Transcript From The November 2nd Ohio State Football Press Luncheon – Ohio State Buckeyes
11/2/2004 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 2, 2004
TRESSEL: Got a lot of guys who have class on Tuesdays, but they heard Dr. Steinberg’s class was going to be here and they were fighting to come. Mo Hall, second week in a row. We thought it was important to have Mo Hall here because it’s not often you have guys that break all-time records.
As all of you know, he didn’t just break it, he shattered the all-time kickoff return yardage record and I know that his guys in front of him really prepared hard and wanted very badly for him to have the opportunity against Penn State, who was the top-rated kickoff coverage team in the Big Ten. And I thought that was a special moment because of the way it was done in such convincing fashion. And he also had another good return a little bit later that was hard fought that gave us good field position.
So Mo Hall will be able to be here with you. He was not only the special units player of the week, but he was also our offensive player of the week and did an excellent job in there and graded out winning performance and did a good job not just in running the ball for 60 some yards, but also blocking and taking care of his pass protection and leading his troops out there on Saturday against Penn State.
Quinn Pitcock was our attack force player of the week and had an outstanding game and made an impact there in the trenches and continues to do so, and he reminded me that he’s got a lot of film work to do today. So he told me to be short-winded so he gets rolling and gets back to his film work. This is his heavy film day based upon his little bit of freedom from class.
Our guys, I thought, came out and played hard. Penn State was a physical football team. I thought they ran the ball better than we would have liked against us and that’s something that we’ve talked a lot about since that. We had a few more missed tackles than we’re used to and we were in the double digit range, which we always talk about the fact that we need to give due respect to people that run the ball well and we’re going to miss a tackle or two, but we can’t miss in the double digits. So it’s something that we’ve got to make sure that we attend to and become a dominant run defense. Someone asked the question earlier today, what would be a key against Michigan State and I would say the thing that Michigan State has done a great job of is committing themselves to being a balanced run/pass team. A year ago when we played them, they rushed for five yards and it wasn’t because they tried a whole bunch of times. They were really a pass-only group. They’ve committed themselves this season to be a balanced football team and they’re running the ball extremely well near the top of the Big Ten, and we’ve got to do a great job of playing run defense if we want to go there and get some of those keys to winning a Big Ten ball game on the road.
Mike Kne was our offensive lineman of the week. Ashton Youboty was our offensive player of the week. Ashton did a great job, came up with the interception on the long run back. Interestingly enough, this was one of the times I can recollect that we had over 250 return yards in a game. If you count Mo Hall’s 96 yards and you count our 96 punt return yards and you count all of the yards we got on interception returns, we had 251 or so return yards, which were important. And Ashton’s interception return, especially at that stage of the game, was huge and he did a good job with, I think, four or five passes broken up and even came in and had a sack and played very steady, very dependable. Ashton Youboty is one of those guys you can be sure, whatever assignment he’s given, he’s going to do the best he can possibly do to get that done.
The Jack Tatum hit of the week was by Bobby Carpenter late in the ball game on their quarterback. As usual, and especially this year I would say our scout teams have worked extremely hard to get us prepared to make sure that we get done what we need to get done to be ready to play on Saturday. John Kerr was the scout special teams. Nick Patterson was the scout defensive player of the week. And Albert Dukes was the scout offensive player of the week. We had a fair number of guys grade winning performance, probably not as many because it wasn’t the type of ball game you say was razor sharp when you have as many pentalties. We lost 94 rushing yards with penalties which is something that very seldom can you get by with doing that. That’s something we’ve got to square away. The other thing is you can’t turn it over twice against a good football team and have a chance. I think our return yards, our kick returns, our punt returns, our interception returns, one for a touchdown, made the difference and allowed us to win a football game even though we made mistakes like tournovers and penalties. Obviously when you go on the road against Michigan State, I think everyone probably saw how well they played this past weekend, but they have been progressing throughout the year I really respect the fact they went in the opening game and they lost to Rutgers, which many would call an upset, and they came back and ever since then they’ve gotten better. They made a lot of good plays in the kicking game. DeAndra Cobb is an extraordinary punt returner. They don’t punt the ball up in the air. They do a lot of the rugby kick where they’ll start one way and they’ll dribble the ball, keep it away from your returners, they’ll kick it out of bounds, they tried to keep it out of bounds against Breaton last weekend against Michigan. They have an excellent field goal kicker, probably the two best field goal kickers in the conference square off this week with Mike Nugent and their fellow. So they’ve done some good things.
