Transcript From The October 21st Ohio State Football Press Luncheon – Ohio State Buckeyes
10/21/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 21, 2003
TRESSEL: Ohio State versus Iowa, homecoming of 2003 was a physical affair. You could go back and point to a lot of different moments in the game that gave us an opportunity to come up with a hard-fought Big Ten win. I don’t know that it’s any more impactful than the punt return by Mike Jenkins, which as we began the half, they were against the wind a little bit. Our defense did their job by stopping them on their possession. They were punting the ball into the wind, and it was punted a little bit low, and our guys did a heck of a job of returning that thing for a touchdown, which was a real boost. We’d been working hard on that and made a little bit of changes.
Felt like Chris Gamble needed to do some of the hold-up work on some of their key guys that had made many of their tackles on their special teams, and that particular thought worked and really infused a lot into our football team.
Defensively, we thought all day long that we controlled the tempo of the game. They have a running attack that is very patient. They don’t get nervous or upset about losing a yard or two here or there because the nature of their attack is such that when they hit one, you hold your breath. And, fortunately, we didn’t let that big one go out the gate on us. Our guys from rush and pass coverage standpoint did what they needed to do and really our defense controlled the tempo of the football game.
The special units, I thought, provided the big bursts that we needed along with the punt return, the punt block, the long field goal. They came up with the big plays. And the thing that I think our offense contributed to was, number one, Iowa never got the football on our side of the 50. From the standpoint of our offense making a mistake, we did give them the football on the half yard line, so they had a long way to go if they were going to score. So we did a good job from that standpoint. And we did a decent job of setting up field position such that an outstanding punting day by B. J. Sander made certain that they were going to start a long way from our goal line and against our defense. We felt that they were going to have a tough time of scoring a whole bunch of points. The outstanding performances in the game, the special teams player of the week was Michael Jenkins. He stepped in for the first time as the full-time punt returner and made plays. Michael simply looks to help our football team wherever we need him. Whether it’s blocking punts — we may have put him back there earlier, but he was so important in our punt/rush scheme, that we hesitated to do that. He’ll do anything the team needs. If he has to block X number of plays, that’s Michael Jenkins and that’s why I think his teammates elected him captain.
Over on the defensive side, Tim Anderson had an outstanding day. He created problems in the center of the defense the whole day, and I’m sure Fred would tell you he kept the linebackers free and allowed them to go running around making plays and had an outstanding day, and he was our defensive player of the game.
And for the second week in a row, I think Drew Carter was our offensive player of the game. They were going to make sure that Mike Jenkins had two, sometimes three people surrounding him when it was an apparent pass situation and Drew Carter was allowed to have single coverage and really came up with some plays. Came up with one that was called back that could have been even huge for us, but he went up and he made plays, and I think he gets better and better and better each and every day, and he was certainly needed to take care of some things for us this past weekend and, therefore, was our offensive player of the game.
Our offensive lineman of the game was Shane Olivea. Shane’s with us here today. I thought not only his performance was important for us, especially down the stretch, but I thought his leadership was crucial for us. And when a group is somewhat disappointed in its performance and frustrated with its performance, it’s really the job of some people to step forward and say, hey, we’re going to get this thing done, and I thought Shane Olivea did a good job of that on Saturday afternoon. He was graded 83% and was our offensive lineman of the week.
Our attack force player of the week is also here with us today, Fred Pagac. He did an outstanding job. He had 8 or 10 tackles. He made some good plays, he put a good hit on the quarterback. He did an excellent job of running the show, getting us lined up, getting us where we needed to be. I know he was excited that it was one of those run-type games because the Mike linebacker, when inside period is over in practice, their fun is over. They like inside period, and then all that other stuff is just too fancy for them. Fred had an outstanding game, and I know Fred’s excited for this week’s game as we play over at Indiana. It so happens that the Oakland Raiders are open, and coming in to be our honorary captain coming for the Indiana game is Fred Pagac, Sr. And I know that’s going to be a special day for all of us, most especially for Freddie.
