Transcript From The October 28th Ohio State Football Press Luncheon – Ohio State Buckeyes
10/28/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 28, 2003
TRESSEL: We got something done last weekend that we hadn’t done this year, and that’s going on the road in the Big Ten and coming up with a win. I think the fact we went in ready to go and jumped up very, very quickly with obviously the defense setting the tempo of the football game, we had a chance to get better, and we had some guys have a chance to play, and we felt good about the fact that we went ready to go and did a pretty darn good job from an execution standpoint.
We’re very aware that that was a young team we played. Sometimes when you get ahead of a young team early, I think especially that touchdown before the half, it was a little bit disheartening for their team, but our guys kept playing, and the guys that came in and got more playing time than they’ve had stepped up and played well, also.
We would have liked to keep the shutout that we had going, but we didn’t get that done, but there were a lot of good things.
Our special teams player of the week was Tyler Everett. We probably didn’t have as impactful special teams as we would like to have and as we’ll need to have here as we head to State College, but Tyler Everett was a guy on our punt unit, on our punt block unit, on our kickoff unit, has played very, very solid, very sound, very fast the entire year on the special teams, and so this weekend he was awarded the special teams player of the week.
Offensively, Lydell Ross, who’s here with us today, had 167 yards and a couple catches and did a good job on his pass protection and all of the things that were asked of him and was awarded the offensive player of the game. As Branden Joe mentioned, he had a hat trick with three touchdowns, and that was great to see.
Defensively, Tim Anderson was our defensive player of the game, and Tim is with us here today as well. Tim did a great job up front, I think not just in his performance, but in his leadership. He’s a guy that studies an extraordinary amount of film, and he sets the standard for the people around him, both in the film room, on the practice field, and in the game. And that’s what we talk constantly about is that leadership really is the actions you take; it’s not really the position you have, but it’s the actions you take. And Tim Anderson takes those actions and, once again, was the defensive player of the game.
The offensive lineman of the game was Ben Hartsock. He continues to block extremely well, does a good job in our passing game as well, and Ben Hartsock, I think, for at least the third time, was named our offensive lineman of the week.
Our attack force player of the week was Will Smith. Will continues to do great things from his defensive end position. He, too, has done a very fine job from a leadership standpoint. And when you have two leaders like Tim Anderson and Will Smith on your defensive front, you’re going to have a chance to have an outstanding defense, and we’re moving in that direction, and obviously we’ll be tested more and more as the season goes.
Our Jack Tatum hit of the week, we had four different nominations, so we’re going to have to take that to a vote this afternoon in our team meeting, so we’ll have to report that to you later as to who won the Jack Tatum hit of the week.
The scout team players that were recognized by the staff, Mike Young was the scout team offensive player of the week, a senior from Middletown who just works like crazy, and you wish you had 15 Mike Youngs on your football team. He’s just an unselfish guy that doesn’t matter if it’s scout offense, scout special teams, whatever it might be, does a great job.
Scout teams special teams player of the week was Michael Robbins, a young corner, who was working hard. He hasn’t gotten in the top eight players in the rotation and so forth from a secondary standpoint, but he’s working hard to learn this game and did a great job on our special units.
And the scout defensive player, I think, for the second time in a row or maybe two of the last three was Antonio Smith. Antonio is a defensive back that does a great job. There is so much emphasis in college football today of the secondary coming down and putting the head gear on running backs and creating situations where there are extra men in the box and stripping at the football and all of those things, and Antonio Smith does a great job for our scout defense, making sure that we understand that in practice that there are going to be extra people there and they’re going to be there fast and they’re going to be there in a bad frame of mind, and he has done a great job of emulating that for us.
