Dec. 2, 2006

CHAN GAILEY:  Obviously, it's my responsibility to get this football team ready to play, and we didn't do well enough today to win the ball game.  Now, that's what we've got, that's what we came down here was to win the ball game, whatever it took.  And we didn't get ready to play and that's my responsibility.  Any questions?

Q.  Could you describe your thinking on both 4th down situations?

CHAN GAILEY:  Yes, it would have been about a 50 yard field goal in both of those situations and I didn't feel like the wet, the way it was, with it a little wet, damp, I didn't feel like the odds of making a 50 yard field goal were any good at all so I didn't go for it.

Q.  Chan, what about the other two 4th downs where Reggie went to sneak, you were at the 13 then, and the last two actually you opted for the field goal, it was fourth and one, and the decision to punt at the end, I know that was a tough decision as well. 

CHAN GAILEY:  Yes, I thought if we stop them we at least got about 30 or 40 seconds, and all we needed to do was kick a field goal.  If we could have thrown a Hail Mary, or deep the ball or something, I thought we had a chance to get in field goal position because we should have had about 30 seconds left, 25 to 30 seconds left when we got the ball back.  Early in the third quarter I think we went for it fourth down.  I thought we could make it.  I thought that would be a situation that our defense is playing good, and we held them back there.  The game was still tied at that point.  I thought that's what we should do.  And the field goal, I thought it was late enough in the game we needed to take points.

Q.  You called the time-out before that field goal, what was the reason?

CHAN GAILEY:  We discussed whether or not we should go for it or not.

Q.  How close did you come toward going for it?

CHAN GAILEY:  Close.  It was probably 51/49. 

Q.  Just your impressions of what Wake has done this year?

CHAN GAILEY:  They are a very good football team.  They are well coached.  I have a great deal of respect for Jim Grobe and everything he has done and they have done.  They do a good job of keeping you off balance.  I think their defense is a little bit better in general than people give them credit for.  I thought they did a great job this year.  They deserve it.

Q.  Do you feel like there was any bitter resentment leftover from the Georgia game?

CHAN GAILEY:  No, none.

Q.  Which bowl game do you want to go to? And what would you any if you didn't go The Gator?

CHAN GAILEY:  That's not anywhere in my thought process right now.  Dan and everybody in his office will handle all of that.  These guys deserve to go to a very good bowl.  They've had a good year.

Q.  Offense you moved, Tashard had a hundred, Calvin Johnson had 100, what bogged it down there?

CHAN GAILEY:  What bogged down, the tough places at the 32 yard line.  A 50 yard field goal, and if you are 4 yards closer you try for the field goal.  And if you are 4 yards back you punt the football.  It's just in that gray area that becomes tough.  We moved it well to get to that point and then we just never could get it over the hump.  Nothing was sustained out there. 

Q.  Chan, it seemed like a lot of your ball distribution was to Calvin and James.  After James went down late how much did that effect what you tried to do offensively?

CHAN GAILEY:  It didn't we have a great deal of faith and confidence in Greg Smith, it didn't affect us. 

Q.  Coach, what was some of your philosophies with Wake Forest as their defense stymied Reggie on third down late in the game, did you try to switch anything up?

CHAN GAILEY:  We tried to see what they were doing and tried to mix-up some different routes.  We just didn't get them completed.  We thought that they gave us a couple of things.  We just missed a couple of plays.  We drop a ball at the 15.  We drop a ball at the 20 something.  That was uncharacteristic of our football team through the year.

Q.  Evaluate Reggie's performance, is it more drops than how he played, how would you access how he did at quarterback?

CHAN GALEY:  I thought he came out in the second half and did exactly what we, you know, wanted him to do and asked him to do.  He missed a couple.  And a couple got dropped and that's what creates inconsistency in the offense when you have those situations.  We just didn't -- we weren't consistent enough there, and I hate to belabor that word, but that was the bottom line. 

Q.  Chan, the past interference calls that they got defensively, it seems like sort of a problem for them, in the long run those are some big bombs that were prevented from you, it turned into 15 yard plays, it might have been a little big longer, it might have been touch downs, how did that end up affecting you guys?

CHAN GAILEY:  Well, when you throw it deep you hope you catch it or get an interference and the best of those two scenarios for the defense is interference, or the ball got tipped up and got intercepted.  It was a great play by their guy.  You hope to compete them, or hope to get an interference call, that's what you would like to happen.

Q.  Coach, can you talk about Kenny Scott's play, he broke up passes early in the game it seemed to be a big factor?

CHAN GAILEY:  Obviously, it's hard to evaluate a corner, but he did make a lot of plays.  He was in on a lot of things today.  He was around the ball a lot, and made a couple of big tackles, fell down on the big play one time.  It's ashame he fell down like that, but he did. 

Q.  Was John Abbate on your recruiting list, did you guys look at them?

CHAN GAILEY:  We looked at him, yes, we did.

Q.  And what was the decision there?

CHAN GAILEY:  We decided not to offer him a scholarship

Q.  He said it was size?

CHAN GAILEY:  Yes.

Q.  Coach, you seem to have effective pass rush all game long, what contributed that?

CHAN GAILEY:  Well, John does a great job of keeping them off balance.  He does an excellent job of bringing people from different places.  And then plus today was one of the few days that we got some pass rush of our four-man rush because they were looking to see who else might be coming so we were able to get some pressure with just our four-man rush.

Q.  Coach, how much do you think the mist out there played a factor in some of those drops?

CHAN GAILEY:  I don't know.  It obviously affected both teams a little bit.  They had a couple early in the ball game.  But that's part of the game.  It was misting on both sides.  You can't excuse that as an excuse. 

THE MODERATOR:   Anyone else? Thank you.