"Darius has played a lot of reps at tackle in this program so it wasn't some big speech or anything. It was just, 'Coach, I got it.' The biggest thing for Darius is he's developed at center, he started at center, he's played a lot of guard. The tackle position is normal for him. He played that for the last two years as a starter. That for him was no big adjustment. He was fine. He was ready. He can do it."

How fulfilling is it as an offense to be able to call whatever plays you want?

"I guess, the question is how do we feel about executing? We really expect it. We expected us to execute when we came out in the second half once everybody settled down. Credit to Louisville, they did some things adjustment-wise to throw us off a little bit, too. They did a good job. (Louisville defensive coordinator Bryan) Brown is a good coach. What I like about the players is when you give them the adjustments, they understand them. They're not looking at you with a blank stare like, 'What are you talking about?' When you give them the adjustment, 'Hey, we're doing this tweak, we're going to change this, they're doing this a little different than we planned all week,' if they can get it and you see that eye gaze of understanding then you know you'll be fine. If they don't have that eye gaze of understanding, that means I did a poor job of preparing them for the moment. The players were locked in, we were seeing the field well. There wasn't a huge adjustment at halftime. It was just more of, 'This is what we think can work,' things that we already had in the gameplan that we didn't have to draw up in the dirt. Tate had a full picture and understanding of what we were trying to do. That's the expectation. That's why they work, that's why we spend so much time with them. Because in those moments, we've got to be able to perform."

Running back performance, especially Trey Benson late in the game

"We talk about the running game being like body blows. Eventually, that thing is going to pop. And that's what you want to see. You want to see the run game get stronger as the game goes along. I think those backs do a good job of that, running hard at the end. Now, we've got to be able to do a better job of closing games in those four-minute situations. That's something we're going to talk about and, in the end, finishing runs where we're not as short on the goal line and we can finish those in the end zone. But I think as the process is going, we're starting to see improvement with us running stronger as the game goes along."

What kind of asset is Johnny Wilson for you as a playcaller?

"He's a problem. He's going to garner two people. And whenever you have that, it's going to help you because that takes one more guy out of the box and one less guy with responsibilities. Johnny is going to be a problem no matter if it's one or two people on him. If he keeps working like he does, he's a problem out here."

Importance of wide receiver blocking for run game/offense

"Coach Dugans does a great job of getting those guys to understand not just blocking -- because anyone can say, 'Go block people' -- but understanding leverage, understanding where that ball is going hit, understanding the timing of the block and also understanding that's where most of the holding and penalties come from is outside. They do a good job of maintaining leverage and not getting those devastating holding calls on long runs. Runs don't go past four yards if wide receivers don't do their jobs. Coach Dugans has got those guys really buying into it. Really, they're like the bullies of the offense because they're not just blocking. They're taking it to a whole other level. When we do our offensive meeting, we bring those guys in, we like to showcase and show that stuff when they're bought into it. Not even just Johnny, but Mycah Pittman. People aren't mentioning Mycah, he was out there at the point of attack on a lot of blocks. It may not be the devastating throw you on the ground block, but he's got the hardest time when that safety is rolling down and he's got to meet that guy at the line of scrimmage. He had some good cuts in that, also. That room overall has done a really good job buying into that and you see that has now opened up more opportunities down the field."

How important were summer months for transfer additions? Seems like time where Johnny, Deuce Spann grew remarkably.

"Who doesn't get enough credit is the guys who were already on the roster. The Keyshawn Heltons, Pokey Wilsons, Malik McClains. When those guys came in here, they embraced them and taught them what to do. Of course there's competition in practice, we want to get better. But that room, I've really been proud of how that room came together and said, 'Let's just have the best room we can have. Let's bring it out of each other.' Not only was it the summer and the spring and the culture, when you've got older receivers in the room understanding that we just want to have the best product we can put out there and buying into that system, that's been unbelievable. And that's why we've been able to see the fruits of their labor, too."

Jordan Travis' performance vs. Louisville

"Jordan is a baller. That's pretty much the simplest way I can put it. Whether it be throwing it, running it, understanding the checks of the offense, his toughness has grown tremendously. Jordan is a baller. That's going to be displayed every time he steps out there. We have full confidence in him. He's been through the journey to get to this point in his career, so I'm just glad I get to be out a part of it and watch him do his thing."