We know the challenge as we go to State College this weekend. Penn State is a big, strong, very well-schooled football team. They’ve had some ball games where they were a play or two away from turning the tide and didn’t make that play and came up with some big losses in the Big Ten. I think they ended the Minnesota game on the 13 yard line going in, losing 20-14. Their Iowa game got turned a little bit with some special teams things. Their Wisconsin game got turned by a punt return by Jim Leonhard of Wisconsin. They’ve had some tough matched football games, and I think one thing we all knew and they knew going into the football game, in some positions Penn State is going to be young. Now they’re going into the game nine, and they’re not young in those positions anymore. They’ve had to battle the injury bug a little bit which has been tough for them. Their quarterback, Zach Mills has been in and out, and when you lose practice time at any position, but most especially at the quarterback position, I think that affects your whole group.
Robinson has done a great job when he’s had opportunities in there. Their running back seemed to be getting better and better as time goes. They’ve gone to being very effective throwing the football to their tight ends, and so we understand that we’re going to have to do some things similar to what we did a week ago, and that’s go from snap one, being ready to play the best we’re capable of playing, but we also know that it’s going to be a lot tougher challenge as we go to Happy Valley, and we’re looking forward to that challenge and looking forward today going to work to prepare for Penn State.
We’ll open it up for questions for Tim Anderson and Lydell and myself.
REPORTER: Do you think Joe Paterno’s somewhat uncertain future there is beginning to affect the program with the evolution the last couple of years?
TRESSEL: Well, you know, we recruit in Pennsylvania. We haven’t had great success in Pennsylvania, and a lot of it has been because Penn State, you know, has been fortunate enough to sign the players that we were interested in. So I have not seen that in Pennsylvania. We don’t bump into them as much elsewhere. They do come into Ohio, and the Ohio guys are more than anxious to go look and see what Penn State has. So you’d like to think that the young guys pick the school for the school, and sometimes we, as coaches, think that maybe we’re more a part of that than we really are. So I have not seen that.
REPORTER: Is Pitt doing better there?
TRESSEL: I think Pitt’s done a good job. You know, Pitt had a little time there where they weren’t doing quite as well. Then they’ve had some moderate success that has opened the eyes, and I think the new facilities over at Pitt have done a good job of giving opportunities for locker right next to the Pittsburgh Steelers and that type of thing. I think they’ve done a good job over there and, perhaps, some of what Pitt has been able to do has affected Penn State, but I think as you look at what affects the outcome of games, it’s been more the things on the field that haven’t been done than simply saying that there’s anything personnel-wise.
REPORTER: The recruiters use his — I don’t know how many years he has on the field, but do they use that against him now?
TRESSEL: I don’t know that. I’ve never said to a young man, hey, don’t consider so and so because of the head coach, for whatever reason, but I can’t speak for anyone else.
REPORTER: Can you update us on Drew?
TRESSEL: Drew Carter had an MRI, and he does have an injury. He’ll be out for the year, which is devastating in my mind, because here’s a senior who has been playing his best football and has done everything Ohio State could ever ask of him for five years and withstood injuries and disappointments and less playing time than he’d hoped to have, but he always had a positive attitude and always did whatever. He worked his way into the lineup first here on special teams, which is what you appreciate about a guy being willing to do whatever it takes to help the football team, and to lose him as a person, you know, is the toughest thing. And obviously the plays that he’s been able to make, we’ll be able to line someone else up in that position, but we’ll have to find out if they’ll make the plays that he’s been making.
REPORTER: Will he have surgery anytime soon, Jim?
TRESSEL: I think he’s going to have a surgery as soon as it gets strong enough and that type of thing, but I don’t know exactly what we’re allowed to say with the privacy things, but I expect him to have surgery.
REPORTER: Coach, Drew missed a season a couple years ago due to an injury. Is he still eligible for a red shirt year for that season? Has there been any talk of that at all?
TRESSEL: Really haven’t had any talk of that. It just was, I think — the evaluation of the MRI and all that stuff was yesterday. This is his fifth year, and he played, what is it — how many games have we played, eight? I think you’d have a hard time. I don’t know, though. It hasn’t been checked on.
REPORTER: Could you tell us if it’s one ligament or two, more than one ligament?
TRESSEL: I don’t know. I probably could — maybe I should answer your question, I can’t tell you.
REPORTER: Who’s going to move into his spot? Have you decided yet?