Our Jack Tatum hit of the week was put on by Nate Salley, on a little slant route. He almost made the hit and the pick in the same play. That was the Jack Tatum hit of the week.
The scout team players of the week, the scout special teams player of the week was Reggie Smith, did a great job on a lot of our look special teams units.
Over on the defensive side the scout defensive player of the week was Derek Coker, defensive lineman. Did a great job there. And scout offensive player of the week was tailback Mike D’Maria. As we said many times, there’s not anything worse than being a scout team tailback because they get banged around, not to mention being a scout team tailback against our defense, so Mike D’Maria did a great job there. Usually when you do good things in a role that usually is less glamorous, you end up with some other roles, and Mike D’Maria worked his way back on to our special units and played on two different special units on Saturday, and he’ll continue to do that now that he’s healthy.
As we look forward, I think, the most glaring thing that we have to make sure we understand is that we’re 6-0 at home, and we’re 0-1 on the road. The one thing we haven’t done — we can debate things we haven’t done enough of or too much of or whatever on any side of the ball. But one thing I know we’ve done none of, and that’s won on the road. And so job one is to go on the road and play well enough to deserve to win. When you play in the Big Ten and you go on to the Big Ten stadiums, you know you’re going to get everyone’s best shot. That’s just the way it is when you’re at Ohio State. You’re going to get their best shot times two. That’s the first thing we need to understand. We need to understand what it takes to win on the road. And obviously our defense needs to continue to play the way that it’s playing and continue to control the tempo of football games. They’re going to be attacked by a group that is taking great pride in their improvement in their run game. They go at great lengths to show how their run game has improved over the course of time, and that’s something very admirable. That’s something that you ought to be proud of, the way that they’ve moved forward in their run game, and they’re going to come in with every intention of making one more step in their run game against our defense.
They also throw the ball effectively, play action. They’ve got a quarterback who’s been there. He’s had pressure situations. He started at Notre Dame and was their starter, and one of the things I read said he’s only one of four quarterbacks in the country that has started a BCS bowl game, which means he’s been there. He’s been under pressure. And he’s going to do all he can do to put the pressure on our defense.
From a special teams standpoint, we need to understand that if you don’t win the special teams on the road, you’re not going to win the game. Case in point, Iowa did not win the special teams as they came here. That’s just the way it is. That’s a truism. I don’t think it’s a cliche, although most cliches are accurate. You need to go and win the special teams on the road.
The last time we went there, we blocked a punt. It was a huge part of a victory. This past year, as we played Indiana, we had a blocked punt and a fake punt, big part in a victory. Special units have to continue to make plays, most especially as we go on the road.
Offensively, we’ve obviously got to improve. We’ve got to improve dramatically if we want to reach our goals in order to win on the road. First and foremost, you have to make sure you take care of the football, number one. You move the football, number two. Create field position, and obviously score points. And we know we have a lot of work to do. There’s no one that is in our quarters that feels any different about that. Our guys have been more than willing to continue to work and search and work and search and try to have our offense become a part of a very successful football team.
That’s where we are here in the late stages of October. We know the challenge is tough when you’re going to be on the road, and I think our guys will work to prepare accordingly.
REPORTER: Coach, a question for you and for Fred. After last year and you guys lose five guys to the NFL off your defense, what’s your sense for how this group — I believe you’re allowing fewer yards per game than last year and how this defense has developed like this? Is it maybe comparable to last year’s team now, our defense?
TRESSEL: Well, I don’t know the statistical difference between seven games last year and seven games this year and that type of thing, and even if I did, I don’t know what I’d do with it. But I think this defense wants to become a very good defense. It wants to be remembered, when all is said and done, as being amongst the finest, but they know they have a lot of work to do. And I think they’ll keep working at it. We had some guys like Freddie playing behind Matt Wilhelm. We had some guys be able to step in there. Kenny Peterson isn’t here anymore. A.J. Hawk was playing behind C. Nate Salley and Will Allen were playing behind Donnie and Mike. They obviously were learning their lessons, but I don’t know if any of us are ready to say that we’ve arrived. We’re on the journey.
