Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher on the Seminoles' No. 1 ranking :
"We're happy to be where we're at, but we also know that we're not thinking about that right now. What we're thinkingabout is running through the finish line. When you run the 100-meter dash, being No. 1 at the 90-meter mark doesn't mean anything."
Duke head coach David Cutcliffe on competing against the Blue Devils' former Senior Deputy Director of Athletics and current Florida State Athletic Director Stan Wilcox:
"When you work with special people, and Stan is special, you're not going to break the bond of the friendship we've formed. And I would say that even as the Director of Athletics at Florida State, Stan has to feel some form of a sense of pride with these young men at Duke that he has relationships with and he's happy for them. We all know who he's for in the ballgame, including me, I'm not kidding myself."
Fisher on Jameis Winston's composure throughout the investigation related to a sexual assault
"It's been a remarkable maturity level presented by him to be able to compartmentalize and handle things he can control and not that anything was lightly or he didn't take it seriously, but like I say, in our life everybody has issues or something going on in your life, and the ones that can compartmentalize and function and handle them when they have to handle them are the ones that are very successful, and he's very mature like that."
Cutcliffe on what makes Winston a special quarterback:
"The first thing that all of the special ones have is really special accuracy. He's extremely accurate. He throws the ball on time. He anticipates people open rather than waiting until they get open, and that's difficult for young guys to do. So he's really throwing the ball well on rhythm."
Fisher on negative talk regarding Florida State's strength of schedule and the ACC:
"Well, I know in the ACC we have 11 teams bowl eligible. I don't know if anybody else has that, so I would say our strength of schedule is pretty good by playing in this conference. We have 11 teams going to go to bowl games, and that has a lot of non-conference games involved in that, so to me it talks about the ACC, and I think our conference has to take a backseat to nobody."
Cutcliffe on the challenges the Blue Devils have faced throughout the season:
"We've reached a point where we've won all of those games, passed those tests, and it's this. You're in the championship game now. This should be the supreme test. That's the way it's designed to be. And [Florida State] certainly [is]."
Fisher on focusing on the ACC championship game and not looking ahead to the BCS Championship:
"To win your own conference championship, if you can't get focused on that, we have an issue. We've been able to focus one game at a time, and like I said, what we can control is the only thing we can control is this week, how we play, how we prepare and that's how we compartmentalize that and do it and handle it and stay true to our process, and we've done it all year. I don't expect us to change now."
Cutcliffe on Duke's fourth quarter success:
"The thing is that we are a very good team in the fourth quarter. There are a lot of reasons. I think it's mental toughness, et cetera, but we're an extremely conditioned football team. You won't see a lot of extra weight. It's just something that I personally believe in."
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