TRESSEL: Well, the guys that have been playing the same position, Santonio Holmes, Bam Childress, Chris Gamble. That’s the question you were waiting for anyways, so anticipation.
REPORTER: Yeah.
TRESSEL: Chris can help us some there. I think Roy Hall, you know, has to step up, along with the other guys. Those would be the guys that would fill in the gap, if you will.
REPORTER: Would you start Gamble?
TRESSEL: Would you start him?
REPORTER: Yeah.
TRESSEL: Possibly, according to what we’re going to do.
REPORTER: You mentioned after the buy week that Chris was a little dinged. I’m curious whether that’s why you’ve been hesitant to use him on offense or the time wasn’t right. I think most of us expected to see him more on offense by now.
TRESSEL: I think the fact, maybe two or threefold; one, he was a little bit banged up; two, in those early hot weather games, I was very concerned that you could overdo a guy and all of a sudden, he just didn’t have enough left for the Big Ten season. I think early, those early games, people were throwing it 50 times a game, and that’s a lot of work out there, and there was a lot of pressure being put on the secondary, and, fortunately, a decent amount of those 50 passes, we’re getting pressure on those guys, and they needed to throw it a little sooner than they should have, but still you need to be breaking it up and making tackles and so forth.
But if you add all those things up, I think that’s why we didn’t see Chris as much. I think I could safely say we will see him more in the last four league games than we saw him in the first four because I think we only saw him three plays.
You wanted something, Dave, I gave you something.
REPORTER: Jim, when you look at Penn State, what are some of the things that you see them do that are positives?
TRESSEL: They’re a physical football team. I’ve been watching their defense, who I think puts great pressure on you. Penn State historically has been known as a team that puts pressure on you. They were eight people up in the box before that became something people talked about a lot. They put a lot of pressure on you. They stunt. They blitz. I think there their cover people are better than they’ve been. I thought two or three years ago, while they were putting that pressure on you, maybe you could exploit their corners. I think their corners are very, very solid.
On the offensive side of things, as I go through play by plays and make the transition between defensive series, you can see that Michael Robinson can make plays. You can also see that some turnovers have hurt them. You can see that some special teams transition has hurt them, yet they’ve had some opportunities to put some pressure on in both their special teams and their offense.
They’ve thrown the ball to the tight end very effectively the last two or three games, and I only say that because we were studying Wisconsin, and we had the Penn State-Wisconsin game, and I thought they did a great job of throwing the football to the tight end, and they’re physical. They don’t stop playing. If you turned on the film and watched any of the Big Ten ball games they’ve been in, it’s been a play or two plays that have turned the game, not into anything of a decisive victory, but the people that have beat them by a touchdown, have made a play or two more than they did.
Lydell and Tim Anderson are here as well.
REPORTER: Tim, what’s your opinion on what you’ve studied on the — on their offense so far, what’s your opinion of it?
ANDERSON: Actually, I haven’t had a chance to watch them yet. Sunday we graded the film from Saturday, and yesterday was our day off. Normally Tuesday is the first day I can get in there and really study it, but I’m here, so —
REPORTER: What do you think you executed well looking at what you’ve studied so far?
ANDERSON: Big thing on Saturday, everybody did what they were supposed to do. You can look at the tape and see on just about every play there was a guy in every single gap and, you know, from the linebackers to the D line to the DBs, everybody was where they needed to be. When your defense does that, there’s really not much place for a running back to go.
REPORTER: Jim, how much of the fact that they’re leading the nation in pass defense is due to the fact that they’re 107 against the run?
TRESSEL: I think teams have, especially early on, run it better against them than normal. In the last two games, Iowa has thrown the ball for more yards than anyone against them, and that’s only been 174. I think you can attribute that to probably a number of things. One, I haven’t seen them get beat deep, and when you have a good number, when your past defense yards are low, it’s because you haven’t given up big plays. I think their games have been shortened a little bit from the standpoint that there has been a lot of running, really, by both groups from that standpoint, but I think they’re pretty sound back there, and I don’t think it’s any fluke that Purdue’s a pretty good passing team. Purdue threw for 130 yards. And I thought when I read the statistics that, well, maybe they didn’t try to throw, but they were spread out. They ran maybe a little more power football than Purdue normally does, but they were spread out and throwing their normal stuff. Penn State puts pressure on you. You’re going to have to let it go fast because I don’t know what the exact percentages are, but they come a lot more than any team we’ve faced this year.
