Transcript From The September 2nd Ohio State Football Press Luncheon – Ohio State Buckeyes
9/2/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 2, 2003
Windows A/V Press Luncheon
(Transcription by Professional Reporters, Inc. 800-229-0675)
SNAPP: We’ve got a tight schedule today, so coach and all the players need to be out of here by 1:00, so if we’re going to try to do anything one on one afterwards, you might have to cut off a few questions. The first six periods of practice are open today for filming. After the walk-through. I’ll give the high sign to start filming at the end of those six periods, practice is closed. San Diego State has asked for a workout on Friday afternoon. That is open to the media. Interviews with the coach afterwards, but not open for filming. Coach?
TRESSEL: Thank you, Steve. I worry about what Rusty always walks up and puts on that speaker. Good, just wanted to make sure. Well, obviously our kids came out and played hard on Saturday night and I think they were excited that camp was over, which is always part of going into that first game. I think they were excited when they saw the atmosphere that was created there in Ohio Stadium and you could feel the electricity and the enthusiasm. I think their preparation has been good. They have been very aware when you’re the defending national champions that people are going to play you better than they are and they’re going to prepare hard because they have a chance to line up against you and our guys worked accordingly. I thought our camp was good and you never know going into the first game exactly the way things are going to be because you’ve been playing against one another for so long and I think it was a breath of fresh air to go out and play against someone else, a good Washington football team, a team that had been through some adversities throughout the course of the summer with their staff and they had four new members, I think, of their staff even before their latest adversity and they came out and I thought, played hard as well. We talk every year about the fact that we’ll have a chance to have a good team if our seniors have a career-best year. Any coach that’s ever coached knows that that’s the case and as you graded our film after the game, it was interesting in that 15 of our defensive players played enough plays to qualify for a winning performance and six of those 15 guys on the defensive side were seniors that played outstanding football and led the way and set the tempo for the way that the whole group should play. Over on the offensive side, we had seven of our guys grade a winning performance, all seven of which were seniors, and they, too, set the tone for how they want their team to play, how they want to get after it. And when your seniors are playing like that, if they’ll continue to raise their level of play, we have a chance to become as good as, I think, we’re capable of becoming.
From an individual award standpoint, if you will, the special units player of the week was Robert Reynolds, did a great job on the punt, did a great job on the field goal block unit and showed that, you know, sometimes people get concerned that, well, do the starters really want to be on special units, even though we as coaches talk about them maybe even more impactful than offense or defense. A guy like Robert Reynolds playing with the effort he did on special teams set the statement that everyone needs to play that way even if you’re the starting linebacker on the defensive. The offensive player of the week was Craig Krenzel, he was 15 for 27 for 203 yards. Most important statistic was that he had no interceptions and made good decisions. He rushed for two touchdowns when things were covered and probably the thing that was most impressive to me about Craig’s performance was he appeared, in my mind, to have great command of what we were trying to do. And when a quarterback has great command, and he doesn’t turn the football over, we’re going to have a good chance to move the ball, we’re going to have a good chance to win the game and Craig Krenzel was the offensive player of the game. The defensive player of the game was Will Smith. Will had six tackles, a couple of assists, hit the quarterback five times. Which at the end of the game, one of the things that you as a defensive coach count up is how many times did you get to hit the quarterback and you, as an offensive coach, count up how many times did they get to hit ours. Our defense got to hit the quarterback 20 times, which is a heck of a lot of times and Will hit the quarterback five of those times and was our defensive player of the week. Offensive lineman of the week was Alex Stepanovich, and Alex is here today as is Rob. Alex graded 88%, which is an extremely high grade. When you’re a guy making all the decisions, the guy playing two positions, as Alex did, he did a great job setting the tempo and the tone for our offensive line as for how we want to finish plays and how we want to finish in the end zone and he did a great job leading up front there.
On a side note, all four of those senior offensive linemen graded, Shane Olivea graded an 88% as well and Bryce Bishop and Adrien Clarke both graded great performances. So we you have your four leaders up there grading like they did, you have a chance to have a good performance.