FSU defensive coordinator Adam Fuller

On how many pass breakups FSU had vs. Louisville

“We call it ‘gloving the ball’. We’re in a lot of match coverage, so that’s gonna happens a lot, that you’re gonna be in phase. Kalen DeLoach had one, Jammie had one, Akeem had one, Shyheim had one. Just a lot of 1-on-1 combat plays around the football. Those are plays we expect to make and we have to make of we’re going to be a good football team, and it was in critical times on Friday night. Our guys stepped up and made those one-on-ones.”

How the defense settled down as the game progressed

“Yeah, we missed too many tackles on Friday night for sure. We probably gave up over 150 yards on missed tackles, and that’s nowhere where we want to be. And credit to them, they have good open-field runners. But we’ve got to cut those numbers down significantly. The proudest thing of it is that there were ups and downs from that game, but our guys settled down throughout it. There wasn’t blank stares looking around, it was more eye contact and guys reassuring each other when they made a mistake ‘this is why, it won’t happen again.’ That’s affirming for me to be on the sideline and in the past, it’s usually been me not only trying to address and fix things, but also uplift people. That’s changing. Our guys are taking ownership of it, and that came to why it got steady there at one point. It was a game, we had three three-and-outs, three takeaways, a fourth-down stop, and those were all good things. But it was some of those in-between moments that we’ve got to get settled down a little bit.”

Malik Cunningham’s speed, Kalen DeLoach as a spy

“We kind of had multiple people at different times. Listen, when you’re playing against really good players – whether it’s a wide-out that we’ll get this week or last week with the quarterback – each game offers different situations you have to put attention to. You have to make sure you don’t put over-attention and get weak in other areas, too. But when you’re playing guys at certains speeds you don’t replicate all the time, it’s challenging. But that’s why you recruit really good players and you try to develop them so in those moments you can go make a play. Because there were times where I thought we did a really good job rushing a passer and containing him. Even the last play when Kevin picked the ball off, we had Patrick Payton and DMac did a good job of breaking the pocket, and Jarrett Jackson staying on his feet and kind of altering the throw. That’s all about trying to play team football. To your second part, Ira, Kalen is one of our best open-field tackle players. He wasn’t always that on Friday night. He would admit that. But he had some really good plays, too. For us, to constantly continue to push the temp that we’re playing fast enough, playing smart enough, in those moments of those space plays making sure we have good angles and don’t get over-speed on some of those plays. I think it comes down to some of the pursuit and angles. The fundamentals of how you play when you play against really good players, you’ll come back and sit on the bench and be like ‘well this happened, and this happened.’ When you really take a look at it, it’s actually ‘no, this is how I play, this is exactly how we thought it’d play, and this has to be your reaction.’ ‘OK, coach, I got it.’ Because speed does that to ya, it does that to offenses, if a buy blitzes with unbelievable speed, and offense will think it’s something different. It’s really the same stuff, just the guy playing with it is playing with an unbelievable amount of energy and speed that it looks different. That’s an important thing to continue to process for us.”

Losing Jared Verse in-game

“You don’t want anyone to go down, but that’s inevitable unfortunately in this spot. It just created more opportunity for Pat Payton, Derrick McLendon. Dennis Briggs played 50-50 inside and outside with the guys we lost inside, too. Just creates different roles and it’s our job to manage that in practice to make sure our guys get the right snaps. But we’ve recruited so that if guys get banged up or dinged, there are guys in place. Leonard Warner had more snaps, Patrick Payton had significantly more snaps than they had the previous two games. Some of it was deserved, and some of it comes with opportunity sometimes when someone goes down who was eating up most of the snaps.”

Louisville getting push inside vs. run defense

“Yeah most of it wasn’t even stretch plays, they just had down, inside zone stuff. Some of it just missed fit, it was just guys playing and some of it was just they did a good job. We’ve got to be better in some of those instances, especially in the run game, that was uncharacteristic of our front and obviously something we’ve got to fix and something we’ve got to improve upon. And that’ll be addressed.”

