Augie Conte Sees a Lack of Respect from UNC, Eager to Earn New Ranking

OG Augie Conte was perfectly clear on Monday — whether it's all in his head or not, he doesn't think the North Carolina Tar Heels are all that worried about their matchup with the Hokies this weekend, especially after the team's stunning last-second win over Florida State.

"To be honest, I'm actually really glad (North Carolina) won," Conte said. "The greater the challenge, the bigger the reward. I'm glad that they won. I want them going in there feeling confident. I don't think they have a whole lot of respect for us. I feel like the more confident they're feeling, I feel like the better chance we have of posting the upset."

While Larry Fedora's bunch has yet to say anything publicly to validate that line of thinking, Conte has the sneaking suspicion that the Heels will end up looking past the Hokies after a series of big ACC wins (and with a road matchup with Miami looming on Oct. 15).

"They beat Pittsburgh, who's got a really good team this year," Conte said. "They beat Florida State, who was ranked No. 12 or something like that. We were unranked this past week, (and) just barely snuck into the rankings this week. They're ranked pretty high now, they went to the ACC championship last year, almost beat — probably should have beat — somebody who played for the national championship...They probably haven't thought about us a whole lot. Just from that perspective, they just probably haven't given us a whole lot of thought."

While is is absolutely true that the Tar Heels have more weapons than you can shake a stick at — they're averaging 484.2 yards per game as well as 40.4 points per game — the Hokies' high-powered offense has plenty of weapons in its own right.

The Hokies enter this week's matchup averaging 40.8 ppg and 449 ypg themselves, and with playmakers like Jerod Evans, Isaiah Ford, Cam Phillips, and Bucky Hodges in the fold, Conte believes this squad can keep pace with the Tar Heels if the game turns into a shootout.

"With a Coach (Bud) Foster defense, very rarely will you ever see a shootout," Conte said. "If it comes to that, I definitely think we have the firepower to be able to do it. Isaiah Ford, Cam Phillips, Bucky Hodges, and then the way that Jerod's playing, we're gonna respond however way we need to.

"If it becomes a shootout, it's gonna be a shootout. If it's a defensive battle, then it's just gonna be a defensive battle. Obviously we're gonna try to score as many points as we can. It just depends on how the game goes. I think we've got the tools and the talent to keep up with a high-powered offense."

Add in a little more continuity on the offensive line — Wyatt Teller and Eric Gallo seem to have finally established themselves as the starters at left guard and center, respectively, and both earned the top spots on the depth chart this week — and Conte think the group's "familiarity" could help keep the team heading in the right direction on offense.

"Just playing with Gallo all last year and kind of knowing what he's thinking when he's making calls and stuff, I kind of know what he needs help making calls with," Conte said. "I guess there is a little more familiarity, but whoever Coach (Vance) Vice puts in there, I'm gonna play with and I'm gonna give it my all regardless of who's next to me."

AP voters seem to have recognized the team's newfound offensive continuity as well, rewarding the Hokies with the 25th slot in the poll this week. But Conte feels that the Hokies haven't fully earned those accolades just yet.

"I wouldn't necessarily say I wish we weren't ranked, but my opinion on being ranked is, 'The rankings come out but you're not truly ranked until you defend your rank,'" Conte said. "I've never been part of a ranked team here at Virginia Tech where we've been a ranked team and went out and defended it the next week, which is something that I'm not necessarily happy about. You're not ranked until you go out and defend it and prove you're in a spot where you should be."

Justin Fuente

OPENING STATEMENT:

"We had a good week of work last week; Tuesday and Wednesday practices. We got good work for some of our young guys while still keeping our older guys on point and still getting some work and looking at things like that. Thursday, did a little bit more gameplan-oriented practice and then brought them back Sunday and had a good lengthy practice. The kids are off today. (We are) coming back into our regular mode of operation now. We've got a tremendous challenge in front of us. North Carolina is coming off two huge victories, they're all big, but two close games, two hard-fought victories. Not a lot of people have gone down to Tallahassee and come away with a win. It's a big feather in their cap. Congratulations to them. We've got a tremendous amount of work left to do in order to get ready to go down there and play. They're highly explosive on offense, got skill players, really, all over the place. Wide receivers, running backs, (and) quarterbacks playing at a high level. They both run and throw the football. Their defense continues to make plays and be opportunistic. They're very solid on special teams. Very talented and well-coached group. Got to get our guys ready to go."