They, like many people, us included, have some guys that are banged up. At this early juncture in the week, they’re assuming all of our guys will be ready and we’re assuming all of their guys will be ready and the only thing I know for sure is none of us know, because at this stage of the year, you just don’t know how long the healing process is and as repetitions get a little bit less and so forth in practice, you have to make some decisions as to who’s had enough preparation and we’ve got to make sure that our guys get prepared to go up and play a very good Michigan State football team. With that, questions?
REPORTER: Coach, what’s the status of Lydell Ross? Is he going to be back this weekend?
TRESSEL: Yeah.
REPORTER: And what do you anticipate his roll being as well as Maurice and Pittman have rushed the ball the last few weeks?
TRESSEL: And I would add Branden Joe to that, those four guys.
REPORTER: What do you anticipate Lydell’s role being regarding those —
TRESSEL: He’ll be one of the four guys that have opportunities to carry the ball. How many times, I don’t know.
REPORTER: How do you assess Troy’s performance on Saturday?
TRESSEL: Troy had the best grade he’s had. I think he was in the low ’80s, which Joe Daniels, as I mentioned before, is a tough grader, and he’s very meticulous about what he asks of his quarterbacks. If Troy had not had that one fumble, I wouldn’t doubt that he would have graded over 85, which over 85 is a winning performance. And it was one of those lessons that the coach called a bad play, it wasn’t open, you throw it away. Instead, it wasn’t open and he took a step back, and when he took a step back, the contain rush man was able to strip him and we ended up with a turnover. But Troy will learn from that. He didn’t do it the rest of the game that particular way and he knows that was the difference between he having a winning performance and not, but I thought his progress was good.
REPORTER: Is Justin available?
TRESSEL: Don’t know that. If the game were today, I would probably tell you that he isn’t, but, again, at this point in the season and so forth, guys have a way of seeing how little sand is in the hourglass and getting their way back, but our plans going into today’s practice probably would be that he’s not.
REPORTER: Whitner and Nicol and Richardson?
TRESSEL: I’d say the guy that has the least chance of playing is probably Nicol. The other two guys have a fairly good chance of playing.
REPORTER: Nate Salley too?
TRESSEL: I think he has a fairly good chance of playing. But again now, I haven’t seen him since Sunday, and none of them looked like — on Sunday, they were — even some of the guys like these warriors, they’re all looking a little slower on Sundays.
REPORTER: I know it’s tough to check their mindset, but what they put into last week and losing in three overtimes to Michigan, do you expect them to be hanging their heads or be ready?
TRESSEL: I would say this, if they weren’t playing Ohio State, that might be an option, but I’m sure as they worked out all summer long and they looked at their schedule, they had about eight days there right in a row that were circled that were probably going to be the difference in their football season, Saturday to Saturday, Michigan and Ohio State. And I’m sure they’ve been thinking about it for quite some time and the fact that it’s Ohio State coming to their house, I’d be shocked if there was anything other than an increased effort.
REPORTER: After you got up 14-0, you threw only eight passes. Are you expecting to open it up more or was that just a tactical decision for that one game?
TRESSEL: Well, a lot of the times when you end up throwing more than you expected to, usually you end up losing. When you throw less than you expected to, you probably end up winning. I would bet we would have thrown it 25 or more times this past weekend because Penn State had shown that people didn’t run against them. People weren’t up 14-0 all the time on them and so forth. So, no, I would hope all of our decisions as to how we go, come at a timely juncture in the game but we went into the game thinking we were going to need to throw the ball very well and we’ll go into the next one thinking the same.