Our attack force player of the week was Simon Fraser and Simon made three or four big plays. He had a number of tackles, I think three tackles for a loss. Did an excellent job. I think all of you asked the question going into the season, well, you lose a Kenny Peterson and you lose a David Thompson, who’s going to rise up and give that defensive front, the depth and performance it’s had in the past. I thought Simon Fraser took a step toward doing that, as did a number of those young guys. I think we played 10 young guys across that defensive front, which was a heck of a thing for us, and they went in and played well. And the guys that haven’t played before learned some good lessons, learned off the film, and did a heck of a job there.
The Jack Tatum hit of the week which was voted on by the players, tie think there were three or four nominations and the nomination that won, which was a nonscientific applause meter, the off-tackle play that Bryce Bishop pulled around to the left and just totally blasted the linebacker for Washington, and then Lydell Ross finished it off by running through the safety, Bryce Bishop was voted by the team as the Jack Tatum hit of the week.
We talk all the time about the importance and just how crucial the scout teams are. That doesn’t change in a first game. It doesn’t change in a 12th game. They are so critical to us being prepared to face what we’re going to face each week. And the award winners from the scout team standpoint on the special units was Michael Young, who did a great job on punt rush against us, kickoff against us, anything that you could possibly need a look at, he was there doing it. The scout offensive player of the week was Todd Beckman, who we’re real happy with as a young quarterback and we’re excited about his progress. And then the scout team defensive player of the week was Marcel Frost. He brought steady play, even brought a little electricity to practice occasionally, and Marcel is going to be a good football player and it was fun to see him get us prepared to play against those edge players at Washington.
Probably the thing from a coaching standpoint that we felt as good about as anything,was the effort and how hard our guys played, but it was also the fact that there were so many teachable moments in that game. There were so many different situations that occurred. There were obvious impact of punts that are downed on the 1 yard line. We downed a punt on the 1, our defense stops them, Chris Gamble brings the punt back, we scored to make it 21-0. That’s huge. The impact of things like that. The game almost got turned back the other direction when they dropped a punt on the half yard line and we didn’t get it out of there as we should have. Those kinds of things that impact and you learn from firsthand and not just talk about, we had to use our tight punt formation, which we haven’t used, I don’t think, for the last two years because we were punting from back inside the 3. We had to use our hands team. We had to use our hands team in such a way that they didn’t kick on-side sand we had to go try to block, which was a teaching moment.
We had the opportunity to work on a lot of our special teams with a lot of young guys who have never been in a game before, and they now have seen themselves on film and I think we’ll have marked improvement. We talk all the time about the improvement between game one and game two. That’s what we will set out this afternoon to make sure that we have that. I think that goes the same in year one and year two. San Diego State in year one lost their first five games, came back and won four out of five and then lost a couple, something like that, ended up 4-3 in their league. This is year two for San Diego State. They will be so much better than the film we have studied from last year than we can even imagine. They have a game under their belt with Eastern Washington, which I thought it was a well-schooled football team. They played hard, didn’t have quite the guns that San Diego State did, and so I don’t even think we have a film on campus that will show us how good San Diego State is going to play in Ohio Stadium. Maybe the only film we have on campus that might indicate that is the one from two years ago when we were down 12-6 and it should have been 19-6. We threw the ball right to their strong safety who should have picked it and taken it to the house, and he dropped it, and we had to fight like crazy. We needed to get five turnovers in the second half to win that game 27-12 and I think there were three starters from that defense that played here in 2001 that are still starting. The quarterback played, I think, through eight or nine balls against us in 2001. The offensive lineman started 33 straight games or something, he started against us in 2001. So maybe the most valuable film we have as to how they’re going to come in here and play is how they played in 2001 but I don’t think we have any idea of what we’re going to face in 2003. But one thing I’ve appreciated about these guys is they’ve worked hard at everything they do. They have a passion to become good and if we’ll continue to get the leadership from guys like these three and there are other guys in that senior group, we have a chance to become a good football team. And that’s what we’re out there doing, that’s what we’re working on. And most of you have been at practice and I think you would agree that our guys are — they’re at it when it’s time to practice, and they’re at it when it’s time to watch film and, you know, they’re preparing hard and they want to become a good team.
Will Allen is on my far left, Robert Reynolds in the middle, Alex Stepanovich. One thing mentioned on Thursdays, we have a thing called player council and they bring things up, one guys brought up the fact that, Coach, when you drag us to these press conferences, we never get to answer that many questions because you talk so much. Tim Anderson said that. So, please, help me out with my guys and ask them some questions as well.