REPORTER: Let me try again. What’s been the problem then with them giving up over 200 a game rushing?
TRESSEL: I think they were young as they began the year, and they’ve played, oh, probably 9 or 10 different people on their front, and now they’ve got guys who you can see now are playing better than they were the first three or four weeks. And like any good team, you’ll be really able to answer those questions when you see how they do in November, and they look to me like they’ve improved as they’ve gone, and you might not see those rushing numbers had you not seen some of the special teams situations that have occurred or some of the turnovers. But, again, they’re all so meshed, that I don’t think you can talk about one without the other.
REPORTER: Tim, you played a lot in that Penn State game over there two years ago, and I just wonder, if you follow Big Ten football and you follow Zach Mills’ lack of being able to do what he did to you guys that day defensively, if it surprises you that he looked like kind of a budding star that day and really that’s been his — he hasn’t surpassed that or been close to that the last two seasons, he’s really struggled a little bit, was that surprising to you based on what you saw that day two years ago?
ANDERSON: Obviously, he had a real good day that day, and I thought last year he had a pretty good year. This year, I obviously don’t know the details, but I think he’s missed a few games with some injuries and that type of thing. I think he’s had a pretty decent year there. I don’t obviously know much about his stats or anything like that, but I hear good things about him in the media and that type of thing.
REPORTER: What do you remember most, though, about what he did that day?
ANDERSON: He took the game over. I mean, that’s one of the games that pretty much anyone who played on defense that day remembers since we gave up a pretty big lead at half time and ended up losing the game. But he led his team in the second half, and he kind of — he took the game over for them and gave those — gave his teammates something to look up to and led them.
REPORTER: Lydell, after you looked at the tape from the running game of last week, what is there that you can build off of for the rest of the season?
ROSS: I just think we were doing a lot of things right from the offensive line to pass protection to passing the ball. I think we can build off all the success we had this past weekend.
REPORTER: Lydell, were you doing anything different? It seemed like you were very good at, like, seeing the holes that game, maybe the best you had all year. Was there anything you did different that year that you were able to do that?
ROSS: That starts at the offensive line. They were doing an exceptional job Saturday, and it was just easy to read the holes.
REPORTER: Jim, you said quite a few times you like to rotate the backs, two or three guys for the Big Ten season. With that said, how much have you been kind of sitting back and waiting for one of these guys to take hold of the job and prove that they can be the main guy like Maurice was last year?
TRESSEL: I think the thing we haven’t had this year really up until this past game was the health of our backs being consistent. Mo has been banged a little bit, Lydell was banged early a little bit, Ira Guilford got in there a little bit against Iowa and got banged. And so we just have not had that continuity and rhythm, and I thought what Lydell gave us on Saturday was that he gave us some continuity of how he was going to hit things. I thought he did a great job of keeping his shoulders square. And when you get a little bit of push up front like we did, that makes it a lot easier to stay square and hit it wherever you have to hit it, but I thought he did a good job of being able to hit it play side, hit it back side, and we got a little continuity going, and I thought that was helpful. I don’t know how many carries he had, but 20-some. I’ve always wanted to have a tailback in the back field get 20-some carries and maybe another guy get in the teens and maybe another guy seven or eight, that type of thing. I’ve just always thought that that’s the healthy way to approach the run game if you really want to be good. And so if Lydell will promise me that many yards, he’ll get that many carries, right, Lydell?
ROSS: That’s right.
REPORTER: Jim, as we analyze the problems with the offense over the last couple weeks, several players have said, it’s just a matter of getting in a rhythm, maybe breaking a big one here and there. You’ve got to have that kind of confident kind of feeling after that game Saturday, is that enough to make a difference and sustain itself over the next four weeks, and Lydell, if you can answer that one after the coach.