REPORTER: R. J. Coleman is lined up, a 295-pound tight end, he came in, you put some weight on him, make an offensive lineman out of him, now he has to go back and play tailback; what’s happening there?
TRESSEL: I don’t know how much we put weight on him. R. J. put his own weight on. I don’t know if he’s 295. Is he 295?
PITCOCK: Probably.
HALL: Probably.
TRESSEL: Probably? Okay. They all look big to me. I don’t know if it was John Peterson or Jim Bollman early last week said, you know, R. J. Coleman is doing some great things in practice, scout team, with the first and second units. We need to find an increased role, and those guys said, let’s move him to tight end, you know, with having some injuries and so forth there. I’m glad we did, because who would have foreseen Rory Nicol going down. I think Rory played three plays or something. We thought R. J. Coleman did well, and I think there is a place for him. I guess there aren’t that many 295-pound tight ends, but I doubt if we’ll send him deep.
REPORTER: How much of Michigan State’s improvement was tied to the comfort level, I guess, that Stanton felt? Stanton obviously got better after that opening loss.
TRESSEL: Well, Stanton didn’t play in the opening loss, I don’t think. Dowdell played most of that game and then the second game, another fellow played, I think, and then Stanton got in and as the team was getting better, he happened to be the guy there and he was contributing a great deal to that. The thing I love about Stanton, he reminds me a lot of the kid from Iowa where he’s just a scrapper and a fighter and a competitor and he’s going to make things happen and they started building some things around his competitiveness and so forth. The thing we looked at, as you watch the Michigan State/Michigan game, is they didn’t really change who they were when Dowdell played the second half. So I don’t anticipate watching their system. DeAndra Cobb, who, I think, has injected a few things into the situation as well. We remember him because he returned a kickoff for a touchdown a year ago. He’s done that this year as well, returned a kickoff for a touchdown. He covers punts. He covers the kickoff. Now he’s rushed for, I don’t know, five, six hundred yards, catches the ball in the back field. He has been a big impact in that run game as well. I don’t know that we’ll see a great deal of difference whether Stanton’s in the game or Dowdell’s in the game. I have not watched the third guy. I haven’t watched that game. I think that was Central Michigan maybe. I’m not sure who he played against. I have not seen him, but I would expect the same from Stanton and Dowdell.
While there’s a little lull here, we do have an announcement to make as to who our honorary captain is for this weekend. A Michigan native, who came to his senses and came to Ohio State and we’re excited that Ryan Miller will be traveling with us to be our honorary captain, and he remembers full well a very important game when he played back in his career at Spartan Stadium, and we thought that that would be fitting. So Ryan, we appreciate it.
REPORTER: If you —
TRESSEL: You didn’t get any applause or anything there. Sorry, Ryan. At least the class could clap. There we go.
REPORTER: You’ve had two Big Ten road games that obviously haven’t gone the way you’d like. You got some things turned around at home; can you talk about the challenge now of heading back on the road, what things you’re going to have to do to get it done this time?
TRESSEL: I think you can look at it two ways. You can look at it about what have we done since those road games, you can look at that. Then you can say also, okay, what was the difference between those two road games and the road game that we won, because this team has won a road game. And obviously the difference, as you think back to it, was the turnovers. We made North Carolina State one dimensional. They ran it a little bit late in the game, but in essence, we forced them to make mistakes. We didn’t make the mistakes. Our special teams were superior to theirs. And then if you look at the two road games we lost, that wasn’t the situation. So I think we have to study both things; what are we doing better and what do we have to do even better? Because Michigan State is a better football team than the last two teams that we played and we’re playing them at their house, and we’ve got to relate back to what do you do to be successful on the road and tie all that together and play the best game we’ve played of the season.
REPORTER: Coach, how much tougher do you think this game is than the previous two that you just mentioned that — you were home the last two, Indiana and Penn State; how much tougher is this week against this team?