Defense’s response after Jordan Travis injury

“Two things there. First of all, you want to teach the guys that no matter what happens, stay focused on your job. You also preach team, unity, and togetherness. It’s all the same. Just like when we had a touchdown in Game 1 of a young freshman, the whole team came together. Don’t be naive to think that doesn’t mean something to everybody. When your quarterback goes down, it’s just like if we turn the ball over, not trying to compare those things, but when we have to go take the field, just like when the offense picks us up sometimes or how the kicking game has picked us both up this year, that’s part of being a good football team. When we go out there and practice, offense wants to win, defense wants to win, but part of winning is when one side is maybe losing some momentum the other side picks it up or they play off each other in a positive way as well. I don’t want anybody to go down, but it was good. The most encouraging thing throughout that game was to see our guys’ response throughout adversity. We were on the road, guys were going down, and they were playing better than us at multiple phases. But to see our guys stick with the plan, it didn’t take anything over the ordinary to change, our guys just stayed with it and kept punching, kept fighting. We find ways to win games right now.”

End-of-game performance

“I think there’s a confidence at the end of the game, but that’s built out there. Our guys believed it. Our guys go through two-minute scenarios every week and you say ‘listen, this is what you’re going to get.’ Sometimes the guys just have to trust it instead of ‘what if this, what if that.’ Like I said, there were multiple guys – and there was a 4th & 2 play where we should've had them down and it shouldn’t have gone to that point. But it did and our guys kept playing. It was a credit to the front, they created pressure, and everybody stayed on their people, and that was important, and Kevin made a great play at the end. The training, the preparation, it’s all about building the confidence. And then to see that confidence turn into a reality and turn into winning football, we’re seeing that now. Listen, we want to dominate, we want to go three-and-out, we want to get takeaways, we want to score on every drive and that’s gotta be our mission, and that’s got to be what the end result has to be, but it’s still how you do it. I think our guys are connecting not being satisfied with just winning the game and more trying to find ways to help so that we have those three-and-outs, we have those touchdowns drive, we have that where you play great football with the 11 guys on the field no matter who’s out there. Our guys know what it looks like right now. It’s about trying to replicate that each series. That’s hard to do, but the great teams do it and they do it for 12-13-14 series a game. And that’s what we have to demand and that’s what we need to get out of this football team.”

Renardo Green, young FSU cornerbacks

“I don’t think I’ll ever say ‘this is what it is’ because it’s constantly competition, truthfully. Duke being down, like, he gave us his guys in the LSU game. We’re just trying to get him back, I don’t want keep going backwards by sending him out there. He played 3-4 plays in that game. He did not play much. And partly even those plays were that we just played a decent amount of football there. Renardo is helping us some on special teams, he’s doing a really good job in coverage right now. Even the PI he had, it was just one of those good quarterback gets in a little space and people overreact to a play, he and Akeem both on that play. But for the most part, when Renardo has been in 1-on-1 coverage, he’s done a really good job. He’s strong, strong around the ball. And he’s a really good tackler. The other corner spot kind of rotated with Greedy and Jarrian Jones throughout that game, and Kevin played nickel most of the game. That rotation with Duke being out was like that. But the young guys, listen, we’ve got two really good players. We’re seeing that with Shyheim in his second year take off. I don’t think it’ll take all that for these guys. Sam is doing a great job with kickoff returns, Azareye’h is doing a really nice job, it’s just about constantly trying to improve on the things that need to for that group. Opportunity will come, and there will be a time this season where you’ll see some of those guys out there together and it’s going to be critical that they’ll play well.”

What does Boston College's offense present?