TRESSEL: I think we have to sustain it this week. We have to go out and practice that way, and we have to go out and play that way against Penn State. Lost in the 600 yards and all that stuff is the fact that we still turned the ball over three times and that won’t win at State College. We still had too many penalties, which you cannot get behind the count. We were fortunate, I thought Craig did a nice job when we were behind the count dropping the ball off to Lydell and Branden Joe and a couple guys that made some third and longs that really the route called design to throw for it wasn’t there, but Craig took what they gave them and hit some plays. But we have to make sure that we do gain confidence from our execution on Saturday, both run and pass, as Lydell mentioned, but also, we’ve got to clearly understand that three turnovers against Penn State, we’re going to have a problem.
REPORTER: Jim, is that a mental thing, though, at this point or how would you describe the turnover situation? I mean, all of them have been kind of strange in their own little way.
TRESSEL: We always talk about the fact that you have to believe that that’s the most important thing we do as an offense is contribute toward the team by not erroring. I just think that’s crucial. Why did we have turnovers? I think you could look at the one interception and say that you don’t throw late over the middle. You just don’t. And it might work once out of six times, but the other five times is not going to be a good thing. And then the other thing, I think, the two times we had the ball stripped out when we had it in our hands was you have to believe that there’s nothing more important that you do that play, whether it’s gain more yards and catch it or stretch for the end zone, whatever it happens to be, nothing is more important than handing that ball to the official. And we have to believe that and we have to do that if we’re going to make the contribution that our offense needs to make.
REPORTER: Coach —
TRESSEL: I think Lydell was supposed to answer one question here.
ROSS: What was the question again?
REPORTER: Just on the confidence that you guys gained from the kind of game you had Saturday, several players had told us in the preceding weeks, was being able to break a couple big plays and being able to bust out, so to speak. Was that game Saturday enough to sustain yourself offensively over the next three or four weeks?
ROSS: I think we can definitely build off it, build off the positive things we’ve done, and I think we can also get better, too, and look forward to Penn State.
REPORTER: Will you talk a little bit about Santonio Holmes. Seemed to have an incredible amount of athletic ability, but he seems also to have a propensity to turn the ball over. What is the coaching staff doing, what is Santonio doing to correct that problem?
TRESSEL: Well, I think the only way that you can clearly get it corrected is for Santonio to understand that there’s nothing more important than taking care of the football, end of story. What can we do about it? I guess we can assess how far along is he learning that lesson, and then how much he plays will be proportional to how we feel about that. But I think Santonio is going to be a good player, but he’s got to take care of the football. So here we go, we’re going to Happy Valley, and we’re going to find out how well he did that this week in practice, and that will determine how much he plays. And then as we get into the game, it will have a profound effect on how we do as a team. If he’s fortunate to get the ball, you know, does he take care of it?
REPORTER: Follow-up on that, is it something that just happens in the game time mainly, or is it something he also struggles with in practice?
TRESSEL: We don’t do a whole bunch of tackling now with our receivers getting smashed as they catch the ball and that type of thing at this point in the season. Our backs get thumped a little bit, but it’s up high. We don’t do a whole bunch of tackling. We do a lot of that in the spring and the preseason. I don’t think Santonio was flawless in the spring, in the preseason, but I wouldn’t use the word “propensity,” but it’s got to be something that he matures and understands that there is nothing more important than that.
REPORTER: How do you make your choice between he, Childress, and Chris Gamble. Gamble is somewhat of a known commodity, but Childress and he had their best games of their career. In terms of finding the guy you can count on there, can you make that pick in one week?
TRESSEL: I think you begin moving toward that in practice. I would say going into this game, if you asked me right now, I would say all three of them will see some time, and we hope that there’s an emergence of production from all three of them, or if there happens to be from just one or two of them, that that’s who we would go with, but that would be the game plan is to go to work on it, and we’re going to be out there this afternoon without number 8, and someone’s going to have to step up and do all that he’s been doing if we want to keep getting better.
