Transcript From Coach Tressel Weekly Press Conference – Ohio State Buckeyes
10/2/2007 12:00:00 AM | Football
COACH TRESSEL: Welcome. It was good to get to Minneapolis and have a chance to have a new experience for this group and come back with a victory. It seems like every time we go there, it’s a struggle, and we’re proud with the way the kids came up with the win and fortunately everything was smooth and we got there smooth. We weren’t like that one plane that lightning was struck at them. See what happens when you’re in a media plane, lightning goes after you. But we got back, I think we were home by 4:30 a.m, so it was good.
We had some guys have some excellent performances. The special teams Player of the Week was A. J. Trapasso, not just on the strength of his fake punt, but his punting really creating excellent field position for us. I think he dropped four or five of them down around the 15 or less and that was huge for us to allow our defense to begin in that field position, and so he was the special teams Player of the Week.
Marcus Freeman was the Defensive Player of the Week, had an excellent ball game flying around, he continues to get better and better, the more he gets to play, and he was our defensive player.
Brian Robiskie was the Offensive Player of the Week and he obviously came up with some big plays and played very steady, graded over 90% and continues to grow as the receiver we need him to be.
Jim Parker offensive lineman of the week was Jimmy Cordle. Jimmy graded out very well. Again, it was a loud situation, just like we’ll have a loud situation this coming Saturday night and in those situations, the ability to communicate and that type of thing is challenged and he did a good job getting us into the schemes we needed to be in and the assignments we needed to do and he was the Jim Parker offensive lineman.
The Attack Force Player of the Week was James Laurinaitis. James had another double-digit tackle weekend and continues to improve and play hard and lead and all the things that he wants to do. He prepares extremely hard in the film room. He prepares extremely hard in the weight room and he continues to be recognized and this week the attack force player.
We haven’t had our vote yet for the Jack Tatum hit, that will be forthcoming in our team meeting today. Yesterday they had the day off. I don’t know if you noticed, last week we didn’t talk to you about the scout team players of the week because quite honestly we didn’t have great scout team play. It was better this week. In fact, it was excellent. Some guys did some good jobs making sure we get the looks we needed and the execution we needed to make sure we were prepared and Mark Johnson was the special units scout Player of the Week.
Bryan Gray was the defensive scout Player of the Week and Joe Gantz was the offensive scout Player of the Week and we have to continue to get that kind of play from our guys and it’s not glamorous and it’s not fun and you get tired of getting beat around sometimes, but it’s critical and we have to continue to improve in that area.
Obviously our sights turned quickly to Purdue. By the time we are done playing, so was everyone else in America and we had a chance to think about the upcoming game. And what I’m impressed with Purdue about, outside of the fact that I think Joe Tiller has done one of the finest jobs anywhere in our conference for the past 11 years, he happens to have a team that has 26 seniors, 14 of them are fifth-year guys, very mature, very poised. They don’t get rattled. They come out, obviously very prepared for every game and get after it. If the game all of a sudden tightens a little bit, you can see that doesn’t affect them because they’ve been there and had those experiences.
Everyone talks about Curtis Painter and what a job he does throwing the football around and he does just that, he’s got great receivers and Jake Standeford and all those guys, but you can’t forget about the fact of Kory Sheets in the running game is very, very good. And they have probably one of the best balanced teams they’ve had, and it will be a tremendous challenge for our defense. Their special teams are excellent, when (Dorien) Bryant’s back there, it’s like Teddy Ginn being back there. He can bring it at any time. And Number 6 for them brought one back on a kickoff against Minnesota two weeks ago and they were trying to kick away from (Dorien) Bryant, so they did, and the other guy went 91 yards and Bryant and Number 6 do a great job on the punt returns as well. They lead the conference in kickoff coverage. Their punting, I thought, the first couple weeks wasn’t up to their standard. The last couple weeks it’s been excellent. Their net punt has been very, very good up over 40 yards and their kicker has been extremely consistent. So they have the makeup of being one of those complete teams. They’re physical. Their defense flies around. They’ve got, I think, seven senior starters on that defense. They’re very physical. They have quite a rotation on that front, which is key in this day and age, if they’re able to rotate seven, eight, nine guys on that front, that’s huge.