REPORTER: Everyone was a little surprised at how great things went Saturday night and obviously you guys prepared hard, but it was just a dominating performance and I know a lot of guys that have watched this team a lot were just saying wow on Saturday night as much as you guys, it seems, were able to do everything you wanted to do on offense and defense.
ALLEN: I wasn’t too much surprised because we worked hard through our off season and we were on a mission and were focused and everybody was on that same path and everybody’s mind is together. And I just wasn’t surprised. I mean, I expect that from us and I just keep — I just want our defense and offense and special teams just keep growing and growing and getting better and better every week.
TRESSEL: Rob?
REYNOLDS: Like Will said, we prepared hard and, you know, we knew coming into the game they were going to be a good team, but we knew if we did what we had to do, we would come out on top, and that’s what we did.
TRESSEL: Alex?
STEPANOVICH: You know, I think we made some of the good things happen. It wasn’t like they just rolled over. I think our defense did a great job with confusion a lot of times, and some of the guys came off free. And the offense, I think they did a great job but we had to work for everything we had, so it wasn’t like they just handed everything to us. So like Will said, we were prepared, but, you know, we do need to get better from that, though.
TRESSEL: You know, I wasn’t surprised at how hard we played because I get to see these guys in the weight room and in everything they do, they go at it as hard as they can.
You get in that atmosphere and, you know, you love the game to start with, and you have the habits of playing as hard as they play — obviously some of what the outcome is has to do with the opponent and what they do or don’t do — but we really believe it’s really about what we do. And I was pleased with the way we came out and played.
Now, if you sat in our film room and we look at everything, you’d say, gosh, you know, are you mad at all these guys, and we’re just trying to be as good as we can be.
I don’t know that we were as impactful on the special teams as we’re going to need to be. Going into the game, you know, as you talked about in a general standpoint, the match-ups, you say, well, Washington, an extraordinary offense against an extraordinary Ohio State defense. Ohio State a veteran offensive group coming back but didn’t have mind-boggling numbers the year before against a solid defense who was a good PAC 10 defense but had a lot of veterans coming back, those two things, you thought, those are going to be interesting match-ups, and then you talk about the special teams, Ohio’s got their kickers and returners and all those things coming back and Washington is going to be young, there there’s where the mishmash should occur. I didn’t see that. I think in part it was because they did a good job. Washington paid special attention to special teams as they historically have. But I don’t know if we did it as well as we can do it. So we will continue to work hard on the special teams. And I wasn’t surprised at anything offensively, defensively or special teams. As long as we know we have a lot of work to do, our guys will be willing to do it.
REPORTER: You mentioned that four of your offensive line had a great hit, given that, Maurice and Lydell had 127 carries for 105 yards, did they get the most out of the blocking that was there for them or did they leave some yards up gained?
TRESSEL: I thought both Moe and Lydell played solid. In fact, I thought their cuts were good. Washington never really veered away from their plan of having extra people in the box. That’s why you saw out wide we were able to be pretty efficient throwing the ball out there in the one on one coverage to the wide guys. It would have been nice if we’d have hit a couple that were really available, we would have had, perhaps, some big numbers. But, yeah, I thought Moe and Lydell did get there. I’d say at the 4-yard mark there was always an extra helmet that we couldn’t account for. And there were times when our guys did a good job of cutting and making a miss and it ended up being a 7-yard gain, and there were times at the angle at which the extra hat was in the box, they did their job well and maybe it was only a two or 3-yard gain. But, no, I think their grades were right under the winning mark, and I think if you just took a film grade on Moe and Lydell running the ball, it would have probably been a winning grade, but obviously there’s more to what we do than just running the ball back in the backfield.
REPORTER: For the three players, how do you guys summon the same intensity as you had last week, considering these guys are coming off a win off of Eastern Washington, you know, I was just wondering, you guys are prohibitive favorites, what do you do this week to fight the possible tendency to maybe a letdown, or is there such a case?
ALLEN: As Coach Tressel was saying and Coach Dantonio was saying in our meeting in practice, we just have to have a greater focus. That’s going to be the key. We know we can play and we know we’re going to play hard but it’s about having a greater focus than we had last week against Washington on being more disciplined, being more focused on the little things that’s going to help us win.