REPORTER: Fred’s thoughts too, what’s your thoughts on the defense this year?
PAGAC: Just like coach said, I think we have a long way to go actually. Guys are stepping up and making some plays, but we’re definitely doing some things wrong still, and we have a long way to go to become a great defense.
REPORTER: Hey, Coach, Gary Danielson said this morning he didn’t think it was a wise choice to switch out Craig Krenzel, because it would be a lack of loyalty throughout the team. Was there a time in the Iowa game that you were considering a change?
TRESSEL: No, how do I look at that, I don’t know. I guess I don’t know what messages you send. You make decisions based upon what you think is best for the team, and I didn’t think it would be best for the team to make any switches, not that I lack any confidence in Scott McMullen; I hope that doesn’t infer a lack of loyalty to Scott. I think Scott’s done a good job. But I thought the team needed Craig Krenzel to be in the game.
REPORTER: Are you satisfied Craig is picking out guys when they’re open, looking at all his options in the throwing game and executing that part of the throwing game well?
TRESSEL: You know, I don’t think we executed in the passing game nearly as well as I would like to have done on Saturday. I think Craig would be the first one to tell you that there were some times when his feet really didn’t allow him to deliver the ball where he would like to have delivered it. I’m sure the receivers would tell you there were a couple times, if they would have gotten to where they needed to go, we would have certainly had a better opportunity. I’m sure there were some moments, from an offensive line protection standpoint, that they would like to say that they could have done a better job, but I did not think we executed in the passing game on Saturday nearly as well as I would have liked.
REPORTER: That being said, under what circumstances would Scott McMullen come in, just an injury to Craig, or when would you use him?
TRESSEL: I guess when I thought that that’s what the team needed. Obviously if he got injured, the team would need that. That would be an easy decision. You know, I think you have to get a feel for what’s needed. Not pretending that you’re always right, but you have to have some basis for your thinking. And if there was ever a moment where I thought Scott could give us something that Craig wasn’t, again, I have every confidence in Scott.
REPORTER: Do you think Craig’s trying to do too much when the offense is struggling?
TRESSEL: You know, I think that that could always be a factor with everyone involved. Sometimes you even see on defense, if they get a couple first downs, then all of a sudden someone wants to make a play and they’re really not in the position that they should be. Well, that happens on the offensive side, too. I think sometimes when you’re struggling and when you get frustrated and so forth, you can press a little bit. And I think there’s no question about it. I know many times — I was thinking earlier this morning that obviously you think constantly about where can you get better at the areas you’re not doing well? And I thought to myself, I’ve been at this a long time, I’m 100 years old, and I’ve been on the other side where our offense was rolling right along and we couldn’t stop anybody. We were pressing. We were doing things.
The thing that I’ve always found that helps, I always ask both staffs a simple question to answer. I play fastest when? Because you have to play the game fast. I don’t care if you’re Shane Olivea at 305 pounds or Fred Pagac at 240. You have to play the game fast. I play fastest when? And whatever that is, whatever the answer to that question is, this defense, that play, this scheme, this mindset, whatever it is, we have to play faster and maybe not press.
The question was, do you think someone’s pressing? Yeah, perhaps. And you can’t play fast when you’re pressing. You can’t coach fast when you’re pressing.
REPORTER: Jim, against Northwestern you inserted Justin Zwick in the second quarter. I forget what you said the reason why was. I wonder if you can explain why maybe that was part of your thinking then and why against Iowa maybe you didn’t think that giving Scott a series would be a comparably good idea?
TRESSEL: Well, as I mentioned, after the Northwestern game, I thought it was a good time, therefore, made that decision. I didn’t really think there was a good time against Iowa, therefore — the one thing I would like to stay away from, if I can, is making decisions just for the sake of making decisions. Hopefully you make decisions for sound reasoning and for a good, gut feeling. And I did not feel that there was a moment where it would have been the right thing for the team for Scott to go in the game.