REPORTER: You said Roy Hall’s got to step up. He’s played pretty well on special teams. What’s holding him back as a receiver now?
TRESSEL: The biggest thing is he plays behind Mike Jenkins, and Mike’s always there. He’s not a guy that you look at him and he looks tired. When you need him, you need him. And so I guess you just kind of get to the point where you leave him in there. One thing Roy can do, because we’re going to be rotating some other guys into Drew’s vacant position, there will be some other positions within — especially when we’re three wides and so forth, that he’ll be able to perhaps evolve into helping us, and it’s going to be an opportunity for him, as well, as was mentioned in earlier questions, Chris Gamble is a known commodity. Santonio and Bam stepped up and had some opportunities. Roy Hall, the only opportunity he had, he converted a first down on a third and eight and got about 12 and got banged pretty good and handed the ball to the official, so he’ll have opportunities.
REPORTER: Is there that big of an adjustment from split end to flanker?
TRESSEL: No.
REPORTER: So it’s something he could cross over.
TRESSEL: Sure. They all should be able to play them all.
REPORTER: Jim, obviously Coach Paterno is under a lot of scrutiny, they’ve lost four in a row for the second time in three years, I think. What are your thoughts on the pressure he’s under there, a guy at his status, people calling for his head, basically?
TRESSEL: Well, knowing Coach Paterno as I know him, no one is being more difficult on him than he is. He’s a competitive guy. You wouldn’t be coaching for, I don’t know, 40 something — I don’t know how many years he’s been the head coach. You wouldn’t be doing it that long if you didn’t have a passion to compete. And he likes to win. He knew going into this season that he lost a lot of great seniors and he was going to have a battle from the get-go, and I’ve never seen Joe Paterno shy away from a battle, so I’m sure he’s consumed with what he’s doing. He’ll do fine.
REPORTER: What are your thoughts on coaches coaching into their 70s like that, and do you think that has any impact on their ability to be successful coaches?
TRESSEL: I’ve never been into my 70s yet. I hope I make it there. Gosh, I don’t know. If you do a good job, I don’t know why you couldn’t write into your 70s or use a camera into your 70s or, you know, be on TV into your 70s, as long as you’re doing a good job. And it’s hard to question his record.
REPORTER: I know you’re still, what, 50 some years away from that, but can you imagine yourself doing that?
TRESSEL: Gosh, I don’t know. In my 70s? Not a promise.
REPORTER: Does it put it in any perspective for you that Paterno is, I think, one year younger than your father, and he’s still coaching?
TRESSEL: You know what, if my father was living, he might still be coaching. I don’t know. Those coaches, you know, we’re hard to pry away from your passion and the things you love. The interaction with the players and what is outside of all those statistics and that kind of thing, I don’t know whether you can replace that. So that may be what has gone into the decision for many, many people to coach many, many years.
REPORTER: One of the commentaries that you read right now and struggles that they’re having is the game has passed him by. I’m just wondering, you watch him on film, and how do you react to that, the prevailing notion that he’s at an age that everybody’s passed him by?
TRESSEL: Well, I don’t know exactly what part of things he works directly with from an X and O standpoint. You know, I don’t know. But I know this, that what he was doing for many, many years on defense and continues to do, a lot of it is what we do. If you look at the things that we do with our defense and our front and our secondary and our zone blitz and blitz and whatnot, that’s what they do. From an offensive standpoint, Tim mentioned the game where Zach Mills came in and did a good job against us two years ago. That’s no different than the plays we ran against Miami with Craig in the Fiesta Bowl, and everyone thought that that was a great idea. We got the idea, I guess, from Penn State. So I wouldn’t — I couldn’t buy that one.
REPORTER: Coach, with your 603 yards the other day, we talked about the skill guys, what was the key with your line play? Any progression that you noticed from the weeks prior?