REYNOLDS: This is just another step to our ultimate goal and I feel like everybody will be focused, and it’s up to us seniors to keep everybody focused, and this is definitely just another step, and it’s going to be a big game. Anytime you can play in Ohio Stadium, it’s special, and it doesn’t matter who we’re playing.
STEPANOVICH: Like both those guys said, it’s another step for us, but it’s another chance for us to get better and maybe improve on some of the things that we didn’t get done last Saturday. So like Rob said, every time we play in our own house, it’s a big game for us no matter who the opponent is.
REPORTER: Craig Krenzel had a great game running the ball obviously, would you like him to do more of that or does it scare you a little bit when he gets outside of the pocket there?
TRESSEL: One of the fundamentals we have in how we like to attack is if a pass is called and it’s not open, you really have two choices, you can throw it away, which is one choice, or you can step up and go if there’s something to be had. I thought he did a good job of that. I think there was a time or two when, you know, perhaps he tried to go around it rather than stepping up into it, and I think we ended up with a sack, you know, on one of those. But I want him to have a good feeling about the fact that he knows exactly what’s going on out there, he knows when he should let the ball go, and he knows when he should run it and I think that’s a real plus part of our attack.
You know, I’ve said before to you that a year ago, he pulled it down and ran it 49 times for almost an 8-yard average. I mean, that’s significant. You know, I don’t want to run him 18 times a game, you know, like maybe we did one game, but we want that in our attack.
REPORTER: What did you like about your passing game in terms of the way it’s improved since last year? We’re all under the assumption we’ll see more long balls thrown, you mentioned some were wide on Saturday, what did you like about it? What did you like about the protection some of the guys up front?
TRESSEL: That’s the key, Dave, protection. You can do whatever you want if you can protect. What I thought was good was we had a chance to have the launching point be at a number of various places throughout the course of that game, sometimes straight back, sometimes play action, sometimes play action roll-out. Sometimes three steps, sometimes five. I thought our protection people, which starts with the line, and then obviously goes to the running back, and then really the third part of protection is if they bring more guys than we have in there blocking, now you wide-outs and quarterbacks have to know who’s the guy to go to, because if they brought more there, there’s someone they can’t cover. So there in my mind, the third part of the protection.
I thought in all of those phases, we’ve showed that we’ve progressed some.
The fact that we spread it around to a number of different receivers, I think, gives us the opportunity to not allow them to load up. The fact that we used so many different protections doesn’t allow them to just pick apart one protection and scheme it up and make it hard for us to block it because we’ve showed we’re going to use a number of protections. But it all goes back to the ability to protect and, you know, I think we’re — I think we’re coming along.
REPORTER: Has Craig got more license now to go deep and throw that homerun ball if he sees it?
TRESSEL: Well, if it’s the best decision as the play unfolds, you know, obviously. If we would ever get to the point where we just kind of get — let one fly for the fun of it, I don’t hope that we’ll ever do that. But if it’s the best place to go — like, for instance, the one after we — after we — I don’t know if we got a turnover, but we got the ball on the plus-40 and on third down we had a little route that Craig called at the line of scrimmage and he went to the deeper part. The shorter route was open. Now, it might not have been a first. It would have been close if he’d have thrown it, but the deeper route was open for a touchdown and that was the one that Mike Jenkins just off his fingertips going toward the south end and the fact that he saw we had a chance to really strike, and if he’d have laid that thing right on the numbers rather than just a foot too far, those are the kinds of things, if we can become dangerous in those areas that will really hurt you, you know, we can become an explosive offense.
So, yes, he has the license to do that, but we’ve got to make sure that we do a good job from a completion percentage and moving the chains, holding the ball and all the things we need to do to help that defense.
REPORTER: Two players with that thought in mind about putting teams away the last couple of years, there have been some opportunities, Saturday night there were opportunities, balls off of players’ hands things like that, could have put teams away, is there any talk, people opening up the paper and seeing 29-9 doesn’t look as impressive as it might have been, are you guys talking about putting teams away and stepping on the throw a little bit?
TRESSEL: Alex?