“It’s today and last night is very much about them from a standpoint of trying to find the identity of who it is. They have a new play-caller, same quarterback, same dynamic receiver, same quarterback, same dynamic receiver, different people up front. You’re always trying to identify who the threats are, what their strengths are and trying to work through all that. The second part about their quarterback, he’s played in this league for three years now and he’s been successful. I think him, he gave us some problems last year just getting out of the pocket and creating. We probably hit him as much as we hit a quarterback, and it was hard to bring him down. He’s a leader for them and he’s been very productive in this league. Then No. 4, Flowers, is one of the better playmakers in our league if not the country. You can see a concerted effort by them to get him the football. He’s getting the ball behind the line of scrimmage more probably than he did last year. You’re still seeing the down-the-field throws to him, you’re still seeing some of the intermediate routes to try and get him the ball laterally as well. So those are two veteran playmakers in the ACC. Everybody’s got injuries at this point in the year. I’m sure they’re not trying to make any excuses, they’re just trying to get better from it just like we are. Looking forward to the preparation this week.”

Brendan Gant adapting to his new role

“I told him at the end of the game that he inspires me. To see what he did on those two coverage units, go down there and make those two open-field plays, and see his energy on the sideline at the end of the game. I mean, listen, Brendan Gant was a starting safety here for a number of games. Now he’s a backup linebacker giving us 10 snaps, but like, it’s a great lesson to be learned for a lot of people including coaches. When someone makes a decision to just be better every day, and not worry about the outside noise, not worry about what position he’s playing or what jersey number or what his reps look like, and he really focuses on self improvement. Brendan Gant played 10 snaps at linebacker and that’s probably going to go up. He’s sticking to the plan. He’s showing up every single day, he’s trying to help his teammates and he’s focusing on improvement and he’s becoming a really important player on this football team.”

WFSU special teams coordinator John Papuchis

How do you as a coach talk to Ryan Fitzgerald when he’s struggling with confidence?

“Obviously, confidence is huge. And the way in which you approach it is I've always thought that to get the most out of any player, you’ve got to push the right buttons. And for a guy who's struggling, piling on from my perspective certainly isn't going to help the situation. Being analytical, looking at what the symptoms are, what the causes and symptoms are of the misses and then encouraging him. Because, you know, nobody wants to be successful more than he does. And I mean, Saturday, he's out there working again. We landed at 4:30 in the morning, he was out on the practice field. So, you know, this is a young man that takes a lot of pride in his role. He's obviously disappointed about how the game went the other day, and my job is to do whatever I can do to help support and encourage and get the best out of him. And that's our role as a coach and really any person that you're coaching.”

Coverage units/Brendan Gant on special teams

“Brendan's the guy that through the course of this offseason into training camp, and then early here in the season has really developed a role for himself on special teams and now it's becoming an increased role on defense, but it starts with the effort. You know, this is a guy that has a lot of desire and a lot of want to and a lot of a lot of kid coverage is that and you know, it just the consistency keeps showing up from him. And that's what you need to have to have good cover humans, those tough kids that play fast that are physical that have the right mindset to get down the field and cover and BG has done a tremendous job here in the first couple of weeks and just look on adding to that it's beautiful.”

How does gameplan change after an injury to a guy like Jared Verse? How tough is it to witness that?

“Yeah, that's a great question. You know, in terms of the personal, when Jared goes down, you know, your first thought, especially, when it's your own player and you have that relationship is you know, empathy and sympathy for him in the moment because obviously very disappointing. I know he's very excited about the game and the stage and you don't want to see that happen to anybody. But then very quickly, you kind of have to redirect to what now what's the plan and you know, I thought you know, collectively the guys did a nice job who came in and the reps increased, you know, Pat Payton’s reps increased, Leonard Warner’s reps increased. All part of that being the fact that Jared wasn't there beyond the beginning of the second quarter. You know, in terms of changing the plan, you know, I think even if that had never happened with Jared, you're always trying to coach to the strengths of the guys who are out there, and guys have different skill sets and Derek is obviously different than some of the other guys. So, all one of those guys has to do is go out there and play their best game. Not try to be somebody else or something that they're not just go out there and compete at the highest level they could possibly compete. And I thought the guys answered the call well.”