TRESSEL: I don’t think you minimize at all the advantage of playing at home. If you look at the Big Ten schedule this past weekend, Michigan is significantly behind, but they’re at home and there was an energy level and they were able to come back and win. Purdue went to Northwestern and couldn’t beat Northwestern there. Minnesota went to Indiana and couldn’t beat Indiana there. I think you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think that your opponents aren’t going to be energized and play better. Really, if you watch the film this week of Michigan State, they’ve played significantly better this week in Spartan Stadium than maybe some others, although last weekend in Michigan Stadium they played very well, but it’s significantly more difficult than the last two.
REPORTER: What is John L. Smith’s role this week? What’s his role in helping that team over an emotional block?
TRESSEL: I think the lessons that Coach Smith will point to, which I think are very accurate, is the fact that they had a disappointment to start the year and they just went to work and got better and better and better and better. They did not allow disappointment to stop progress. They just had another disappointment. I’m sure he’ll be able to rely on their memories that, hey, when you have disappointment, you still need to progress, and they’ve done it. I’m sure they remember those emotions and I’m sure they’ll go back to work. And, again, don’t lose site of the fact Ohio State’s coming to their stadium and I’m sure they’ve been looking forward to that.
REPORTER: You mentioned they try to be balanced this year. Just if you could, maybe expound on how much of a change that is from a year ago; do you feel the running game is as much as you had to worry about a year ago, with Stanton accounting for 77 of their rushing yards, what kind of break that is not to catch him in the lineup?
TRESSEL: Last year they looked at themselves and said the guy that can carry us while we’re working with this young group is Jeff Smoker and every time he’s got the ball in his hands, he’s going to make something happen, he’s going to make good decisions and he did just that. He played very, very well. I think their running game was somewhat of an afterthought a year ago. I don’t know if their line was a little younger, their backs were younger, those types of things. You go into every game saying, okay, what can we do to win, and I think they decided that last year consciously. I think as they went into this year, now they’re going to have a young quarterback, whether it’s Dowdell or Stanton or the third fellow, he’s going to be young, and they weren’t going to be able to go necessarily that route and they better get committed to being a balanced team, and Cobb was kind of new on the scene. I don’t remember him last year. I don’t have last year’s stats, but I don’t remember him carrying the ball significantly last year, and this year he’s been a game breaker.
REPORTER: What impresses you most about Cobb?
TRESSEL: He’s got great speed. He’s a warrior. He covers punts, he covers kicks, he runs the kicks back and he runs the ball on offense. You take a pounding on all those things. I tip my cap to a guy that’s doing whatever a team needs to be a success. He’s a game breaker.
REPORTER: Coach, Troy was just a little bit — sounded a little bit frustrated after the game just with the lack of opportunities to score points, I guess. Do you sympathize with the quarterback who only gets to drop back, what, 10, 12 times? Is that tough on a guy to not be able to kind of open it up a little bit?
TRESSEL: I don’t think I sympathize with him. I mean, you know, maybe what the frustration you heard was he was disappointed that he had a turnover because at least as I visited with him, the thing that he was most disappointed about in that ball game was that we had a turnover that he directly had a hand in, and we didn’t hit every single thing that we could have. I hope he wants to drop back and throw every play, but I don’t know if I sympathize with that. I mean, we’ve got to do what the team needs us to do and Troy is always willing to do that.
REPORTER: Can you talk about in the big picture, how important it will be to get a sixth win, whether it’s this week, next week, the week after and get that off your back, that way in the big picture you can get that extra training time and experience for your players and everything and maybe how much pressure there is to secure that at this point.
TRESSEL: I would hope no one’s thinking in those terms, because if anyone’s thinking that far out, they’re not going to have the singleness of purpose that we’re going to need to go and be successful at Michigan State. All we can worry about today is today’s practice. I know you say, oh, that’s a cliche, and here he goes again, but it happens to be true. And if anyone’s thinking about something three weeks from now, we’re not going to get as good as we need to get to beat Michigan State. The only thing we can control today is this week’s practice and this week, Michigan State.