Their linebackers are excellent. Their secondary is very, very good and they’ve played great football, and so I think we’ve made incremental steps each session that we’ve been asked, when it was spring practice or summertime or preseason or early season nonconference, early season conference, going on the road, going on the road at night and we’ve made small steps along the way. Obvious we know this step is higher, and we’ve got to make sure that we are able to take that next step. Questions?
REPORTER: You’re up to Number 4 in the rankings this week, does it make your job more difficult when the kids, obviously, they’re college football fans and they say “Number 4”?
COACH TRESSEL: You know, we’re a young team, but I would like to think that we’re mature enough to think on October 2nd where you’re ranked doesn’t really have much credence and hopefully they’ll stay focused on the task at hand as to what we need to get better at, and I think they will.
REPORTER: Do you use that as a motivator or did that come up as a motivating effect as to what was happening elsewhere in the country, that they were kind of clearing the runway for you?
COACH TRESSEL: No, in the locker room after the game, we were most anxious to go home, it was whatever time at night and they weren’t ready for any epiphany from me about anything, so, no, that wasn’t discussed.
REPORTER: You got one first-place vote in the coaches poll, was that you?
COACH TRESSEL: No.
REPORTER: What do you think of that?
COACH TRESSEL: What do I think of getting a vote?
REPORTER: Do you think you’re the best team in the nation?
COACH TRESSEL: We’ve got a long way to go if we’re going to be the best team in the nation.
REPORTER: How’s Brandon Saine feeling, Coach?
COACH TRESSEL: I mentioned to Paul Keels, is he here, or is he celebrating his induction into the Ohio Sportscaster’s Hall of Fame? He’s working? I mentioned to Paul yesterday that Brandon probably wouldn’t go. You know what, I’m not sure that’s true. The medical report today came back that he actually did full speed land running after you begin your rehab in the water, and he did that last week, all of a sudden yesterday he was on land running full speed, which is pretty fast. So I think you would call him questionable right now because it will be the doctors that will, trainers will make that decision. But I was prepared, as I told Paul, to say he was out. I’m not sure that’s true.
REPORTER: Coach, could you expand a little on Coach Tiller, you talked about him in the beginning there, but he seems like one of the better coaches in the country.
COACH TRESSEL: Oh, there’s no question. Joe Tiller, he has a system, he demands discipline, he believes in what’s right about college football and he’s been consistent and I think that’s one of the hallmarks of anything you do is consistency, and he did it at Wyoming and he’s done it at Purdue and he’s one of the best.
REPORTER: Do you mind going back to ’02 and the Krenzel and Jenkins, was that the gem of the run, barring the title game, that fourth down play?
COACH TRESSEL: That was a battle at Ross-Ade Stadium, first downs were hard to come by, I forget the final score, but it was low scoring, it wasn’t by much, does anyone know?
REPORTER: 10-6.
COACH TRESSEL: Yeah, real low scoring and it was a battle. Everyone thought that was just a wonderful play call throwing for that touchdown and that have the fourth choice in his progression, so he was a decoy, but the first three were covered and Craig Krenzel was far enough along in his maturity that he wasn’t going to throw it to the covered guys, so that was a good win, that was a tough win, and I expect it to be just as tough this Saturday night.
REPORTER: The last several games with Purdue have been, dating back to that one in ’03, ’04, have been tight right down to the wire.
COACH TRESSEL: Purdue’s good.
REPORTER: What do you expect from them this game?