Pass rush strategy vs. Louisville

“Well, you know, it's one of those things where you want to be very smart in terms of how you approach it because we do play a match coverage style on the back end, so it puts a little bit more stress on the front four to make sure that we're really wrestling discipline in terms of how we rush. So, there's that balance of being aggressive and making good choices. And, you know, for example, I thought at the end of the first half day, we finally had a nice rush there, and were able to get a sack. He was able to take the opportunity and make the most of it. Then there were sometimes where we were trying to just make sure we kept him in the pocket. Because you know, we have respect for him on this as a thrower, but we knew that he could get hurt us, you know, scrambling and running around and we wanted to limit those non designed quarterback runs. There are already going to be enough designed quarterback runs for quarterback draw, but you know being able to try to keep them in the pocket as much as you possibly can was part of that plan.”

Alex Mastromanno hasn't had to punt nearly as much this year, but is doing it at a higher level. What have you seen from him?

“Yeah, you know, I sit next to him on every third down and he's the ultimate team player in terms of like every time we convert, he kind of gives me a little fist bump and, and he's excited about it. I don't think there's any part of him that wants to be the star of the show because obviously that means that we're not as efficient as we'd like to be offensively. So but when he gets his opportunity he wants to make the most of where I saw a lot of growth from him really was obviously didn't hit the ball the way he wanted to on his first one the other night, and he was able to come back and self-correct and kind of analyze what it was that that wasn't right about the first one and make the adjustments that were necessary. And then of having the next three I thought were pretty well hit, hit balls and we were able to flip the field over on two of them, especially on both those covers by Brendan that we talked about earlier.”

How good is the game experience some of the young defensive ends got against Louisville?

“Ah, you know, I think the game experience is critical, you know, like Patrick Tate and I used him as an example he played 34 snaps I think in the game that was by far the most snaps he's ever played the game. I don’t think he's probably had more snaps ever combined for in his career. And, you know, with every opportunity out there we talked a lot over the last couple of days of just some of the things that he learned and saw and things that he thought he did well and things that he knows that he can improve upon. So, I think the game experience is critical. You know, you don't you don't necessarily want to happen that way. But that's why you want to have great depth and one of the things I do feel like at the defensive end spot is we do have depth.”

How do you communicate to your kickers during the course of a game?

“You know, to a certain extent, they're all, they're all a little bit different? Probably more than any other group. They have great self-awareness in terms of why things happen the way they happen, because it's such a unique skill set and they have you know, after most guys I've ever coached after any miss or miss hit, you can ask them what happened. I'll tell you it's after that. It's not like a position player where things sometimes can happen so fast. They don't. They don't know exactly what happened. Like they know why they pushed the ball, or they pulled the ball or whatever the case might have been. So, it's talking through how do we fix it? And, you know, like I was saying earlier, you try to push the right buttons to get the best response. And that's true at any position. You know, sometimes guys need an arm around them and tell them hey, next time I know you're gonna get it. Sometimes guys need a little bit more of a firm talking to and I think that's just relative to the Personality Typing situation in the game, you know, missing a cage at the end of the game, you know, if I go over and start carrying on yelling who's that really for me? And obviously we know, he knows we know that was a critical point in the game. And you know, I'm not going to be one that ever puts on the show. Just look, I can yell at this. I mean, he did the very best that he could at the time. And no one felt worse about that when he did so. You know, our job is to continue to build all the players in our program to try to help them be the best that they could possibly be.”

How important is continuity on the defensive line and how can you work around that when you're missing guys?

“Now the one thing about the defensive line that's probably a little bit more unique than other position groups, is we rotate at a high rate throughout the course of practice and in most games, you know, different than a lot of groups. We will play two plus D in rotation and continuity is important in terms of the communication aspect of it, but job responsibility doesn't really change. So, you do have the opportunity to kind of plug guys in different spots without really losing a lot in terms of that. You know, the communication piece of it is critical because guys get used to communicating with each other but, you know, fortunately we have some pretty good depth up front. And, you know, it's great that we had it because we needed it the other night for sure.”

What has gone into the team's success covering kickoffs?

“I think two parts of it, I think on all special teams' units but particularly that one you know, finding the right people to click the right spots is always critical. And I do feel good about the group that we have out there. And then number two is the speed. You know, the speed that really showed up. You know, we've recruited fast, we want guys to play fast. And speed is an overwhelming factor in terms of why I feel like we've had success early on in the year so far on kickoff, and it's something we want to continue to build.”