Postgame Press Conference From No. 8/9 Ohio State vs. No. 21/21 Iowa – Ohio State Buckeyes
9/24/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 24, 2005
TRESSEL: We were obviously very proud of how physical our guys played. Both sides of the ball. They did a great job. You have to be physical in the Big Ten. I thought our guys did a great job with that and made plays and our defense made it very difficult to move the football, and our offense came up and it seemed like we were better on third down and that type of thing. I don’t have any stats or anything, but just real proud of the way that our coaches coached and our players played and it’s a great way to start the Big Ten season.
REPORTER: Coach, hitting the consistency of the offense and establishing a running game, especially first half, I would imagine if you had scripted that first half, it was about as good as it could be.
TRESSEL: Well, you know, we’ve said for years since we’ve been here that if you can run well, you’ll be able to do a lot of things well. If Iowa had a tough time establishing their run against our defense, well, it’s going to be a long day. And I think that’s pretty simple about the game of football. And I thought we did a much better job in the run game and then that opened up opportunities to throw it well, and then you’ve got a chance. You’ve got to quit having turnovers on the five and a three and on the punt game and so forth. We’re still — we can’t win the conference if we don’t win the turnover margin in conference games typically, so we’ve got work to do that and we’ve got to go away from home against a good team in Penn State. That’s a hard place to play, but I’m awfully proud of these coaches and the way the kids played so physical.
REPORTER: Was it near perfect, except for those two fumbles and the punt return?
TRESSEL: Well, and the punt snap we dropped. I don’t think it was near perfect. We’ll be able to go to the film and find a lot that wasn’t perfect, but I thought we played the best we’ve played thus far and that’s what you hope to do each week, get a little bit better. REPORTER: Jim, anytime your running game goes like that, it’s got to be a great line play too; would you reflect a little bit on the way the offensive line played out there today?
TRESSEL: Well, Jim Bollman was talking to them all week long that they were going to be the difference in the game and if they could take care of the tempo of the game and handle the line of scrimmage, it was going to make it possible to run and even more possible to pass protect, which is the key to the passing game. So they responded to that and, again, we haven’t watched the film or anything, but I imagine they did an outstanding job.
REPORTER: Jim, given Troy’s performance, the way you ran the ball, do you think you may have answered some questions that are still looming after the last couple of weeks? Offensively do you feel better leaving here?
TRESSEL: We were more productive for sure. We’ll still ask a lot of questions. I’m guessing so will you, but we’ll keep trying to get better and I think we are, but if we can have balance, we love to have balance. I don’t know what it was today, but it felt balanced and if we can do that, a lot of questions can get answered.
REPORTER: Jim, as you watched your defense out there the last two weeks, what did you see? How would you describe what you’re seeing out there, the effort and stuff?
TRESSEL: Confident, very well prepared. Their coaches have them in the things that they know and they know when someone tries to do this or that, they know what they’re going to go to next, so I would say confident, prepared, obviously physical, and you can’t leave out the word quickness when you talk about our defense because out defense has got quickness.
REPORTER: Coach, it seemed like Pittman and Smith cut back all day long and something you said, you knew Iowa was going to be aggressive, and something you said all year and it just came to pass today.
TRESSEL: Well, I think as the guys were coming off the ball and so forth, our guys were doing a good job of getting some movement, the idea was the line of scrimmage was getting pushed a little, and the backs, good backs read those things, they read the head gears of the other people and so forth, and they’ve been well schooled, and I thought they did a good job. Again, I haven’t seen the film to see exactly what you mean and which ones. I thought there were a lot of good decisions. There were a few in there as we sat there and listened to the guys upstairs that said we should have hit it here and there, but I think for the most part pretty fair.
REPORTER: Passing-wise, it looked like Troy looked to his second receiver sometimes and really read the field, did it look that way to you? I thought he played a good game that way.
TRESSEL: I thought he made good decisions. For the most part, I thought we were throwing to our primary read side and he may have been using his eyes to trick the defense and the writers, but he was going to the read side for the most part, he didn’t come off and go away a whole bunch.
