Everything From Virginia Tech OL Tomas Rimac At Tuesday's Press Conference

Virginia Tech offensive lineman Tomas Rimac spoke to the media at the Hokies' weekly press conference Tuesday; here is the entirety of what he had to say:

On playing at right guard:

"Yeah, I mean, well, playing four positions during the season, something I didn't expect, but just getting those reps in practice and just when I found out, just put your head down and do the best job I can."

On if it's very difficult to switch around in the offensive line:

"It's not an easy thing to do, but with repetitions throughout spring ball through like during the season. Right now during Tuesday, Wednesday practices, it's just something you have to prepare yourself for and understand I could play right or left side. And just when it comes to it, you just have to put your best foot forward and do do your job."

Q: Tomas, have you reached out to any of your former teammates at West Virginia who played these spots and asked for any advice, especially some of the guys who are now playing in the league?

"Yeah, I talked to some of the guys that are gone now, but like Wyatt [Milum], [Brandon] Yates, Ja'Quay [Hubbard], all guys that were at West Virginia, they're not there anymore. But I just checked in on them, but not about different positions, just [to] see how they're doing. And then with Wyatt, he's in the league now. I just don't want to really bother him with what he's got going on."

On learning footwork, technique, etc. at different positions on the O-line:

"Yeah, it's very important, but the fundamentals, it's the same thing. You just have to either go left or right. But for me personally, I think it's more of a mental thing. Like going to the game personally, I like to visualize like what position I'm at and like what I'm going to do, what defense they're going to show us and go throughout the play that way. So, personally, it's just a mental thing and just like slowing it down, understanding like this is where you are now, this is the steps you have to take and then go from there."

On "next man up" mentality, other guys stepping up and playing significant roles due to injury:

"It's really cool to see because these guys are young. They're redshirt freshmen and just seeing how they come in every day and just working, we're always in the film room together getting an extra film after. And they just really want to put their best foot forward and they're working their tail off week in and week out."

On whether Rimac feels that teams are cranking up the pressure against his unit:

"Yeah, I mean we definitely feel it and when we're preparing for a team, we definitely know that they're going to bring pressure because they might have gotten to the quarterback on a couple of pressures, so we're going to expect it. But that just goes into us as an offensive line. We need to be more consistent and that's something we've been working on and that's something we have to continue to work on uh throughout the week."

On the team mood coming off of last week:

"Yeah, Coach [Philip Montgomery] said to us on Sunday, 'You have 24 hours to get through this loss.' And same way with a win, you never want to dwell too much on a win or a loss. But on Sunday, it's always all about coming in, watching the film, learning from your mistakes. And like you said with the penalties, we just can't hurt ourselves. Like I had that holding penalty, the start of that drive that put us behind the chains, and it's just something that can't happen. It's something you got to learn from."

On effort plays and where Rimac finds the balance of the effort to where he's not getting into a penalty area:

"When you're watching film, effort should never change. You should always be going your hardest. But just with that, you have to maintain your fundamentals. And that's what a lot of times happens. Say you make a bad play, you might have stepped the wrong way, maybe too long of a step, too short of a step. At the end of the day, you just have to play with effort, both within yourself and within your fundamentals."

On Georgia Tech's defense and how they bring pressure:

"Yeah, I mean, a great team, obviously ranked, but they're going to show us pressures that we've seen before, and like I said earlier, it's just all about consistency. We just have to put our heads down and work this week on those pressures that we've seen during film. And obviously, they can bring stuff that we haven't seen before and make those corrections on game day."