Transcript From The September 5th Football Press Luncheon – Ohio State Buckeyes
9/5/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 5, 2006
COACH TRESSEL: I think we have about five guys here today to visit with you. Troy and Jamario O’Neal, David Patterson and Quinn, Kirk Barton, those were all the players of the week. Jamario O’Neal was the special units player of the week and he was — oh, I guess that’s live. I don’t want to interrupt them here. I thought they were asking a question already. Jamario O’Neal did a good job. We’re going to have to be used to people pooching and squibbing and all that kind of thing and he was there and brought one kickoff return back to the 25, another one act to the 45, he did an excellent job on kickoff coverage where he made a tackle on the 16. He did a good job on punt coverage, a good job on punt returns blocking the wide guys so Jamario O’Neal with the special units player of the week.
The offensive player of the week was Troy Smith and he was also the co-Big Ten player of the week and Troy will be here with this group and he threw it for a 297 and ran it for minus one and just did a good job managing the game, had good command of what we were doing and he’s the first to tell you that life is good when you have great protection and he really did a good job there when he had those opportunities. Defensively the player of the week was David Patterson. David did a good job putting pressure, did a good job against the run and the pass and really played very well. And also, he along with Quinn Pitcock who’s the attack force player of the week did a good job leading. We had a lot of young guys in that huddle and sometimes when you have a couple yards gained on you, people look to the veteran and so forth and I thought those guys did a very nice job of leading in there, so David was the defensive player of the week and Quinn was the attack force player of the week. The Jim Parker offensive lineman of the week was Kirk Barton. Kirk did an excellent job, graded 93%, played very, very well and if he could keep getting better and better, he’s going to end up being a very fine offensive tackle and he’s the Jim Parker offensive lineman of the week. As you transition out of preseason and into game week, sometimes the transition into getting the good look on the scout team and so forth takes some time. We thought our scout teams did a good job. We rotated a lot of guys back and forth from the scout teams back to working with the two-deep and so forth because we want to make sure that they know they have opportunities. Aaron Gant was our scout special units player of the week. Aaron is a freshman safety from Orchard Lake St. Mary in suburban Detroit, is going to be a good player and really did a good job on the special units. Austin Spitler rotated back and forth between the offensive practice and the defensive practice and was awarded the offensive player of the week and likewise Ray Small kind of went back and forth and he wore jersey number one and tried to give them the quickness and so forth and Ray really did a good job giving our defense a look. Plus he stayed on top of things from an offensive plan standpoint and played very solid. I think he got eight or 10 snaps on the offensive side and did what he was supposed to do and showed that he has some ability there and he was awarded with the scout offensive player of the week.
So the first five guys we talked about will be here, have a chance to be with them today, and then after the practice today as Steve mentioned, we’re going to be a little bit later, it will be more, I think, in the 6:15 range as opposed to the 5:15 range, where they’ll be coming off and we’ll have offensively Stan and T. J. and Doug Datish, who will have a chance and as Steve said before meetings, that way you don’t have to hang around forever and they can get moving because we’re a little bit later schedule, and then over on the defensive side, John Kerr Antonio Smith and Jay Richardson, so we’ll have 11 guys, all of which are contributors and can give you a good outlook on how they think we did and what we need to get done and take care of that. And then tomorrow, the same will be true. It will be a little bit later rather than earlier, it will be closer to 6:15 than 5:15. Thursday, though, will be normal. And so we’ll handle it from there. As far as the overall team performance, after you watch the film, like any first game, you see some things that are promising and you see some things that we better get better at. And if you start over on the offensive side, you better not turn it over like we did, most especially as you’re going in to have those golden opportunities to get points. We talk a lot about improving in the red zone and then we turn around and turned it over twice in the red zone, which is something we’ve got to get a lot better at. And over on the defensive side, the first thing you always talk about is tackling and you can’t have any missed tackles and you’re going to have good backs like Garrett Wolfe who can play in our league, no question, and we’re going to face good backs this week, great backs this week and on down the rest of the schedule and we’ve got to improve our tackling, but first time out, sometimes your angle, sometimes your assuredness of being where you’re supposed to be, when the game unfolds, when it’s not your offense, they’ve been facing our offense so they’ve got the angles down pretty good, pursuing and tackling and so forth against what we do. Each week now, I think playing defense is very difficult, is every week you face something brand new and the veteran player can adjust to that. The young player has to learn to be able to adjust to that. But we saw a lot of promising things, a lot of effort.