ON WHAT JUMPED OUT TO HIM WHEN SELF-SCOUTING DURING THE BYE WEEK:

"We had a pretty decent handle on what was going on. It's relatively small sample size. It's not like it was a 10-game evaluation. Nothing huge."

ON IF HAVING A WEEK OF REST IS A BIG FACTOR WHEN FACING AN UP-TEMPO TEAM:

"I just don't know how big a factor it is. Nobody really likes playing a team — I know when I get the schedule and I look and see who's got two weeks before they play us, it always raises my antennas. I don't know how big or small an advantage it is in terms of both teams moving quickly. We're pretty rested by game day anyway, even during a normal week. On Thursday we're not out there really hitting each other. On Friday, we're not hitting each other, so we're pretty rested on game day."

ON IF THE STAFF SETS WEEKLY OR SEASONAL GOALS FOR HOLDING TEAMS TO CERTAIN STATS (SUCH AS COMPLETION PERCENTAGE):

"Everybody has game goals and things they'd like to accomplish, but it's not something that we talk about statistically on a regular basis. Offensively, we have some goals they'd like to have, in terms of first down efficiency or efficiency in the red zone. I'm sure defensively, you have some of those same objectives. But I don't think completion percentage is something that we harp on on a daily basis. They've done a decent job defending the pass. I think defending the pass is a byproduct of getting pressure on the quarterback and obviously doing a good job in coverage. We'll certainly be tested this week with the skill players we're gonna see and the quarterback we're gonna see."

ON HIS THOUGHTS OF UNC QB MITCH TRUBISKY:

"He plays fantastic. He's been incredibly diligent with the ball, not throwing interceptions. He's giving his guys chances to make plays. Just from judging from afar, he seems to have a great deal of trust in those guys. Obviously (Ryan) Switzer in the slot and some of those speed guys on the outside do a great job. He's performing at an awfully high level right now. It's pretty impressive to watch."

ON HIS REACTION TO BEING RANKED 25TH IN THIS WEEK'S AP POLL AND IF HE TALKED TO THE TEAM ABOUT IT:

"I always look at it like this, 'Can anybody tell me in week 5 of last year's season, who was ranked and who wasn't ranked?' It's great for our fans to take pride in and get excited about. It may add to more fanfare on the outside about the upcoming game, but not something that we draw a lot of focus on. We've got a tremendous challenge this week in terms of going to North Carolina and trying to find a way to win the game."

ON IF HE'S HAD A CHANCE TO BREAK DOWN UNC'S DEFENSIVE FILM AND IF HE SEES ANY POSSIBLE POINTS OF ATTACK:

"I've had a chance to watch them. They do a great job of making you earn every single yard, making you execute. They don't tend to give up huge chunks of yardage. They do a great job keeping the ball in front of them. They're very sound in all of their schemes. They've got good players who are playing hard and running to the football. They do some things that have given people problems because they've done a great job keeping the ball in front and forcing them to continue to execute for long periods of time."

ON HOW THE TEAM WILL HANDLE THEIR FIRST TRUE ROAD TEST:

"Well first of all, in terms of a bunch of road games coming up, we don't really address that. We just worry about this week and try to do everything we can to prepare to win one road game. I don't think there's a lot you can do about games that are two, three, four weeks in advance. I love playing here in Lane Stadium. In my short time here, it's a fantastic venue. But there's also something to be drawn from playing on the road. You cut your travel squad down a bit to comply with ACC regulations. You just take the people that you need to go win the game and I think that, at times, can draw teams closer. We'll get prepared the way we always do, knowing that there will be a few guys that don't make the trip because of our travel restrictions. We're only the taking the people we need to go into somebody else's stadium and try to play a ball game."

ON WHAT HE DID ON HIS OPEN WEEKEND:

"I spent some time Saturday with the family. (It was a) good day."

ON IF HE WATCHED THE UNC/FSU GAME LIVE:

"I watched it, yep."

ON IF HE WATCHED IT WITH FAMILY OR COACHES:

"The family was there. Cecelia could give you a good breakdown."