REPORTER: Coach, with the fact the defense is clearly doing well, has there been any, and the offense is struggling, has there been any discussion back and forth amongst the staff and the defensive coaches on maybe some suggestions on things the offense might be able to do to open some things up?
TRESSEL: Fred usually brings a list into my office every Monday morning of some things that might help us. But we constantly have interaction with our staff. In fact, going into the Iowa game, because we’re so similar defensively with Iowa, our guys sat for hours and hours and hours talking about, well, you know, this hurts us when they do that, this hurts us, and so forth. What’s most important, though, is to find out what you can do that will hurt them. So that’s the key. But absolutely, constant interaction along those lines.
REPORTER: For Shane, everybody’s been speculating about the offense. What’s your perspective there? People talk about lack of run protection and things like that. When you guys get together, what do you see as a guy that lines up and does this that are some of the problems, things that maybe you do?
OLIVEA: It’s difficult. It’s frustrating because you want to go out there and help out the defense. You want to go out there and be able to put points on the board and take pressure from them. But for some unknown reason this year, we just have been a guy missing a block or been unable to break away from one tackle. It’s been one thing after another. And it’s definitely frustrating. I’m not going to lie. When you have a three and out, you’ve got to put your defense back on the field, and they look at you like, man, help us out a little bit. But I think we’re taking steps in the right direction, I think, and the second half we stuck with the run and when we needed to make some yards, we did. We took a lot of time off the clock.
But like I said, it’s just been one person making a mistake, and we’re kind of at the point now, we have to start learning from our mistakes. And it starts with myself and the rest of the line and Craig making right reads, and we have to start helping out the rest of the team. We can’t just keep going along. Like I said, it’s just been one thing, maybe someone breaking a tackle or sticking on a block a little bit longer to help your back out. Hopefully we can build on it this week and have a productive week at practice and continue on. But we need to definitely give our defense help. But I think we took some right steps in the second half. We gave Craig a lot more time and sort of chipped away a little bit.
REPORTER: Shane, what do you guys do well as a group, in your opinion? Is there —
OLIVEA: According to you guys, not much.
REPORTER: What are you supposed to say?
OLIVEA: Craig has won a national championship. He’s only lost one game as a starter, and you’re ready to replace him. It’s almost like whatever you do, it’s like you’re second-guessed. So no matter what we do, it’s almost like it’s not good enough. So we just have to keep plugging away, and a win is a win, and that’s the bottom line. Our team has one of the 5th best offenses in the country, but they’re 1-6. I’d rather be 6-1 with the way we’re winning rather than scoring 35 points but losing 50-35. We just need to keep doing what we’re doing, and the biggest thing is it’s a win. A win is a win. It doesn’t matter how it comes. That’s what we’re trying to do here. We’re trying to put this program back on the map and keep it at the top level it is now. But like I said, a win is a win.
REPORTER: Shane, that being said, aren’t you still surprised you’re 6-1 with the 114th offense in the nation?
OLIVEA: I don’t know. I don’t know what to say to that. Like I said, we’ve for some reason tripped up a little bit on offense. When we had to make plays, we did it, like last year. You saw we made plays when we had to. This year, the ball bounces the other way somehow. The incident with Craig, you’ll never see that happen again on a fourth down, inches like that, second and inches, things happen like that. You have to keep bouncing back. Offense is not always going to be pretty, but it gets the job done, and that’s what matters.
Like I said, we’re 6-1, and we control our own destiny. We could be 6-1 going 40 points per game. I don’t know why, it’s not one person, it’s not one thing. It’s just been frustrating, to say the least, but like I said, we’re 6-1, and you’ve got to take the positive out of everything.
REPORTER: For Jim and Shane, is that the true sense in the locker room, take away all the media attention that is given to this offensive ineptness right now? Is that the sense that we’re still winning, which is our ultimate goal, and we’re not embarrassed or have any anxiety over what the offense may be doing or not doing?