We thought our kids really understood as we were talking with them yesterday watching the film, our coaches felt good about their reaction to the little things we have to get better at, and as we said after the game, we took a step. The next step is much larger. So our improvement is going to have to be dramatic, but you’d like to think that after a game what it is, so we’ll have an opportunity to go down and face a team that’s very good, everyone knows that, the defending champions, I’ve got them ranked number one on our ballot because I think they deserve that. I think they deserve that top to bottom. I think they deserve that from a program standpoint, I think they deserve that from a special teams standpoint, from an offensive and a defensive standpoint. They have excellent speed, which is what we all seek. They demonstrate great toughness, which is what we try to teach and try to recruit, and you can tell that they understood the game. In the course of the games, these early games, you have a dozen games or 13 in their case to look at to try to figure them out, plus their first game this year, and you can see that they just know what they’re doing and they’re well schooled and tough kids and they rotate a lot of players and they’ve built themselves into a heck of a program and we’re excited about going down and competing with them and having another measuring stick as to how good we are at this moment and obviously we need a great week of preparation and our kids will do that. Our kids are guys that are interested in being good and they’re all ears about what it takes to be good and I think they have some good leadership, as we said at the beginning of the year, when you have 17 fifth year guys who have been through a lot, they do a good job of sharing that with the other guys. So it’s an exciting week.
I did ask Steve, before the questions, I asked Steve yesterday, I said, he told me that Mack Brown’s press conference lasted 20 minutes. I said, what’s up with that? He said, you talk too much. I said, okay, Steve. That’s why I talked so fast.
REPORTER: Ted Ginn had a great first game and a year ago he only had two catches for nine yards against Texas. I wonder if you can talk about what Texas might have done against him or why he was largely ineffective a year ago. COACH TRESSEL: I don’t know that his game Saturday and the game against Texas a year ago there’s much relevance in that I think he’s progressed quite a bit. I think maybe we’ve progressed along with it. I think maybe the more and more we learned about him and his teammates and what people do best and all those things, it allows people to maybe statistically improve. But we’re going to need Ted Ginn to have an excellent football game, to have a chance to move the ball against a defense like this, there’s no question about it. Those young guys that played receiver last year, Anthony Gonzalez was a young starter, Teddy was young, we had the veteran in Santonio, What we need now are young guys to be like Santonio, to be the veteran guys and bring along Brian Robiskie and bring along Brian Hartline. Right now as far as Roy Hall’s prognosis, I’d say it’s up in the air. We would certainly like to have him out there being the veteran that he is. I’m not sure we’ll know the answer to that one until Thursday. But we need that crew, and Teddy, the question was about Teddy specifically, we need him to really rise up and have a great game.
REPORTER: Why wasn’t he more of a factor last year, was it something Texas did or was it problems with your own offense? COACH TRESSEL: Both. Texas is excellent. Texas does a great job playing defense and perhaps we didn’t do the things maybe we could have to have more production and so we’ve got to get better because they’re not going to get worse.
REPORTER: Jim, last year, after the Iowa game, a lot of players talked about how the score of the ’04 game was up around the locker room all week, do you feel anything similar this week to kind of remind them of last year’s game? COACH TRESSEL: We haven’t had the score up, but I think they know it. The beginning of the year, as it is, with coming off of the preseason and the onus on teaching and trying to figure out who we are, it’s been more about that quite honestly since we arrived in August than it has about last year’s games or anything like that. So I’m sure they all could tell you what the score was, though.