STEPANOVICH: We’d definitely like to put some of these teams away. We’re really not worried about when people open up the paper and seeing the score of the game. We played some young guys there towards the end, and I think offensively we put the ball on the ground. We put our defense in a situation on and off the field where they had a chance to really come back. But we need to score a lot more, I think, offensively when the plays are there. The defense did a great job putting us on the plus half of the field like three or four times in that game, and I think we might have scored once or twice off of that. So when we’re going to put some of those young guys in, we need to teach them we need to take care of the ball a little bit better. But, you know, as we progress, we’d like to put these teams away a little bit more, you know, and maybe have a little bit more cushion there.
REPORTER: Coach, are you planning on Adam Hall playing for San Diego?
TRESSEL: I think he was listed as wait and see, questionable or — I think the other guy played. I didn’t watch that side of the film at this point.
I think the other guy played a significant amount in the game on Saturday. And as I listened to our defensive coaches talk, there isn’t a change in what they do. They have a heck of an approach and a concept at passing. Coach Craft, I think, played quarterback or something for Don Coryell, which Coryell is thought of as one of the greatest passing minds ever. What they do to pass the football is outstanding. our guys didn’t seem to think there was a big dropoff or it didn’t look that much different when the next guy was in there. In fact, he was a guy, I think, that went to Illinois originally and transferred and sat out last year. So he’s obviously a very talented kid and they have that tailback who, in their style of offense, they’re going to throw it all over the place, but if they have a game-breaker at tailback, they say he got more yards than Marshall Faulk did as a true freshman, he was a very highly thought of, well touted recruit, they’ll give us all we can stand as we prepare this week.
REPORTER: Jim, as you look at the film of the game and digest what
you guys were able to do or not able to do, were there any areas that you were disappointed with that you thought you’d be able to do a little bit better and specifically what were those?
TRESSEL: Well, you know, there’s a lot of areas we could have done better. If Alex Stepanovich graded 88%, 12% of what he did needs to be better. You know, and he did a good job. Will, what was your grade?
ALLEN: 91.
TRESSEL: He’s got 9% of what he needs to do to get a lot better. I’m sure there’s X percent of the decisions we made — there’s nothing we did that I can sit here and say, gosh, you know, we don’t have a chance to get better in this area or whatever. I think our guys are trying to get good at everything we do. You know, we had some opportunities to score more points. Jeff just brought that up. That’s true. We left the ball on the ground on our own — we lost the turnover margin, how many times can you win a game and lose the turnover margin? Obviously defensively, we’ve got to get some turnovers. Offensively, we have to make sure we don’t have to anymore.
Kickoff coverage was something, we didn’t put the ball right where we wanted to put it, therefore our lanes weren’t exactly where we wanted them to be, they did a good job to bring it out to, I think, the 30 once and the 20 once and we want to be better than that. You can go right down the line, our extra-point protection was pretty solid, but there was one point there where someone needs to stay square. But we’ll keep working on all those types of things. There’s nothing that jumps up at me and says, man, we need to change how we’re doing it or what we’re doing. We just need to get better.
REPORTER: Is it fair to say that you might be a better team after a game this year than you were last year, since you’ve made a little more progress?
TRESSEL: You know, I don’t know. Last year, against Texas Tech seems like light years away. After the Texas Tech game a year ago, we headed into our open week, and so for these guys it was like going back to training camp. It was like we won the opener and we’re going back to training camp again. So it was a whole different scenario. But, you know, I think maybe there are some things that we’re doing better than we were doing a year ago at this time. And perhaps there are some things that if we pulled that film back out and looked at it, we’d say, you know what, back then we were, you know, doing that better. But I think in both cases, we came out of training camp and played hard. And with not a whole bunch of mistakes. You know, we had some. But for an opening game, I don’t know what the penalty ratio was, I can’t recall for this particular game or this game versus first game last year, but it wasn’t something that jumps out at you that we didn’t do a great job at.
So I don’t know the answer to that. I guess we’ll know the answer as our improvement goes.
REPORTER: Two years ago, I think the San Diego State game was the game you let Craig go to his sister’s wedding. I just wonder if at that time —
TRESSEL: He can’t go this year if he’s got another sister.
REPORTER: — I just wonder if you envisioned at that time that he would ever get on the same page with you as well as he appears to be. It seems like you guys — he thinks like you want a quarterback to think and maybe just discuss his growth in that area and his development since, you know, he was not germane enough to really need him here on game day.