TRESSEL: Well, I don’t think it’s defined as that. We’re 6-1. We’re not 7-0. We’re not extremely happy about the 6-1. Are we happy we’ve not produced as much offensively? As we think, A, we’re capable, and B — I don’t know if that answers your question. Is that the true sense in the locker room? That’s the true sense in my office. I can’t tell you what the sense in the locker room is.
Shane, what’s the sense in the locker room?
OLIVEA: It’s been, like I said, frustrating this year because we feel like we’ve improved a lot. We have a lot of guys coming back, we had high expectations. But I think as Coach said, we’d like to be 7-0. We know we need to improve, every game. Some games we have in some areas; some games we haven’t. But you’ve got to have resolve. You’ve got to have belief, and like I said, we’re 6-1. Winning ugly and winning is the same thing. It’s a team sport. When you have a team sport, you have things happen that you can’t control, and right now with the great defense, special teams we have, we’re just trying to help out in those areas as much as possible. We’re definitely not satisfied in the locker room. We know we’re capable of a lot more, and, for whatever reason haven’t had the points up like we should. But certain things happen, penalties, sometimes you can’t control them just because you’re playing aggressive, you’re trying to make plays out there. But like I said, we’re sitting here at 6-1, and it could be a lot worse.
REPORTER: Coach, Indiana statistically doesn’t jump off the page at you. What do you see, what kind of a challenge do they pose for you guys offensively?
TRESSEL: I think from a defensive standpoint, scheme-wise, they always find a way to get eight people up around the line of scrimmage. I think if you look at their statistics, you’d find that they’ve had some big plays happen against them. That has been their downfall. We talk constantly to our defensive guys. If we can play consistent and allow no big ones out, we have a chance to make them punt eventually. They’re not going to be able to move the ball down the field forever if they’re only getting three and four and five. When you let one get out for 38, you have a problem.
So I’m sure they were over there during their open week saying, we’ve got to find a way to not allow big plays to happen, because from a scheme standpoint, there aren’t that many different ways to line up in this world. And they line up and they find ways to get an extra helmet up into the box when you’re running the ball and find ways to double the receiver they need to double or keep this guy out of the scheme that they need to keep out. I mean, they’re sound in everything that they do. They’ve given up some big plays.
REPORTER: What’s your assessment of Ira Guilford, and do you think we’ll be seeing him more on Saturday?
TRESSEL: I thought Ira came in and did a darn good job. He’s an aggressive guy. He gets better all the time learning what needs to be done. It was a tough environment for him as the first time where he played significantly, but you have to learn somewhere. And against Iowa’s defense isn’t a bad place to start, but I thought he did a good job.
REPORTER: Is Tony Gonzalez red shirting this year? Because I know he said he wanted to play this game against his brother. Is he red shirting?
TRESSEL: At this moment he is, I’m pretty sure he would be. Red shirting is a day-to-day thing. If all of a sudden there’s a rash of injuries at a certain position, a guy might have to take a red shirt off. We need to do what the 2003 team needs. But at this moment, I’m guessing for the rest of the year, he would be red shirted, and he’s going to be a good one. He does a great job down there against our defense.
REPORTER: Will he travel to Indiana?
TRESSEL: Not if he — you know, if something happens where all of a sudden we need him to fulfill a bunch of injuries, yes, but probably not.
REPORTER: Have you made a determination yet whether he’s a defensive back or wide receiver?
TRESSEL: Wide receiver.
REPORTER: You talk about the needs of the 2003 team. Clearly Ira Guilford is a person who came in and had their plans changed a little bit for the needs of the 2003 team. Has the staff talked a little bit about whether or not Ira will indeed stay a running back next year with incoming recruits, or is that something that’s just going to be a decision next fall?
TRESSEL: You know, believe it or not, we’ve talked about how are we going to get the next first down. We haven’t talked — we do have recruiting meetings and are we interested in this guy and this guy and this guy, but we have not sat down and said, okay, Shane’s gone and Freddie’s gone and so and so’s gone, who’s going to fill in? That’s work for another time. But I think you have to applaud Ira Guilford, who, we’re losing two safeties, he wanted to come in and compete to be a starting safety, I asked him to do something for the good of the team, which might take a little longer to get in the flux, and he was unselfish enough to do that. So what lies down the road, I don’t know.