REPORTER: They had a player arrested yesterday, you’ve had distractions along these same lines, I just wonder how much of a factor it actually is in a big game like this, does it take away their focus at all? COACH TRESSEL: I don’t know that it takes away your focus, because your focus is about the game and is it disheartening? Yes. I know Mack fairly well, pretty well, and I know their program. I know they try to teach just as hard as the rest of us try to teach and so I’m sure they’re disappointed, and I’m sure that feeling crops up in relation to that subject, but when it comes down to preparing for the game, it’s not hard to focus for this type of game and I would not look for that to have any impetus at all.
REPORTER: Who has the advantage when a young, inexperienced quarterback goes in against a young, inexperienced defense? COACH TRESSEL: That’s a good question. I don’t know. I think it’s a matter of, I suppose, the group that has the advantage is the group that’s coaching staff asks that young person to do what they’re capable of. And so we need to do a good job of asking our young players whether they be those young defenders you mentioned or maybe someone young on our offense, we need to ask them to do the things they’re capable of doing versus the competition we’re playing and I’m sure the same is true in their case. So I suppose that won’t be answered until after the game, but usually a young player can progress if what we’re asking him to do he really genuinely understands.
REPORTER: Jim, would you rather have the experience at quarterback like you have or experience on defense and an inexperienced quarterback, in other words, would you trade Troy for their inexperienced defense? COACH TRESSEL: I wouldn’t trade Troy for anybody. I’d like to have both. But what we have is an experienced quarterback who, I think, can continue to get better and we have a young defense that will continue to get better and that’s what September 9th will be is to find out how much better we got and how much better whichever guys are young on their side get and to me that’s the exciting part of it. And for the veterans to play to their capability. At the end of it all, it’s going to be a matter of which of our, let’s say, 42 guys play in the game and which of their 42 do their particular roles and which of us coaches perhaps do our roles.
REPORTER: Looking at that, Jim, how similar will this game be to last year’s? Vince Young is gone, you’ve got nine defensive guys gone, will there be any similarities to the game we saw last year? COACH TRESSEL: Will there be any similarities? I think you’re going to see structurally both teams, they are who they are. We’re not going to look totally different because A.J. Hawk is gone. And nor is Texas going to look totally different because Vince Young’s gone. And those are two great players, two of the finest players in the country last year. So there will be some similarities. There will be some differences. We’ll have a lot of jersey differences, jersey number, but the thing I’ve been impressed with, with Texas, amongst many, many other things is they do a great job of rolling players in. They really do a good job. That’s why you see them replace people and they have created excellent depth. They’re very astute at what they do.
REPORTER: Are the comparisons to Vince Young with Troy Smith valid and if so, why.
COACH TRESSE: I don’t know what those comparisons are.
REPORTER: Just the physical skills, athleticism, leadership, that kind of thing. COACH TRESSEL: You know, the thing, if someone asked me where are Vince and Troy similar or different, I could probably speak more to the similarities. They both seem to have a sense about them that they’re in charge, they have command. We talk about quarterback has to have command. They both seem to have that. And they both have that ability to beat you run and pass. Outside of that, I haven’t studied Vince Young as to which routes he throws the best. Our defensive guys could tell you that. I happen to think, and I’ve been saying all along, that I think Troy can make all the throws, but there’s a height difference and there’s some of the obvious things. But to me, the most important one to a team, is the one that they both have and that’s command.
REPORTER: Jim, how do you feel about these early big nonconference games? I mean, you could presumably play your Big Ten schedule and be undefeated and go into the National Championship game without risking a big game like this, I’m just wondering, do you like having these? COACH TRESSEL: To me, it’s a tremendous bonus to coaching and playing at Ohio State is that the Ohio State program has the philosophy that we not only want to be a part of a great conference, to be a part of the greatest rivalry in college football, but we’re also always going to be part of a marquee intersectional markup, and to me, those things are a guarantee if you’re coaching and playing. Those things about running the table and having risks and all that, shoot, we’ve got a good league. There’s not too many people have run the table in our league lately. So absolutely I like being a part of this.