TRESSEL: You know, 2001 was an unusual year for all of us in that San Diego State game against cancelled with the 9-11. Two years prior to that, Craig’s sister had set, you know, a wedding. Craig was coming off a preseason where he missed most of it. I don’t know, I’d have to go back to the records, but I’ll bet you he missed upwards of 15 practices. And so he was, at that moment, the third quarterback not getting that many reps. And our first quarterback was a guy that had never been in our system, and, therefore, we probably gave him more reps out of the total and less reps to the guys playing behind him, simply trying to bring him along. And so I don’t know what game number San Diego State ended up being, seven or eight maybe right in there. At that time Craig was the third quarterback. He needed to make a decision. We needed to be on the same page. I was fine with the decision. I did not take that as any lack of passion for his interest in helping our football team. It was the circumstances.
And all the while, though, Craig, even though he wasn’t getting many reps, was studying and learning and trying to figure out what it was we were looking for in a quarterback, and he’s a quick learner, and we all know that.
So am I surprised, you know, that he’s come along like that? No. I think anyone that studies hard and pays attention and is blessed with talents like he is, is blessed with some of those intangibles like the toughness and, you know, the calm under pressure and so forth, it doesn’t surprise me. You know, you want to get good. If you want to get good and you’re listening and you’re able to comprehend like he is, you’re going to have a chance to get good. And so he’s coming along great in my mind.
REPORTER: I just wonder if he didn’t particularly show you a lot of his intangibles, perhaps, until you got him on the field and until he got into the regular stuff and showed you more maybe than you saw based upon his practice, however limited his practice may have been up to that point?
TRESSEL: Well, our first spring here, I thought the spring game, he really began to show a little bit of what he was under fire. You know, I’m one of those old-fashioned guys, I’m not into those black shirts on guys at practice and you don’t hit them and all that, but I guess it’s the smart thing to do. We really didn’t see our quarterbacks that first spring until the spring game. And the part of football that he’s good at is the football part of football. You know, it’s not the touch part of football. He’s a football player.
I thought he really made a little bit of a statement in our first spring game here, then he got banged up. And all of a sudden we’re back to, we’ve got shirts on and it’s hard to demonstrate it. All of a sudden he got in there live, and so I guess the answer to your question is, yes.
REPORTER: Coach, it’s been well stated that Scott McMullen is the number two quarterback and just continue was able to get in briefly in the second half. If and when you have an opportunity at scoring, to put in a quarterback other than Craig and beyond Scott, how is that little battle within the position developing?
TRESSEL: They both had a chance to showtime scrimmage, that’s a phrase that Coach Bruce used to use when our guys that didn’t get to play in the game get to scrimmage a little bit on Monday. We had a little showtime scrimmage yesterday. And I think we had 30 plays. It was fun to watch our guys who had just finished watching the film of the guys who did play and it was fun to watch them go out and try to play like these guys.
The effort was excellent. Now, obviously we didn’t have all the various defenses in and the offenses in and that type of thing. Troy and Justin both got in the neighborhood of something like 13 to 15 plays and did some good things and got on film and saw where they need to get better at some other things. Where I see that battle, you only get limited snaps and we’re going to do something a little bit different. In fact, they don’t even know this, in fact, I’ll give you a little scoop while you’re here. One thing I learned when I was playing at Baldwin-Wallace, when they brought 12 of us in as freshmen quarterbacks, we didn’t realize the entire training camp we were going to play defensive back so we could learn coverages so we’re going to alternate Troy and just continue on the safety positions on the scout team and make the defense get lined up in the right coverage and so forth and so on in an effort to make our scout team better, but in an effort to help them stay mentally involved in learning because they’re not getting as many reps.
And it’s hard to progress, and it’s hard to answer that question, where do we stand in that situation, because there really isn’t much data to talk about.
But we’re going to work hard to have those guys keep progressing. And they’ll have opportunities, and, you know, we’ll have to see as those opportunities unfold to see how they do?
REPORTER: Can you give us a rundown of the health of the fullbacks and where that stands?
TRESSEL: From a fullback standpoint, Brandon Schnittker, I think, after what, about the 12th play, it was early, somewhere in the first quarter maybe, got a very mild concussion, not one that, you know, would make you be out for eight days or like when you have the severe ones. He was allowed to do a little bit of cardio yesterday, bike-wise, no impact stuff. He’s going to be able to run today. I think he’ll be able to get back in there but that will be a medical decision. Branden Joe, I hope we’ll have him back for the season. Jason Bond has done a good job helping us in there and really our tightends have been our fullbacks and I imagine that that will continue.