REPORTER: Fred, have you had an opportunity to talk to your dad about this honor this weekend?
PAGAC: Briefly, I know he’s pretty excited about this. Coach Tressel told me a while ago that this was going to happen. He’s pretty excited, and I’m excited for him to come up to the game.
REPORTER: Coach, what’s the status on Darrion Scott and his health?
TRESSEL: Darrion played, what, about 20 plays, Pug, something like that? He played about 20 plays and was not as effective as he was when he’s 100% healthy, but you’d like to think he’d be healthier each week. Same thing with Alex. He lined up next to Shane the whole game, and he wasn’t as healthy as he normally is, but our hopes are that guys that get banged up keep coming, keep getting a little bit better. You hope all the training they do, the amount of time and effort these guys do to prepare for a season and then have some unfortunate injuries, you hope that preparation helps them by the end get back and be ready to roll when it really is crunch time. And so we’re hoping that Alex and Darrion both are ready to take another step.
REPORTER: Jim, have you determined you want to stay with the offensive line the way it was Saturday or would you consider putting Bryce back in as a starter.
TRESSEL: I think Tuesday practice is a little bit premature. I would say if the game were today, we’d line up the way we did. I like it at times when you do get different guys in the game. I think sometimes it’s a little easier to rotate guys in the game when you’re being effective. That may be counter to some thinking. But when you’re struggling, sometimes changing combinations isn’t always the answer for that moment. So I would like to be able to play more than five guys. I think all we played was five; is that right? Yeah. And I always like it in the course of a game if we can play more than five, but we’ll see.
REPORTER: Shane, I know you don’t have the same guys in there as last year, but can you compare? Do you think you guys have taken a step back on the line this year?
OLIVEA: I don’t think we’ve taken a step back, it’s just the production that we’re accustomed to, for whatever reason. Maybe a guy is staying in his block a half a second longer or a back needed to beat a safety. For whatever reason, we just haven’t done it. We’ve kind of had the same system since last year. That’s what makes it the most frustrating because we had so many guys back in the rotation, and the expectations were high, but you can only try to do your part. I can only try to block my guy harder, longer. That’s one thing Coach Bollman and Coach Tressel always stress, give us an extra second, give us a little extra effort, and that’s the only thing I can do. I can’t play 10 other positions. So I think there comes a point where you have to just say, this guy’s not touching Craig, and this guy’s not making a tackle and just kind of have that attitude every snap. But it’s definitely been frustrating, but I think we’re taking some baby steps, like in the second half, when we had to run the ball, run some clock down, we did. And, like I said, I think hopefully we can build off that momentum in the second half and finish out the rest of the season strong.
REPORTER: For Fred, Shane mentioned earlier that from an offensive standpoint, you get frustrated if you’re not helping the defense out on three and out. What is the defense, do you guys get frustrated with, come on guys, or what’s your mentality when you’re watching the offense struggling like it has at times?
PAGAC: I’m almost positive no one on the defense really gets frustrated. Just like Shane said, it’s a team sport, and we just need to pick up the offense when they’re down and try to help them out. We’re going to go out there and do the best we can to help out the team. If the offense is doing bad, we’re going to do everything we can to stop the opposing offense, just to give our offense a chance to get back and score some points. So I’m positive guys aren’t frustrated. They’re just out there to try to make the other guys better and try to help each other out, trying to pick up the team.
REPORTER: From a defensive player, Fred, does the defensive unit actually relish, to a certain extent, not that the offense is doing poorly, but do they relish to a certain extent that the fans, when they see the defense, they’re excited, they cheer, do they view the defense as the strong suit of the team?
PAGAC: You know, I’m not really sure. Maybe guys have different opinions, but I think the defense just really believe they have to go out there and do the same job that they do every week, just try to get better, just try to improve every week and do the best they can at each position and just do their assignments. I really think that that’s what people play for.