REPORTER: Did you come to Ohio State with that belief or did you come over time or — COACH TRESSEL: With the belief of having an intersectional match-up?
REPORTER: Right. COACH TRESSEL: I just came to Ohio State, I didn’t care about anything, I just wanted to come to Ohio State. I didn’t say make sure you have an intersectional, I didn’t ask them anything, I just said, yeah, I’m coming. So, no, I guess not.
REPORTER: Well, you were consulted, I assume, on these mega blockbuster match-ups we’ve got for the next few years. COACH TRESSEL: Well, that was after I was already here. Yeah, absolutely.
REPORTER: Jim, you spent some time in the preseason preparing for night games obviously, is there any way of preparing for the heat?
COACH TRESSE: There really isn’t. There’s no way we could simulate the heat. We had lots of humidity here, but that’s not the same. To me, the keys to the heat, we’ve had guys on our team and our trainers and our doctors and our coaches who have coached in games where they go to a lot different environment talk about the fact that really hydration is what it’s about now. Making the assumption we have an excellent foundation in our training. Now it’s about hydration. And that’s what handling heat is all about. So we’ve got to do a great job with the hydration. We’ve got to do a great job with making sure we enter the fray as rested and hydrated as we possibly can. And I think the other thing, I think we need to take a lesson from Texas is you have to be committed in that type of heat to substituting. I just think that that’s something that you’re kidding yourself if you think someone’s going to just rise up and handle things just because they’re tough. Well, you know, the body is the body. So I think we’ve got to do a good job with our substitutions as well.
REPORTER: With that in mind, do you envision defensively you were very free in getting a lot of looks, a lot of rotating, are you any more settled on that or because of the heat or because of the evenness of it, do you envision rotating pretty regularly? COACH TRESSEL: We absolutely envision rotating on both sides of the ball. Partially because we still need to keep giving kids opportunities and partially because heat is a real issue.
REPORTER: Because of the uncertain status of Roy Hall, just what did you see out of Robiskie and Hartline in this last game and how much have they improved since they came? COACH TRESSEL: I think both Brian (Robiskie) and Brian (Hartline) are going to be very good. They’re very quick studies. They’ve got good physical characteristics, excellent speed, good size, excellent hands. They’re both going to be good players. It was exciting to see Brian Hartline in his first play ever as a Buckeye catch a ball for 20 some or 30 or whatever it was and nearly 80, that’s exciting. And Brian Robiskie add couple catches and both of them, I thought, did a good job blocking and they’re going to be good players for us.
REPORTER: What did you think of Beanie Wells, his debut, does he figure even more into plans than he did? COACH TRESSEL: Well, Beanie is going to be a good player. I thought his debut was excellent. There are some fundamental things he needs to get better at, but he’s not alone. There’s lots of us that fundamentally we have to get some things done better. Obviously we can’t have the ball on the ground and he knows that. I think if he continues to grow the way he’s been growing, he’s absolutely going to be a big part of who we are. If we can keep those three guys healthy through the course of the year, it is going to be a tremendous bonus to have Antonio and Mo and Beanie, that would be a tremendous bonus.
REPORTER: Jim, in the two-deep this week, maybe not you, but you’ve got John Kerr or Ross Homan, how close is Ross Homan to — COACH TRESSEL: They’ll both play.
REPORTER: How do you eliminate the mistakes made in Saturday’s game? COACH TRESSEL: Well, you don’t make mistakes. We had a young guy that didn’t take care of the ball on one and we had an old guy get tripped by a guard and just not fall on the ball on the second one. How do we do that? Eliminate those, I guess, is the only way we can take care of that. But we can’t become as good as we want as a whole if we fumble the ball about.
