Ohio State Practice Report Quotes – Ohio State Buckeyes
1/3/2007 12:00:00 AM | Football
Jan. 3, 2007
AP Championship Week Photo Gallery
Head Coach Jim Tressel
ON HOW PRACTICE WENT: “Good. Our guys had a day off yesterday (team switched hotels), but we still had meetings and so forth. I think their focus has been good. I think their anxious, it’s been enjoyable… the weather has been great, and the people here sure know how to put on a bowl game, it makes it easy for you when it’s time to work.”
ON THE LAYOFF: “I really haven’t yet. I don’t know if anyone will able to debate if there was a layoff effect or not until they see how we tackle, we haven’t tackled in a while, or how we take care of the football when it’s live out there. To me, that will be the measure of it, and thus far I haven’t seen any ill effects from it.”
ON PUTTING IN THE GAME PLAN: “We’ve been working on the game plan for probably the last week and a half, we went fundamentals for quite some time, but now we’re really trimming the game plan down a little bit. Today was a Monday, which is kind of a bonus day in a work week. Tomorrow is truly the first pure game plan day, then Wednesday’s a game play day, and then Thursday, which is Saturday, is a polish day.”
ON IF PLAYERS GET EXCITED ABOUT GAME PLANS: “I think guys like the chess game because they’ve seen so much football on TV, there is so much analysis. They come in here knowing so much more football than they did 20 years ago. I think they get into the chalk part of it.”
ON INSTALLING ADDITIONAL TRICK PLAYS WITH THE LAYOFF: “If you do, it’s only a few more. Late in the season, you have all the ones you’ve done and rehearsed before, and maybe even used, and then anything new you saw on film that week. By the end of the year you have a load of them so it’s a matter of which ones you can rehearse, so you can’t have too many more.” ON FLORIDA PLAYERS TALKING ABOUT THEIR PERCEIVED LACK OF RESPECT: “There was the discussion on who was going to get the other spot, but there’s nobody who will be wearing the scarlet and gray that will have other than great respect for them and we know that these are the two top teams in America playing; how can you have any less respect than that?”
ON IF Troy Smith NEEDS A WIN TO GO DOWN AS OHIO STATE’S ALL-TIME GREATEST QB: “I think the number one measuring stick of a quarterback is wins and losses. I don’t exactly what his starting record is, but it’s pretty darn good. Obviously having a national championship plus a Heisman Trophy would make a pretty good argument that he’s pretty fair. I think winning does validate, and I know he feels the same way.”
ON ANY SIMILARITIES BETWEEN FLORIDA AND HIS 2002 OSU CHAMPION TEAM: “There are the similarities in that we were very good in the special teams and they made a difference for us and we won some close games. Outside of that, we’re really two different style teams. Comparing them to a team that played for a national championship and then won it is a compliment, and I would compliment them for sure.”
ON FLORIDA/SEC REPUTATION FOR SPEED: “From top to bottom, it’s the fastest team we’ve seen, when you start talking about the special units, the defense, both the front and the back ends, the offensive weapons and the number of them, that type of thing. There are more guys with speed, but only 11 can play at once, but I think it’s the fastest team we’ve played for sure.”
REACTION TO NICK SABAN ACCEPTING ALABAMA JOB: “I guess that’s fine, it’s obviously what he wants to do and Alabama is a great place.”
DOES HE SEE BIDDING WARS: “Oh, I don’t know. I think that the market has been extraordinary for a long time. When Coach (Earle) Bruce came to work here, he was making $40,000 and that wasn’t that long ago. But will this have any particular new bump on it? I doubt it.”
DID HE SEE THE DAY WHEN A COLLEGE COACH WOULD MAKE $4 MILLION A YEAR: “Probably not. We didn’t have a budget of $4 million for the entire athletic department. I don’t think it will have a ripple effect. There aren’t that many positions yet to fill, and there will be as many people saying, ‘Oh, that’s crazy we’ll never do that’ as there will be people who feel they have to keep up with the market.”
#15 A.J. Trapasso, P (Soph., 6-1, 220, Pickerington, Ohio)
ON IF PINNING THE OPPONENT DEEP IN THERE IS DOING HIS JOB: “As long as I do what they tell me to do, they stay pretty happy with me. It’s not a real flashy spot, you don’t get a whole lot of notoriety for it, but I like it. I try to my job on the team, get it out there about 40 yards, fair catch it or out of bounds.”
DOES HE LOVE BEING AT ANOTHER BCS BOWL: “It’s great. The whole team, coaches, everyone’s clicking. It’s a great bowl.”
IF IS THIS AN IDEAL PLACE, WITH THIS WEATHER, FOR A KICKER: “It doesn’t get any better than this. I haven’t seen a threat of rain, it’s a great place.”
ON HIS IMPRESSIONS OF THE STADIUM: “That place was unbelievable. It’s so big… it’s hard to believe it’s and indoor facility. I am kind of pulling for them to have the roof open, if it’s a nice night, I’d kind of like to show it off a little bit.”
ON IF HE HAS AND IF HE LIKES KICKING INDOORS: “Yes, at Minnesota. Domes are cool, there’s no wind.”
ON HOW MUCH BOWL PRACTICES HELP THE BACKUPS: “It’s up there a lot because (Jon) Thoma’s been right on my heels. Since he’s gotten here, he’s an excellent punter, he gets a lot of reps on the scout punt team because Florida does a lot of weird things with their punts. He’s enjoying it and he’s doing real well.”
ON IF HE’S HAD A LOT OF BAD SNAPS FROM CENTER: “Drew (Norman) does an excellent job. The one I dropped at Northwestern just hit me right in the hands. I don’t know what went wrong with that one, I probably just took my eyes off it. I can’t pinpoint a single bad snap from Drew.”
ON HOW HE WOULD YOU RANK HIM AS A SNAPPER: “He’s been my snapper the last two years and he’s done an excellent job. It’s hard to compare a college snapper with a high school snapper; my high school snapper was good, but drew has to be one of the best.”
ON THE END OF “CAMP” PRACTICES: “It was weird the first couple of days down here. This is camp, kind of like the Junction Boys over there. It wasn’t that bad, but now it feels kind of like a weight has been lifted and we’re already into game week. It’s routine, everyone was flying around the field today, feeling great. We look good.”
DOES IT MATTER WHO OSU IS PLAYING IN THIS GAME: “No, I think it’s great. I have a front row seat to the best offensive show in the country. At the beginning of the season, our defense was so underrated, it’s great to see them develop and become one of the best. If we’re going to get beat, we’re going to beat ourselves. Florida’s going to be a tough challenge, and they’re an amazing team, but when we’re in our game, I don’t see us losing.”
#20 Aaron Pettrey, K (Fr.-RS, 6-1, 195, Raceland, Ky.)
DOES FLORIDA HAVE AN EDGE IN THE KICKING GAME: “They’ve got a good punter, they’ve got a good kicker, and they have two good specialists. We just have to do what we have to do.”
ON IF HE KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT COACH TRESSELL THAT NO ONE ELSE KNOWS: “I don’t know. What you see is what you get. He’s a great coach, I really respect the guy. He’s like that all the time. I can’t give you anything.”