REPORTER: Where is Michigan State from a defensive standpoint? Some teams have put up some numbers on them, others haven’t; what do you see?
TRESSEL: Michigan did a great job of making some tremendous throws and catches. They did a good job at times running the ball and other times not. They didn’t turn it over a whole bunch, so they had opportunities as they went. I think their front is very, very good. Number 44, the one linebacker is all over the place, Stanley, he’s been there, it seems like, forever. 25, Harmon, is a sure tackler, and they’ll have both 25 and 36 up in the box. That’s just what they do and they’re going to dare you to throw deep and if you jump up and catch him, then you won and if you don’t, then it’s second and 10 and you’re punting or whatever it happens to be. Their corner, 17, is a guy that is a little more versatile. He blitzes a lot from the corner, but he also, I think they look at him as their top cover guy. 31 has a lot of experience. Their nickel guy, 12, is a solid player. Probably where they may be the youngest is at their outside backer position. 34 used to be a running back and now he’s playing outside backer. Although if you’re not in two backs, he’s not in the game, they’re typically in nickel. But good speed. I don’t know how many sacks they had Saturday, but just watching the film, it seemed like three or four or five, so they get after you.
REPORTER: Two weeks ago, the offensive line coming off the Iowa game obviously really had been struggling. How much of that has been fixed the last few weeks and what do you attribute it to?
TRESSEL: I think we’ve improved there. I think we’d be kidding ourselves if we think we’re where we need to be or want to be. But to me the encouraging thing is we’re better than we were two weeks ago and I think that’s in some part why we have two wins is because we’ve improved there.
REPORTER: Did you attribute that more to some personnel changes or just refocusing or scheme or what do you think that’s —
TRESSEL: Just learning lessons and getting better. I don’t know that there was any light bulb flash or anything that, all of a sudden, just getting better.
REPORTER: Coach, you mentioned that with either quarterback, when Stanton went down, they seemed to run the same offense. Is that to say with Stanton being questionable, preparation really doesn’t change?
TRESSEL: Yeah, it really doesn’t. I think you’d be inventing things if you did, if you said, okay, Dowdell’s going to be in there, so this is exactly what they’ll do. If you look at the second half, you’ll see that there weren’t any different things. They’re still going to move when they pass. They’re still going to run their one back. They’re still going to run option. They spread it out and they attack you side line to side line and they’ll continue to do that.
REPORTER: Does Maurice Hall at the game he had Saturday, does he have the inside track in getting a few other carriers than what the other carriers will?
TRESSEL: He had 14 for 62 yards, which I think was excellent. In fact our staff, obviously, felt it was because he was the offensive player of the game, not just for the running, but for the entire picture. Does he have an inside track? I don’t know if I could say one way or the other from that standpoint, but I’ll say this to you, Mo Hall, by the way he prepares and the way he goes about his business and the way he simply wants to help this football team, I think, has made a huge impact on this team. And in my experience, good things happen to good people.
REPORTER: Will you vote today, Coach? Do you have time to stand in a line? How important a right do you feel that is, privilege, I should say?
TRESSEL: To vote?
REPORTER: Yes.
TRESSEL: I was organized enough that I got an absentee ballot. I knew the polls didn’t open early enough for me to get to the polls and we stay a little later than 7:30, but I think it’s very important and so much so that I voted absentee.
REPORTER: Has A.J. Hawk stepped up his game this year even from last year, and if so, how?
TRESSEL: A.J. Hawk is one of those steady guys and he studies it and he’s physical. I think the guys in the huddle know that they’re sure that 47 is going to be exactly where he ought to be and that gives, I think, even extra onus to the rest of us to make sure we’re where we’re supposed to. Has he stepped it up from last year? I can’t tell you that I’ve studied it that hard, but he was good last year and I think he’s good this year and I don’t see too many better as I watch other teams play, I haven’t seen one I’d trade.