ON IF HE'S EVER CROSSED PATHS WITH LARRY FEDORA:

"We have. Not on the field. When I was at TCU, he was at Southern Miss, and Coach Fedora didn't come down, but Blake Anderson, who was his offensive coordinator at the time, and (Chris) Kapilovic, who's the offensive coordinator now, were on staff. Their staff came. We spent a couple of days together in Ft. Worth just talking ball and sharing ideas about practice plans and that sort of stuff. That's been some time ago, obviously. And then when I was at Memphis, they returned the favor, and we we went up there and spent about a day. Coach Fedora was great with us, but it was mostly the offensive staff. To my recollection, I don't think we've played against each other."

ON HOW VALUABLE THE TWO "GET BETTER" PRACTICES WERE LAST WEEK:

"If you take special teams, for example, you start special teams in two-a-days and you go through the fundamentals. And then in a game week, you hit on fundamentals on Sunday night and a little bit early in the week, but most of it is scheme-oriented. What happens is early in two-a-days, you're not sure which freshmen are going to play. You're trying to get your two-deep, or three-deep, or sometimes even four-deep on the special teams unit. Sometimes the guys who are true freshmen who were on the fourth team to start with, now, by week four or five, are on the second team or the first team. So it's a great chance in the bye week for those guys to get back to getting some of the fundamental work that maybe they didn't get as much of during two-a-days. The same can be said on offense and defense, in that manner, too. It's also the last time you really get a chance to do that until, hopefully, if you're in a bowl game. If you're in bowl prep, you can work some of those guys. When you've got a week to get ready, you don't have time to go back to kind of comb through all that sort of stuff with the young players. It was a good chance for us to get those guys work while still working the older guys. I don't want to paint a picture that they were just drinking water on the sidelines. They still got plenty of reps, but the young guys got in there and got more than they usually did on a given game week."

ON WHAT THE GUYS WHO DON'T TRAVEL WITH THE TEAM WILL DO:

"We'll work out on Friday and they'll have Saturday off."

Augie Conte

ON IF HE WATCHED UNC/FSU WITH FRIENDS OR IF HE STUDIED THEM AS HE WATCHED:

"I watched it with a couple of friends. When watching the game (with) one of the teams you're playing next week, you watch it with a little more (of a) speculative eye. When I watch football, I kind of like to more enjoy it. But watching a team you're gonna be playing next week, obviously there's a little bit more attention to detail there. I think we've got a heck of a team, a lot of good athletes, so it's definitely a challenge for this coming week."

ON HOW COHESIVE THE OFFENSIVE LINE IS RIGHT NOW:

"I think we're starting to gel a little bit more, in particular in our pass game. We played ECU, we started to play more as a unit just with everybody's technique and the way we were playing, it was really obviously we were starting to gel as more of a unit. Whoever Coach (Vance) Vice puts in there is who's gonna play. We have to make it work."

ON HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT PLAYING ROAD GAMES AND THE UPCOMING STRETCH OF GAMES:

"It'll be a tough road game. Going into somebody else's house, it's a ranked opponent that's (well deserving) of their ranking. I personally like playing road games. I've had a pretty good track record of road games. I kind of enjoy the atmosphere and the hostile environment. It's just a different feel. When you're in Lane Stadium, the majority of the people are sitting there wanting you to succeed; when you're on a road game, the majority of people want to see you fail. It's always fun going into someone else's house and playing well. I enjoy playing road games. It's definitely a lot different atmosphere than playing in Lane Stadium. The stretch coming up, a lot of tough away games. I kind of like having our bye week the way it was. Kind of gives us a chance to recover from camp and all that sort of stuff. A lot of people say we had our bye week a little early. I felt like it was a good time for a bye week, gave us a little bit of a chance to rest and work on some stuff personally that we needed to work on. It will definitely be a tough stretch of games, but I don't think it's anything we can't handle."

ON HOW HE WOULD RATE THE RUN BLOCKING SO FAR THIS SEASON:

"We have a little bit of work to do on our zone blocking schemes. We worked on that a lot during the bye week. Coach Vice's emphasis is getting better at our zone blocking schemes. I guess ECU, it's tough to run the ball. I'm not trying to make any excuse, but it's tough to run the ball when they're doing a whole bunch of slants and all that kind of stuff, they did a lot of twists on run downs and stuff like that. We still had 160-170 rushing yards, which isn't bad, isn't great, it's more average. Probably should have put up a little more. We always have something to work on. (North Carolina) is a little bit different. They have big guys up front that I think they rely more on them to stop the run rather than scheme and blitzes and all that kind of stuff. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. I definitely think we'll be able to run the ball a little bit more than we did with ECU just because they won't slant and twist as much. It'll definitely be interesting to see how the work coming out of the bye week pays off."

