John Cooper Media Luncheon Quotes – Ohio State Buckeyes
9/14/1998 12:00:00 AM | Football
September 14, 1998
COLUMBUS, Ohio –
Talk a little about Missouri:
“I’ve got great respect for (UM head coach) Larry Smith. He’s an outstanding football coach. They have a good team this year. They return eight starters on offense and six on defense. Obviously we have to gear it up this week and try to find some way to keep them from dominating the line of scrimmage and keeping our offense off the field. They’ve got a good football team. It’s going to be a challenge for us.”
What kind of mistakes will try to correct from the Toledo game?
“We try to correct all the mistakes we made in the ball game every week – any kind of missed alignments or blown assignments we might have had. Offensively we had some wrong assignments. Defensively, we maybe had some wrong alignments or the wrong secondary coverage. We try to correct little things like that that go unnoticed.”
What do you say to your team after two decisive victories like you’ve had?
“Our team is smart enough to know that we were better than Toledo. We’re going to get challenged this week against Missouri. They know that they’re going to have to continue to work hard and practice hard. You could sort of feel it in the team meeting. Our players know that this is a different ball team that we’re playing this week, so we better get ready to play.”
How does Missouri tailback Devin West compare to West Virginia tailback Amos Zereoue?
“He’s a different back. Zereoue is what we call a scat back. He’s not very big but has great quickness. West is a big, strong, physical runner. Missouri is a powerful football team. They will run the ball off tackle and run the isolations. They’ll line up with two tight ends. They’ll give you some different sets, but by and large they’re going to line up and run the ball north south until you stop them.”
Talk about some of the young defensive players.
“Tim Cheatwood, Joe Cooper – a lot of those young guys got a lot of playing time in the second half and they were flying around. They’ll hit you if you move.” Do you look forward to your kids having a test like this?
“I don’t know if you look forward to it. Obviously we knew a long time ago that they were coming. West Virginia was a good test for us one the road. Toledo was obviously out-manned last week. From here on out, almost every team will be a good test for us.”
Talk about last year’s game against Missouri.
“We settled down in the game and played a lot better offense. They were trying to man up with our wide receivers last year, and Dee Miller and David Boston both made some great plays against their secondary last year.”
Has Missouri changed a lot since then?
“They haven’t changed too much. They haven’t changed much at all offensively because they have eight starters coming back. They’re a veteran offensive team. They’re going to run what we call the loaded option, where the quarterback wants to keep the football a lot. We haven’t faced an option team since Missouri a year ago. We’ll have to learn a lot of assignments this week. Defensively, you can’t just put your ears back and go after the ball carrier. You have to play assignment football. That’s what the option does to you.”