REPORTER: Can you discuss defensive line play and Quinn’s play in particular how it’s coming along?
TRESSEL: I think Quinn Pitcock has been a steady guy. You’re there in the middle. He’s inside the tackles and it’s not that visible a place, but the impact that he makes is excellent. I think Coach Heacock would tell you he’s been his steadiest player grade-wise, he’s been his most productive player. We have production points and what did you have this week?
PITCOCK: 15.
TRESSEL: 15? Yeah, 15 production points, that’s tackles and sacks and quarterback hits and hurries and that’s a lot for inside guys because inside guys quite often have two people on them. So he’s been a rock there for us and made plays as well.
REPORTER: Since Anthony Schlegel took over as kind of the only guy in the middle he’s kind of taken off. Is that because the job is solely his or have you seen anything different out of him in the last three or four weeks?
TRESSEL: Anthony Schlegel loves to play the game. If he gets to play 60 snaps rather than 35, he’s the happiest guy in the world. He practices hard. He practices hurt. He studies the game hard. He’s very tough on himself. He missed a couple tackles and you would have thought after the game, I don’t know if he was at the interview room or not, you would have thought after the game that we lost the game by 30 because he missed a couple tackles. He loves to compete. That’d be a great question for Quinn here in a second. What feeling do you get from guys like A.J. Hawk and Anthony Schlegel when you’re a part of that because I think Anthony is a defensive warrior.
REPORTER: We asked you about playing on the road, this will be Troy’s first, he played a little bit at Iowa on the road, but under the gun, starting a game, how big a deal is that for a young quarterback or is the experience he got, is that something you’re really not that concerned about, being in that atmosphere?
TRESSEL: It’s been a long, long time since I’ve played, but I would think these guys would echo the fact that as soon as you get hit in the mouth, you don’t know if you’re home or away, you’re just — you’re battling. And will there be a noise factor in and all those things that maybe he hasn’t had to deal with? Perhaps. And he’s got to handle it. And competitive guys like Troy, I think, look forward to that, so it’s not something that we’ll do anything different. We’ll have noise in practice and all those things like we always do when we go on the road, but we’re not going to change what we do because we don’t think someone can handle that, because I think he can.
REPORTER: Jim, you touched on missed tackles and stuff and that seems to be an epidemic sort of around the country when you watch games. What do you think is attributing to that more than anything?
TRESSEL: Good backs and receivers can obviously add to that. And, you know, the game has gotten so well studied and people with advanced videography that we have and our guys know so much about when they line up this way, they do that, and the offenses know the same thing. I think people are getting attacked with good athletes and I don’t know if I’ve noticed an epidemic. I’m sitting here thinking of watching all the films we watch of the opponents’ defenses and I wouldn’t call our missed tackles an epidemic, please don’t say that. We’ve got to have less of them, but there’s some good hits out there too. But there’s very skillful people.
REPORTER: One of the cliches in sports is momentum. Do you feel the last couple of games have given you any impetus going into these games?
TRESSEL: I think that anytime you succeed you feel a little bit better about yourself. If you’ll keep that in perspective, I think it can turn into momentum. If you don’t have that in perspective and you think you’ve arrived, then I think you’re in trouble. Your momentum will be halted promptly, but I think there is such a thing as momentum.
REPORTER: What are some of the positive things you’ve seen in the past two games that separate this team from the previous three?
TRESSEL: The thing that would jump into my mind that we’ve done better this year than any year I can remember since I’ve been here for four seasons is our return game. I remember discussions here on Tuesdays about how come we’re last in the league and this and that, and I think our return games have made a huge impact for us, given us a chance. Both kickoff return, we’ve got two guys up in the upper echelon kickoff return-wise, Mo and Santonio. And then we’ve got two guys up in the upper echelon of punt returns. That would be the one thing you would say, if you would say what positive thing could you point to, that would be the first one that would jump in my mind. All set? Don’t be late, guys.