TRESSEL: I thought — as Lydell mentioned, I thought we got movement, and you know, I can remember Earle Bruce saying it a million times if he said it once, if you get the good running back’s feet to the line of scrimmage, that good running back is going to make something happen. What our defense does a good job of is disrupting the line of scrimmage, and it’s hard sometimes for good backs. What has happened to us some is that we’ve had some disruption at the line of scrimmage. I thought our offensive line did a great job of taking care of the line of scrimmage. Now, it was a younger group, not nearly as talented a group as the one we’re going to face this weekend, so we’re going to have to raise a notch, but our guys believe they can do that. You have to take care of the line of scrimmage in the run and the protection in the pass. It doesn’t matter who you have handling the ball.
REPORTER: Do you have a mental shelf, I’m wondering, if two years ago, the way that game went down against State College, if that hurt?
TRESSEL: I think anytime you’re ahead of the game and your guys have done what it takes to get in that position and then we didn’t finish — I think we had that happen at Wisconsin that same year, and when you don’t finish a game like you know you can, we didn’t finish this year’s Wisconsin game like we knew we could, obviously those games hurt.
REPORTER: As good as the line played, wasn’t it kind of weird that Hartsock was the player of the week again?
TRESSEL: Ben is at the tackle a lot. We like to run the ball off tackle, and he had — I forget what his grade was 86 or — it was pretty darn good. And, again, occasionally, we have to remind Ben that he’s a lineman. He gets these catches occasionally and — but he’s done a good job.
REPORTER: Tim, is Penn State a difficult place to play? You guy’s essentially had a home game last weekend. I just wonder if you hear a lot about Penn State being loud and stuff. Is it indeed a difficult place to play, or is it constructed in a way that the noise doesn’t affect you on the field?
ANDERSON: I’m not real sure because the last time we were there, they weren’t done with the stadium reconfigurations, so it wasn’t as big as it is now, I’m guessing. But, I mean, it is a difficult place. A couple years ago, it was pretty loud, and, fortunately, with us playing here most of the time, we’re able to adapt to the noise and it doesn’t cause much problem.
REPORTER: I wonder, for the players, with a lot at stake here, if you run the table, good things will happen, how much is that something that you are aware of or try not to be aware of, or how do you approach that?
ANDERSON: Pretty simple, we play Penn State this weekend, and nothing else really matters. I’ve seen interviews with Coach Tressel and once you look — I can’t remember exactly what he says, but something about if you look past who you have to play, bad things will happen or something like that.
TRESSEL: I’ve been misquoted.
ANDERSON: But we can’t worry about the polls. We can’t worry about what other teams are going to do and that kind of thing. We just need to focus on what we can do, how we can get better and focus on Penn State and what we can do to try to beat them.
REPORTER: Tim, what has really come along on this defense, though? Are you older guys a little surprised by how well you all are playing or not and based on who you all lost and who stepped in? What’s really come along?
ANDERSON: I think a lot of our young guys really stepped up. I know especially up on the defensive front, Marcus Green, he didn’t play last weekend, but he stepped it up quite a bit. Quinn Pitcock is doing a great job for us. You can look at it at the linebacker position and DBs as well, we all have guys that have stepped it up, and, you know, that definitely helps.
REPORTER: Does it feel a little bit like last year at times, the way you all kind of — I was going to stay strangled people, that was a wrong choice of words there, but the way you all have kind of stuffed people? Does it kind of feel like that a little bit?
ANDERSON: I’ve never really thought about it, but obviously where we’re at, we need to get better. But we’ve just got to keep working. Obviously it feels good when we can go in and stuff fronting attacks like we did on Saturday, but we know that even though it looked like a great performance, when we came in on Sunday, we still had a lot of mistakes and a lot of things we can shore up and get better at. That’s what we need to do.
REPORTER: Lydell, do you think the worst is behind the running game now that you’ve kind of turned a corner?
ROSS: I think we have something to build on from last Saturday, and I think if we continue to not make too many mistakes and get better, it looks pretty successful.
REPORTER: Lydell, what benefit could you see for yourself if you’re getting the 20-some carries a game, just kind of getting in a rhythm during the game?
ROSS: Like Coach Tressel said, I felt like I kept my shoulders square a lot more Saturday, and I felt like I could see the whole field just from the movement I was getting up front on the line.