REPORTER: What did you guys hang your hat on offensively Saturday night, multiplicity? I mean, what do you —
TRESSEL: We didn’t go in with a huge package. You know, we ran our base runs and maybe had a little bit more multiple protection set. But there weren’t a whole bunch of things outside of what we’d been working on since spring and preseason.
One of the dangers, I think, that happens in spring and preseason is you get so caught up and you want to go in the next day against your defense, okay, here’s what they’re doing, I’m going to put this in and they they change their defense and they stop what you’re doing and all of a sudden you don’t even work on the things you need to work on every day. But I thought we did a good job going back to a basic package. We ran a little tackle. We ran some isolation. We did some dropback, threw long, threw short. Had one little trick. You know, with Chris Gamble running around the end, but, you know, I thought it was a pretty basic game plan.
REPORTER: The Troy Smith play, was that a trick?
TRESSEL: That was an effort to get Troy Smith in the game, to get hit. Not that I’m mad at him, but, you know, I think you need to go in and get hit occasionally just to know that we appreciate you and get in the game, you know, get to play at Ohio Stadium.
So that wasn’t a trick, that was just the same play that Craig ran probably 12 times against Miami.
But, Alex, you know, these guys are going to be mad if you don’t ask them questions. What did we hang our hat on, Alex?
STEPANOVICH: Like Coach Tressel said, from an offensive line standpoint, it was pretty basic from what we ran in the past. Some of the protections we ran, I think we ran because up front we thought that maybe they’d come after us a little bit more.
But, you know, I think early on in the game, when we went up top to Drew and Mike, I thought maybe it would have threatened them a little bit more. Protection-wise, it was a little bit more basic for us, but, you know, the simple things get the job done and we’ve got to execute and be at simple protections or, you know, everything being man-to-man or something like that.
But, you know, there’s really nothing I can say that we hung our hat on. Obviously we know we’re going to run the ball, and we’re going to let Craig pick his spots throwing the ball. So just a regular attack, I’d have to say.
TRESSEL: I’m going to ask a quick question so I don’t get into trouble. We’re running short.
Rob and Will have seen a little San Diego State film, yesterday you saw about 10, 15 minutes.
Will, why don’t you talk a little bit about San Diego State.
ALLEN: Basically what I seen is their running backs are really explosive. They’re going to be better than Washington’s running backs. And we have to be ready to tackle. Their offensive line is going to be more physical than Washington’s offensive line, and they have some pretty fast receivers. So we can’t get them get on top of us. We should be on our toes. Obviously they’ll be a better team than Washington because they’re going to be more hungry because they almost beat us two years ago, and they’re coming off a win, and they’ve got a lot of spunk about them, that’s what I see and we’ve just got to come prepared.
REYNOLDS: You know, we saw a little film. I think their starting quarterback got hurt, but their back-up quarterback stepped in there, and he was just as productive as him, and he looked maybe a little bit better. And they’re big up front. They’ve got a 6-9 offensive tackle, and they’re big all the way across the board there. But if we do what we have to do on defense, fly around and hustle, we, you know — last week we didn’t really have any magical defenses we replied, everybody just played hard and if we do that, we’ll be okay.
REPORTER: Coach, you mentioned this was the 9-11 game, and they asked you to step off the football field. Does it cause you to think about that or the fact that it’s been two years, any particular thoughts on where we’ve come?
TRESSEL: It’s interesting. You always go back to your old files when you’re getting ready to play a team, and I go back to the file on San Diego State, and I see the itinerary for Tuesday, the 11th, and that does — that does make you stop and think. And, you know, there’s a lot of things, I think, that have gone on since then, and will continue to go on that do make you step back and reflect a little bit and constantly remind you how fortunate we are to have nights like last Saturday night where we all got to go out and do what we like to do and, you know, play this great game in this country.
But, yeah, no question, it is a reminder.
REPORTER: What was your impression of San Diego State defensively, they held them to just 200 yards?
TRESSEL: The first 11 possessions, 44 yards total. Seven three and out. They can run, their middle linebacker, Morrison, number 44, played the whole game a year ago against us. Number 90 who played the whole game against us a year ago didn’t play against Eastern Washington, but he’s scheduled to play.