REPORTER: Jim, did you guys, offensively, did you need a game like this for confidence purposes?
TRESSEL: We need seven more. We want to be good. Our guys want to be good. They work hard and train hard. The Coaches work hard studying our opponents and studying ourselves. Of course you need a little reinforcement. That’s human. We’re going to work hard again next week and somehow try to evaluate ourselves in an open week.
REPORTER: Coach, if there was, on that same point, any lingering effects from the Texas game last week, last week there were some mistakes, safe to say a game like this really helps you get past anything that might have been carried through from what was a tough game?
TRESSEL: I think when you enter Big Ten play, what went on in nonBig Ten play kind of leads you anyway, because what’s important is the league. Occasionally all of us, I’m sure, think back to, gosh, if I would have called a different game, we would have been closer on the field goal, we might have beat Texas too, but you better not spend too long thinking about those things. But you get into conference play and I know the guys will be looking hard this weekend to see who beat who in the league and who do we have next and what have we got to do. So I think their focus was very good. Keith Byars last night when he talked to the team talked about, that’s the key, focus on what’s now. Forget about if someone says you’re good or not good, or someone beats Texas or someone didn’t. I thought they did a good job with Iowa. I’ll leave because Coach Bollman requested to come up here, so I’ll go.
REPORTER: For Coach Heacock, some of the best linebacking you’ve ever seen was on both sides of the ball; will you talk about a little bit of the match-up with your Hawk and their Greenway?
HEACOCK: About the only way I can say is I think what’s happened on the defense is they were very unselfish linebackers, that’s the thing that impresses me the most. They’re playing as a team. I think the evidence today was a team effort. If you look at it, I think you’ll see the back end did great job, the secondary did a great job, and I’m not taking away from the linebackers, but I thought it was a great team effort. I thought our front played well, secondary played well, and our linebackers played equally as well. I think the success goes to all of them, goes to the players and the way they performed. But we’re very fortunate to have three outstanding linebackers and they’re playing unselfish and they’re leading out there and they’re very intelligent, which really helps. I think that helps a lot. They’re intelligent and they can understand what the offense is trying to do to them.
REPORTER: Jim, Drew Tate is a very good quarterback and you really frustrated him, i.e., when he threw the ball down at one point; will you talk a little bit about the way you attacked him today?
HEACOCK: I think the key was, Coach Tressel mentioned it right off the get-go when he was talking about our offense being able to run the football, I think the key was when they started out trying to run the ball and we were able to stop them in playing some coverage at the back end. So I think our front seven did a good job stopping the run. Once that happens, then it gives you a little bit of flexibility that you can kind of turn loose a little bit and cut those guys loose. And obviously our offense did a great job of controlling the football today. I don’t know what the time of possession was, but I would imagine it was pretty good. We were able to stay rested and I just think we put our ears back, we’ve got some guys that can go, and you’re allowed to put your ears back when they have to throw the ball and try to get it down the field. So I think stopping the run was probably the key.
REPORTER: Defensive Jim. Did you talk about — I know you guys kind of downplayed the revenge factor all week, but obviously they played with a lot of emotion; did you feel that today, some sort of sense of payback or anything like that?
HEACOCK: Well, you’d be crazy to think that that score from last year wasn’t in everybody’s brain a little bit. I’m sure it was in all of our brains. I’m sure it was a factor, but I think with this group, I feel like in all the games so far they’ve played with good emotion and played hard and given great effort out there. But I’m sure that was a factor.
REPORTER: Coach Bollman, can you elaborate a little bit on what your message was to the offensive line this week coming into this game?