REPORTER: Coach, going into the game, what are some of the pregame goals you have? After the game on Saturday, you mentioned limiting the team to 14 points and having a 100-yard rusher, what are some of the other goals you have when you go into the game just generally? COACH TRESSEL: We’ve got board after board, we’ve got all kinds of things according to what we want to have a drive start analysis of such and such after we kickoff and we want to hold our opponents to less than 3.3 yards rushing. We could name every unit, we’ve are probably got, oh, man, we’ve probably got 40 some goals that we evaluate. And that’s just group things. That’s not even individual things that we set as goals. I think you have to set out to do something and understand what it takes to do that, and it takes stopping the run. It takes doing a good job with pass protection, eliminating penalties. It takes all of those things. And Steve said I talk too much so I’ll hold it at that.
REPORTER: Nick was talking yesterday about the winning pass that Vince through to Limas Sweed at the end of the game, he those are about as perfect passes, what do you remember about Limas’ touchdown catch at the end? COACH TRESSEL: What do I remember about it? Wish he hadn’t have caught it. It was a good play. He’s a good player and it was a coverage such that it’s hard to fit that ball in there and they fit it in. There’s nowhere else, Troy’s ball to Santonio’s ball could have gone than it went, and that’s the difference between highly contested games is who makes those plays. And that’s why throughout the whole season, people kept talking about who was going to do this and who was going to do that and in my mind I had a lot of confidence in Texas because I saw what they did, when they needed to make a play they did and that tells you a lot about a team.
REPORTER: I have a two-parter here. COACH TRESSEL: Oh my gosh, okay.
REPORTER: You said last week you hadn’t looked at any Texas film. COACH TRESSEL: Correct.
REPORTER: Was that completely honest? And now that you have — COACH TRESSEL: So the first part is an honesty question. Okay, honestly I did not watch any Texas film.
REPORTER: And now that you have, what do you think about their young quarterback and their offense without Vince Young? COACH TRESSEL: Well, you’re really going to question my honesty because I’ve done nothing but watch Texas’ defense. I saw one highlight on TV where he threw a slant and Limas caught it, was right where it needed to be and Limas kind of juggled it or something and amazingly got it back, but that ball was delivered right where you want it, below the numbers. It was perfect. I think that’s the only ball I’ve seen him throw. I tell you, I don’t pretend to help the defense and I’ve tried not to take any kudos for our defensive excellence. When you take over a position like being the Texas quarterback, I think it’s a tremendous responsibility, and apparently he’s done a great job with that, because all you hear is how he’s handled that tough position very, very well and his numbers were excellent.
REPORTER: Is it hard — COACH TRESSEL: So this is a three-part question.
REPORTER: Is it hard to get a good read on their film based on who they’re playing? COACH TRESSEL: I suppose you really don’t know about anyone until you’re face-to-face, nose to nose with them, but you have an idea when you watch them. You can tell, this guy runs fast, this guy throws well, this guy tackles well, but you don’t know until you’re nose to nose.
REPORTER: When you have an opposing quarterback like Troy who can both run and throw, I’m just wondering what you anticipate Texas will do to try to negate what he does best. COACH TRESSEL: As I look at Texas defense, I don’t see them as being a reactionary defense. I think Texas, what they do is they say, hey, here we come, see if you can block us. Hey, we’re covering you, see if you can get open. So I don’t anticipate any changes. And remember now, all those kids that are playing have faced Vince Young every day in practice for the last three years, so their awareness level of a quarterback keeping a play alive and staying with your receiver and all those things, I think, will be — and again, they’re very well schooled.
REPORTER: People will tell you that last year’s loss to Texas took you out of the National Championship picture, do you need to beat Texas Saturday to remain in the National Championship running. COACH TRESSEL: I would assume that, because I think you make the assumption going into the year that the teams that meet for the title are going to be undefeated, that’s the assumption I always make. And it’s been that way, I think, pretty much — I think Oklahoma lost late in the year one year and still played in it, but you better make the assumption of that. But again, if that’s why we want to do well, then we don’t have our focus on the right things.