Number 26, the corner, this will be the third time I’ve seen him, he was a starting corner at Montana in ’99 in the playoffs, and then he sat out at San Diego State, started against almost picked one and went the other way in 2001. And two years later, he’s a fifth year senior, All-American candidate, number 26, Shoate. Good football player, loves to compete. They play around. Will used that word spunk. Speed. You know, they’re tough. They’re moving forward in their program. I think as I watch them, they’re building a program. I guess the thing that’s a little bit disconcerting to me is you really aren’t going to be able to see on film what you’re going to see Saturday fight. A lot of times it’s easy to say look how good this guy is or see how they’re going to do this and see how far they’ve come along, it’s game four and you’ve studied three straight films. Now you’ve studied one film in a game where they were better than the other team and, you know, they’re going to come out here and be much better than we’ve seen them. So defensively, speed.
REPORTER: Coach, this happens once in a while, but just looking at the San Diego media notes here, they’re playing at 9:00 in the morning Pacific time, is that something, it’s big enough to play at Ohio Stadium, for them that’s early?
TRESSEL: I think they’re coming out Thursday to get squared away, which we do like when we went to UCLA, or had we been going out there, this was originally scheduled for out there, we were going to leave on Thursday.
You know, I think they get out here and get adjusted for a day, you know, that type of thing, I don’t know that it will be that big an issue. I know, you know, we’ve all been involved in bowl games here where it’s an 11:00 a.m. start, whether it be — the Fiesta Bowl one year was an 11:00 a.m. start, the Outback Bowl, we played at 11:00 a.m. in the morning. When you’re excited to play, you don’t care what time it is, they won’t know it’s 9:00 a.m., they’ll know it’s game time.
REPORTER: Maurice Clarett scout team running again this week?
TRESSEL: We need to make some progress in that situation, and I’m disappointed that we haven’t because those questions loom and so forth. It appears to me without having seen anything official or any black-and-white indications that the suspension is going to be, you know, significant. It’s going to be long.
And the decision that I talked about with some of our staff here just this morning was that until we get a definitive decision there, I don’t think I’m going to have him practice. And so, you know, we’re just going to have to go from there. I think that’s all that’s appropriate to say or that I would be able to say. But that question is there. You have to ask it, but we need to get it resolved.
REPORTER: Did you appreciate his presence at the game on Saturday, he was out there waving the flag and hugging the players?
TRESSEL: Waving the flag?
REPORTER: Or the towel, I’m sorry.
TRESSEL: Oh.
REPORTER: Or the towel. Did you appreciate his presence, I’m yelling way back here.
TRESSEL: Steve usually has a mic.
REPORTER: Did you appreciate him, I guess, showing how much he cared after all the —
TRESSEL: I think no one would ever question or — you would certainly appreciate, you know, how much he wants to be a part of this group, but, you know, I was busy, so —
REPORTER: What would be your plan, to practice him again when you have a couple weeks’ notice that he’s going to become eligible, or can you touch on why you’ve decided not to practice him?
TRESSEL: Just a coaching decision, kind of like, you know, why did you run on third and six. I think that’s just what’s best to do right now, and don’t feel as if it would be appropriate to talk about it beyond that.
REPORTER: But will he be with the team?
REPORTER: How about the players being a part of your family, is it as important to them to have them feel like they’re a part of something, how do you think this will impact him in that regard?
TRESSEL: I don’t know the answer to that. Just like any decision you make, you don’t know the exact answer to it, but you have to make decisions.
REPORTER: Have you talked to Maurice, and how did he react to your decision?
TRESSEL: Have I talked to him? Yes. You know, I’m sure he was disappointed, because, you know, as you say, people want to be a part of the group. But, you know, that’s what we’re going to do right now.
REPORTER: Is he allowed as we saw in the preseason to come over to Woody Hayes and work out on his own as we saw him a couple weeks ago?
TRESSEL: Really didn’t have that discussion.
REPORTER: But is he allowed? Is he going to be able to come over there as he did before?
TRESSEL: I don’t know that I would want anyone to get any parameters from anyone other than me and certainly not through a third source, so I think that’s about as much as I feel comfortable talking about.
1:00? Thank you very much.