COACH TRESSEL: Purdue is a good football team, and especially when you look at their makeup right now with the maturity they have and the veterans who have been there and had tough games and they know what it takes to do things, and so every game we’ve played with Purdue has been — we had an overtime game one time, we had the last minute touchdown another time, what, in ’04, it’s 17-17, and we just gave them too much time and they went down and scored with, what, two minutes to go or something like that? Shoot, they’ve been battles.
REPORTER: Jim, in hindsight, that ’02 game could have been a milestone game in terms of making a run toward the national title. Can this game — can you use this game as maybe sort of the same thing?
COACH TRESSEL: We weren’t thinking of that in ’02, we were thinking about playing Purdue and doing the best we could against them. And if you keep your focus on that, who knows what can happen. If our focus is on anything other than playing the 2007 Boilermakers, which are probably superior to the 2002 Boilermakers, we’ll be in trouble.
REPORTER: Who does Brian Robiskie remind you of, of receivers you’ve had, I’m thinking like maybe a Michael Jenkins, lanky like that?
COACH TRESSEL: He’s a little bit like Michael, they were both 200/400-meter runners coming out of high school, long striders. Michael played some high school quarterback and some high school linebacker and some high school running back, whereas Brian’s been a receiver and I think maybe in his early days, middle school or something he might have been quarterback, but he’s probably played more receiver through high school than Michael had, but that would probably be Michael, Drew Carter-like, maybe not as fast as Drew, but pretty effective.
REPORTER: A lanky, tall target like that, how does that help?
COACH TRESSEL: It means you can be off by a little more. If the guy has short arms, you’ve got to put it right there. If the guy has long arms, you can be 12 inches off, but he just does a great job of playing the ball and that’s critical for a quarterback.
REPORTER: Jim, as you watched Todd Boeckman’s tape from Saturday, what stood out to you about his game? He was talking about during the game he thought maybe he was gripping the ball too tight, he had some good throws and bad throws, what kind of game did he have in your opinion?
COACH TRESSEL: He had two or three balls that I’m not sure he was happy with the way they came off, but out of 30 or whatever he threw, I thought he was effective. I think each game he’s played, he’s grown a little more comfortable with what we’re trying to do and how you go about doing it and so forth, but he’s also been around here a long time and he knows what lies ahead.
REPORTER: Coach, can you talk about Chris Wells a little bit and what kind of impact he’s had on the offense and his style?
COACH TRESSEL: I think Chris is coming along. Chris is a young guy — I’m not sure he’s 20 years old yet, but with excellent talent, a lot of passion. He’s anxious to do whatever he can do to help this team, which sometimes as a running back, patience is a virtue, but he’s extremely talented, works extremely hard at it, wants to help this team whether it’s pass blocking or route running. His favorite subject is ball carrying, but he’s going to be a good one.
REPORTER: How difficult is that to develop that patience as a running back? I would think that instinctively your instincts are to get to the line of scrimmage, but how is that to develop?
COACH TRESSEL: It’s kind of like developing patience as a person. Normally the older person has a little more patience than the younger person because of experiences. So it just takes a lot of ball carrying and hopefully he’ll get a lot of that and develop. I think he’s made some steps from that standpoint.
REPORTER: Are there about the same number of upsets every year, do you think there’s more parity, or are there some years where more teams seem to fall for whatever reason?
COACH TRESSEL: I think there’s lots of parity. I don’t know if there’s more this year or last year or whatever it happens to be, but you better be ready to play. But the nice thing is, if you prepare and you do the things it takes to win, it doesn’t matter if you’re the favored or the underdog, you need to be prepared to win.
REPORTER: Can you talk about games on the road, your preparation?
COACH TRESSEL: There’s that patience thing, you can’t sit around and be jittery all day long, you have to create some things that take up some time. You don’t want to sit there and have football meetings all day long, so you try to have the right mix of things. What we typically do on a Saturday night game is go to the game site around noon and have our last-minute walk-through then as opposed to having it on Friday. We’ll arrive on Friday and just relax in the hotel and then get up and have a meeting and go over to Ross-Ades Stadium and come back, and it’s that last couple hours before you go to the stadium that it’s like, oh, will this ever come, but that’s part of the deal.