REPORTER: Jim, was that Jenkins thing, the punt return, just a one-game deal, or is that something you might —
TRESSEL: If it was, it probably won’t be. We just felt, based upon what we wanted to do, that he was the right guy to do it, but we didn’t have any empirical data that would prove that. Now, we do. So I would say we would be well served to leave him back there.
REPORTER: So Gamble will be kind of the key locker guy?
TRESSEL: Anti-sniper, the hold-up guy.
REPORTER: Michael seemed to bring an attitude, too, though. Is that as important as anything else to that?
TRESSEL: Yeah, I think anytime — you know, leadership is crucial. Mike Jenkins was selected as a captain by his teammates. He brings a certain something. When you’re down there in the trenches, if you’re a Shane Olivea, you bring something. Fred Pagac in front of the huddle brings something. No question, Mike Jenkins brought a level of excitement and maybe nervousness, who knows, but he wanted to go after it.
REPORTER: Coach, Branden Joe, it seems as if perhaps he were more healthy, that would help you out. Where is he at right now? He got in for a handful of plays.
TRESSEL: He got in for about nine plays for somebody, I forget who it was, and kind of took a step back health-wise and fought through that for a couple of weeks. In fact, I don’t think he practiced a whole bunch during the open week, did he? I don’t think so, no. He’s just kind of on the road to recovery. How much more, we just kind of wait and hear from the doctors, as to how much they’ll allow us. I think today’s practice, which I’ve seen the list of who can do what, he’s a noncontact guy today, which at fullback, I don’t know what you’re going to do.
REPORTER: Is that the pectoral thing, same problem?
TRESSEL: Yes.
REPORTER: I’m wondering, last year Lydell and Maurice had better statistics, yards per carry kind of thing. I wonder if it’s more difficult being a lead guy as opposed to a back-up and maybe they’re having difficulty responding to the pressure of being a lead guy.
TRESSEL: You know, that could be, I suppose, one of the factors. You’re on that eternal search for one reason for every situation and I don’t think there is one reason. I don’t know that their health, for instance, has been as healthy as they were a year ago. I don’t know if we lined up — Shane mentioned the penalty thing. I haven’t seen us in the last couple of years hurt ourselves with penalties as much as we’ve hurt ourselves, and that affects run production, because what was it, first and 25 or first and 20, whatever, you’re probably not going to run as often and so forth. But I’m sure, like anything else, we work on everything because everything does have an effect. Is there one — I suppose if my answer to your question was, yes, it’s harder to be a lead guy, then I’ll put someone else in as the lead guy and those two guys will run like crazy because they’re second and third. That’s just not the way it is.
REPORTER: Is the penalty thing an indicator of a group that’s pressing a little bit like you were talking about?
TRESSEL: It could be. A guy doesn’t flinch early leave early on a play because he’s not interested in doing the play, so perhaps that can add to the situation.
REPORTER: Coach, in the time you’ve known Drew Carter, was there ever a point where he thought about giving it up just with all these injuries and all that?
TRESSEL: You know, I’m sure he had that lonely moment sitting in his dorm or whatever saying, man, I had a shin fracture and I had an ACL, and you’re doing that rehab — I’ve never had an ACL, but they tell me it’s an excruciating few months, so I’m sure that he had his moment that is this worth it? Probably all of you in college had a moment, is this worth it? But you grind it out, and you do it, and you hope that good things come. And that’s why I’m ecstatic about the way Drew Carter has come along. We ask our seniors to have their career-best year, and if they do that, we’ll have a good team, and I’d say Drew Carter has answered that bell.
REPORTER: But he never came to you with any of those kind of questions?
TRESSEL: Oh, no. I was never in his dorm room during those lonely times.
REPORTER: You talk about sort of predicting this. We had seven teams last week in the running, maybe five now, but it’s up for grabs now.
TRESSEL: Well, you know, the Big Ten always bangs on each other. That’s just the Big Ten. I wouldn’t even pretend to tell you that I’ve thought, I wonder if so and so will beat so and so. It’s irrelevant unless we go and do our thing. So the Big Ten is hard. We’re going on the road in the Big Ten, so are half the other teams, and on Sunday, you’ll see, oh, I didn’t know that would happen, or, oh, I didn’t know that would happen, but that’s the way it is. It will be a battle all the way down to the end of November.
