Following Duke's first win of the year, football beat writer Matthew Iles caught up with offensive coordinator Peter Vaas.
Matthew Iles: How would you grade the offense's performance last weekend?
Peter Vaas: The best part about the game we play-it's basically pass/fail. So, obviously we passed. You either win or you lose. There's no other things in between.
MI: The running game has struggled all season. What is the reason for that?
PV: We've faced some very strong defensive football teams. What we're attempting to do is take what the defense gives us, and most of the time, they've been giving us the short-type passes.... Up to this point, that's one of the thing that we've done well, so we've accentuated what we do well.
MI: What is the scouting report on Navy's defense.
PV: As you can well imagine, anybody that attends a service academy is a highly motivated young man with a tremendous amount of energy. Defensively, they do not overwhelm you with their size or their athleticism, but they really make you proud to be an American, if I can coin that phrase, when you watch the intensity with which they play the game. They play with a reckless abandon and they play hard, which means, in turn, we have to play hard. But playing hard is not always good enough. We have to play hard and well.
MI: Navy had over 500 yards rushing last week. When the defense is under pressure, does the offense feel burdened?
PV: You play the hand that is dealt to you.... This coming week, we may only have seven or eight possessions and we may have to score on four or five of them, or maybe all eight of them. Our intentions going into the game are to score on every possession because of how Navy plays offensive football. They consume the clock, and they don't give you many opportunities. So as an offensive football team, you have to take advantage of every opportunity that is presented to you. We need to be mentally prepared for that, and we need to be physically up to the challenge to make those plays. That's the assignment we've been given and that's the assignment we readily accept.
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