BOLLMAN: Well, I think anytime that we can control the line of scrimmage, in both aspects, running and passing, you’re going to give yourself a much better chance. Iowa, you know, had some new guys up front. I mean, that’s the only place in their defense that they were relatively inexperienced, and guys that had played but it was the first time they had been in starting roles, and I’m sure that they’ll continue to get better and better and better as the year goes on. But everybody else in the back end, linebackers and corner and secondary, was pretty experienced and just felt that we had to take advantage of the situation up front and give Troy a little bit more time, which I think we did that, and give those guys a little bit more space to run. They did a good job, without looking at the film. I’m sure everything won’t be perfect. It never is. But I think that the whole team today had a great resolve, for lack of a better word. In the first half, we were playing very hard and we had those turnovers, which were terrible, but the defense went right out on the field and stopped them, got us the ball back and we went right down the field again, you know, but there was just a focus, as Coach Tressel said earlier today on the right matter, that we were going to play hard and execute as best we could. And now the key thing is to continue that game by game by game.
REPORTER: Coach Bollman, I’m not sure if this is an accurate statement, but it seemed like you guys went a little more I formation, a little more double tight end sets today. Did you guys intentionally go a little more old school today to getting back to running the football hard?
BOLLMAN: Yeah, on occasion where a little bit of change of tempo kind of things, where we had been a little bit more spread out earlier just to get a little bit of, as you said, old school stuff, just to get back in and get after some people, really play hard at the line of scrimmage, which we did. Later in the game when we were ahead and trying to run the ball without giving them as many chances to get as many extra people in the box, this was one game when you had a lead like that to maybe batten down the hatches a little bit and kill some time on the clock.
REPORTER: Mike Kudla had a couple of really big sacks today and he doesn’t obviously get as much pub as the linebackers do; can you just talk a little bit about his contributions and how he makes some of the other stuff possible?
HEACOCK: This’s what I was alluding to earlier. There’s a lot of guys like that. The nice thing is, the Nickel package, Bobby’s on one side, Mike’s on the other, there’s no way they can double team either one of them. It gives us a luxury there bringing two guys off the edge. Mike’s always been a good football player for us. He’s had some problems with health, staying healthy, and had some injury problems over the years. When he’s played he’s always been a good football player for us. Coach Tressel always talks about for us to be good, our seniors have to be great, their best football, and I think that’s what these seniors are doing, stepping up and playing their best football. I think Mike Kudla is doing that.
REPORTER: For Coach Bollman, Antonio Pittman looked like he finished some runs for you today, bounced off some offenders, talk about maybe the hard running that he displayed. Was this a game that you guys have been looking for from Antonio?
BOLLMAN: Well, he did a good job obviously and he did finish some runs a little bit better, but again, this was a game where everybody felt we had some step-up. We needed to play our best game and I think he did. I mean, thus far you guys would probably agree with me that he probably did play his best game thus far. I mean, how many yards did he have? I have no idea.
REPORTER: 170 or thereabouts.
BOLLMAN: Okay. Well, there were some guys that did a good job blocking for him, et cetera, et cetera, and it was — the nice thing too, when I think back upon it, was how much everybody was involved. Everybody had some big plays. Santonio had some big plays. Tony Gonzalez had some big plays. Teddy had some big plays. If we can keep everybody stepping up like that, keeping everybody worried about all the different guys that we have, it will help us.
REPORTER: Is he evolving, though, into that 20-carry-type back, Antonio?
BOLLMAN: Well, I’d like to see him do that. But I think we have to be wise and keep some other people ready and keep some other people improving in their experience. Maurice Wells played some, Brandon Schnittker, those guys. I don’t think we want to be in a situation where Pitt’s the only guy carrying the ball ever.
REPORTER: Coach, what do you think the biggest difference was from last week, just playing more to have that rhythm, just the production or so of —
BOLLMAN: It was two different games. Today was one day, and the challenge in two weeks is try to play with the same intensity and resolve we did today, but I would say that there was a lot more at stake today than there was last week. I’d end it with that right there.
REPORTER: Jim, is there anything you have to do with Brandon Schnittker with two goal end fumbles, is there anything you have to say to him or how do you approach that?
BOLLMAN: Well, I’m sure no one feels worse about it than him. I’m sure no one will do more about it than him and try to work through it and keep going. We’re still going to need him to help us as the year goes on, so we’ll just keep working at it and I’m sure he’ll get some more opportunities, but I’m sure he’s very frustrated, needless to say.