REPORTER: Will you bring that up at all this week? COACH TRESSEL: No, no.
REPORTER: Jim, you had five field goals obviously in the Texas game last year. Based upon this past Saturday are there concerns for you at kicker and are you planning on using both guys again? COACH TRESSEL: I would say, about the 12th time I’ve answered this today with all these different things, but I would say if the game were today, there’s no question in my mind Aaron Pettrey would kickoff and he would probably do the field goals but from isn’t a game today. There probably won’t be a change in who kicks off, because we just don’t do that many of them in the course of the week, but we’ll have lots of chances from a field goal standpoint and just like our other position players, you try to evaluate the fundamental things that they’re working on to see if they’re moving in that direction, and so both Ryan and Aaron have some things that they need to do a little better and their practice should bear it out. So definitively, probably won’t make any proclamation, if you will, until Thursday as to who’s going to kick the field goal part, but I would say it’s fairly safe to say that Aaron will do the kickoff.
REPORTER: Do the responsibilities of a quarterback change in a big-game setting like this and how much of an advantage it is? It would appear, anyhow, that you have the advantage. COACH TRESSEL: I don’t know that the responsibilities change. It’s a game that you’re not watching, if the quarterback doesn’t turn it over and makes some good decisions and makes some plays, you’re going to have a chance to win. Whether you’re at Baldwin-Wallace, where there might be less people watching or you’re on this stage I don’t know that things change. The same things hold true. With that in mind, that is going to be a big part of how Ohio State does and how Texas does and that’s the decisions the quarterback makes, the ability to eliminate turnovers by the quarterback position because they have the ball the most and which quarterback makes plays. Now, that will be a contribution. That won’t be everything because there’s lots of other people but I think Steve’s moving up, Marla, last question. holy smokes, what did you walk up here for? I’m going to do a Bill Parcells. ‘Nope, yep, because I want to.’ Does that answer your question, Doug?
REPORTER: Almost. Talking about the catch Limas Sweed made last year, have you seen moments where a big player like that in a big game can kind of change their perception of how they think of themselves amend maybe propel them to greater things COACH TRESSEL: I think anytime you do something extraordinary for your group, there’s an infusion of confidence and, hey, I just made a difference for this whole team, for this whole school, for this whole state. Absolutely I think it makes a difference.
REPORTER: Coach, you kind of talked about the focus remaining on the game at hand, not the big hype, one versus two, one verse three, how easy is that? Obviously the guys know how big this is, but how have they bought into this not getting involved in the hype that is here? COACH TRESSEL: I wish I could evaluate that like I can a practice tape and I can’t really evaluate what’s going on inside their heads, but you have an idea of how people practice and how they — you can see them really honed in on the task at hand and I’ve been pleased with our guys as to their eagerness to get better and to become a good team and I don’t know that any of our guys think that if we perhaps could be successful in this game that all of a sudden, we’re to be playing for the National Championship, I hope they’re smarter than that, I know they’re smarter than that, bit if we get better each week, there’s our chance. Okay, Marla.
REPORTER: I want to ask about the pass rush and Vernon Gholsten in particular, was that a product of maybe they got lucky against some smaller guys or was he in particular really that much of a standout? COACH TRESSEL: Well, you know, Vernon was really productive, he was our most productive player if you look at our personnel board with the point system and all and he showed that all spring and fall against our guys. So I don’t know that it was a function — Northern Illinois is pretty good at protecting the passer, they completed 70% some of their passes last year and couple Big Ten schools on their schedule along with their league and playing in the championship game, so, no, I don’t think it was a function of a poorer team or anything. Now, what does Vernon have to do is he has to pass the test of time. He’s made excellent steps, had a good spring, a good preseason, a good first game, now his second game has got to be even better. Sometimes after you’ve tasted success on the real stage, maybe that can propel you, not unlike Doug’s question about if you come through for the team, does it give you confidence, I think it does.