REPORTER: Hey, Jim, how much self-analysis do you do in terms of play-calling? Is there any concern by winning a national championship, everybody looks at the national champions. There’s obviously been a lot of study of what you guys have done. Is there any chance that scheme-wise, guys just have figured out this offense and you guys need to do some different things than you have done in the last year and a half?
TRESSEL: I think you always assume that at the end of every year, whether you’re national champions or won X amount of games, people are going to study you and say, how are we going to get this stopped, they’re going to call their buddies, hey, what do you guys think, what did you think after you played them, that’s what we do. That’s normal. Where you’d like to get, you say, hey, we’re going to run this defense. It doesn’t matter. They know what we’re lined up in. They’re going to block us anyway. Same way about your punt rush, they know we’re coming, but they can’t handle us. You line up in this offense, and they know where we’re going to be. That’s all right. They can’t handle us.
Now, there is a little thing, I think, if someone knows too clearly where you’re going to be, they’re going to make life harder on you. I think defenses have done a great job of that through the evolution of football. If you go back when Jim Lachey was playing, you wouldn’t see many of these defenses that you see that are making it harder on the run game. So the evolution has occurred. Offenses have done the same and done some things to hurt defenses and comes down to executing what you’ve designed. And most things are designed for success.
REPORTER: Do you get a sense the defense has your scheme figured out at this point?
TRESSEL: Yeah, it’s not real difficult. We have everyone else’s scheme figured out. Now you’ve got to go do it. Our guy, Fred Pagac could tell you every time a team runs up, here’s the plays they run, here’s the routes they run. Here’s how they’re going to protect it, now you’ve got to beat the guy. That’s why you practice pass rush and pass pro. I don’t know that there are — there’s an occasional trick here or there that gets you, but the tricks don’t beat you, the execution does.
REPORTER: Jim, based upon the success that Maurice Clarett had last year rushing the football, no one — it would be reasonable to assume that you and your staff put a great deal of emphasis on building around what he could do for you this year, and given his circumstances that came late, you might not have had as much time to adjust to that. You might have formulated a different plan had you known in May what you found out in August. Is there any truth to that theory that losing him the way you lost him when you lost him might have put you behind the eight ball in adjusting to him not being part of this team this year in formulating the offensive plan that you have?
TRESSEL: I don’t think that you could say that, just like if you lost Craig Krenzel like we did going into game numbers, whatever they were, four and five, that oh, gosh, we lost so and so, we thought we were going to be able to do this and that, let’s think about that a lot. I don’t know that our players or coaches have given any thought to what we would have done or wouldn’t have done because, quite honestly, we didn’t do a whole bunch different in 2001 than we did in 2002, from a scheme standpoint. So, no, I wouldn’t say that that change at that time is something we would harbor on and discuss a whole bunch.
REPORTER: Jim, talk about your pass protection a little bit. Do you feel like that’s coming along, or where is that at?
TRESSEL: You know, I think that has come along quite a bit over the course of time. Our defensive front that we’ve faced every day in the spring and every day in the preseason, I think, makes you get a lot better. And right now I would say this to you: I think that we’ve made more improvement in our pass protection than perhaps we have in our run game. And the thing that’s interesting is typically, pass protection is more difficult. There are so many things that people come at you with, the poise that it takes, the working together that it takes to handle those things. I’ve been relatively pleased with that. At times we’ve had a guy get beat, which happens. But we haven’t had a whole bunch of missed assignments. And usually, in the pass protection, if you take a group of sacks and list them 1 through 20, you’ll find over half of them were missed assignments by the people that got sacked. We haven’t had a whole bunch of that.
I think the guys will have about 10 minutes, and then Fred’s the captain of the punt team so he can’t be late for that meeting, so eight minutes, Fred, then you’ve got to get out of here.