Ken Ekanem

ON IF HE WATCHED THE UNC/FSU GAME AS A FAN OR IF HE WAS BREAKING THEM DOWN:

"I didn't watch as a fan. I kind of just watched it at my house. Kind of winding down on the BYE week and looking at what they're capable of. They obviously can move the ball pretty well with all of those weapons that they have. Just looking forward to the challenge, competing with these guys. It's probably one of the best offenses that we're gonna play this year."

ON IF THE TEAM SAT DOWN AND WATCHED THE FIRST FOUR GAMES OF FILM ON THEMSELVES:

"Not really. With these bye week practices, we went over a couple of mistakes and got the young guys a lot more reps to get them more up to speed. We just fine tuned some things. I think it helped us a lot. The past three practices have been based on UNC, so I think this bye week helped us a lot in getting us prepared for this team."

ON WHAT THE DIFFERENCE WAS BETWEEN GETTING NO SACKS ON BOSTON COLLEGE AND HAVING SIX AGAINST ECU:

"I think with Boston College, they just got the ball out of his hand really quickly. Not saying that ECU didn't, but our defensive backs did a good job against ECU of holding up their wide receivers for more than two or three seconds. Obviously luck plays a little bit into it as well. On the safety, the tackle slid the wrong way and left me and Tremaine (Edmunds) unblocked. Our DBs have done a fantastic job of making the quarterback hold the ball for more than three seconds. I better be getting back there."

ON IF HE FEELS THE DEFENSE IS ON TRACK TO GET BACK TO WHERE THEY USED TO BE:

"Definitely last year was a down year for us. I think this year, coming back, you've got all of these young guys who took some big steps forward in the offseason. They're producing pretty well this season. I think we're just functioning better as one unit, getting pressure on the quarterback, force passes and all of that. I think we're just clicking really well and have pretty good chemistry."

ON THE UNC OFFENSIVE LINE:

"I think (LT Bentley Spain) is a very consistent guy. I played against him last year and he had a pretty good game against me. I think he's just really consistent all over the board. There's not one play where he's letting a guy go through or stuff like that. He's very smart. The rest of the offensive line, I think one of their strengths is in their core. We were talking about the center (Lucas Crowley), he's a pretty good ballplayer as well. We've got a lot of respect for these guys and know their skill players can get it done. They're all big time players."

ON IF HE THINKS A RANKING MAKES PEOPLE FROM OTHER PARTS OF THE COUNTRY TAKE NOTICE OF VIRGINIA TECH:

"I think everybody's deserving of their ranking. I don't really see that as — when we're not ranked and we should be ranked, it's kind of tough to say. You've gotta respect the guys who are ranked. Obviously they've played some quality opponents and had some good ballgames. When you see the ranking, the number next to the name, they obviously deserve it."

ON IF THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT PLAYING NORTH CAROLINA THAT MAKES HIM HAVE A GOOD DAY:

"Anytime I see a pass-happy offense I just get a little excited. You get more attempts at rushing the passer and stuff like that. Two years ago, I had a really good game. I just like playing pass-happy offenses. I think they're pretty balanced, they run the ball really well, but just playing against them, I always like it. It's ACC play, it's just always a big game against those guys."

ON WHAT WAS DIFFERENT ABOUT THE OPEN DATE UNDER FUENTE AS OPPOSED TO THE PREVIOUS STAFF:

"We started practicing on Sunday's a little bit, just fine-tuning some things, which I like. It gets all the bad blood out and all of that. It's more urgent. If everybody's five minutes early to a meeting, we'll start the meeting five minutes early. Just little things like that. It's getting things done, practice — every single time — you can't walk around the field. Stuff like that. Keeping us in shape, conditioning, running at the end. I think it's all been helping us out. When you watch the other teams, they're fatigued and looked fatigued. I think we have really good body language out there, we don't look that tired. Not to say we don't get tired, but all of these little things, imposing our will, has really paid off."