I think our guys enjoy the fact that they’re going to be on Saturday night and a good bit of the world is going to watch them. I think they’re excited about that.
REPORTER: Of the upsets over the weekend, which ones surprised you the most?
COACH TRESSEL: I didn’t watch any of them. The only upset I was concerned about —
REPORTER: I mean, were you worried about it?
COACH TRESSEL: — was the one when we were getting ready to kick off that we heard about, shoot.
REPORTER: Penn State? Oklahoma? Colorado?
COACH TRESSEL: You know what, I’m old and patient and nothing surprises me.
REPORTER: With Beanie’s (Chris Wells) ankle obviously kind of recurring tenderness, do you cut back on his practice reps, do you rest guys? I know they have to practice to play, but how do you handle that during the week?
COACH TRESSEL: I think as the season goes, there’s a natural paring down of things. We’re not quite to that point from a practice standpoint that we’re cutting way back. We don’t practice on Mondays anymore, whereas the first three games after them we practiced on Mondays, then school began, so we started giving them Mondays off, so therefore only getting three practice days a week, where before we were getting four, so there’s a natural progression. I think as you get into the latter stages of mid to late October, you’ll start shortening your practice a little bit and part of ours is by necessity because it gets dark out there and we don’t have lights so sometimes it’s 4:45 and it’s dark out there in November. There’s a natural paring down and we like to see that Beanie gets reps, Mo Wells gets reps, last year it was Danny Herron and Marcus Williams getting reps, this week it may even be Brandon Saine getting reps, there’s a natural progression.
REPORTER: I guess what it would mean, could it be better if you would save a guy, he’d be more effective on Saturday.
COACH TRESSEL: Well, that’s what you have to decide, is practice important, coaches happen to think it is. Now, I know there’s a debate sometimes, but there’s a fine line between saving a person and getting the practice you need. In fact, Anthony Gonzalez said an interesting thing last year, we played Illinois, he didn’t have a very good game, he made some mistakes and this and that and he had missed a whole week of practice because he had had a concussion some days before, so he missed practice and he said after that game, he said, now I realize just how you feel different when you don’t practice. I needed to practice to work on what we were working on and see the coverages that they do as opposed to staying on the sideline. Yes, you have to make sure you don’t just line up and go scrimmage and have everyone not make the bell, but on the other hand, you can’t just go do walk-throughs and think that you’re going to play at your best.
REPORTER: Jim, you talked last week about wanting to have Beanie be more of a warrior, develop more of a warrior mentality, did he take a step in that direction last week? It looked like his ankle was still bothering him.
COACH TRESSEL: Did I say that to you?
REPORTER: Yeah, you said it to all of us.
COACH TRESSEL: Okay. Well, we need a warrior, I’ll have to check the transcript. I don’t know if I said we need him to be more of a warrior, I think he’s been a warrior and we’re going to need a warrior and he needs to continue to do that. We need to be a physical run team and he’s the kind of guy that can provide that for us. I think every time he gets in a game and gets 20 or more carries, we’re taking a step towards that.
REPORTER: Potentially by the time he’s done here, where could he end up?
COACH TRESSEL: Potentially? Gosh, I don’t know. We’ll have that discussion after. You know, when we’re old and gray and sitting, which was the best one you ever coached? Shoot, I don’t know. I’m sure whoever coached (Howard) “Hopalong” Cassidy might beg to differ or Eddie George or if I sit here and say he could be better than Eddie George, Coach (John) Cooper will jump up in the back and throw something at me. I don’t know, we’ll find out.
REPORTER: You went through a stretch where you guys had problems winning on the road, maybe in these night games or whatever, but I believe you’ve now won 10 straight road games all the way back to the Penn State game in 2005. Maybe let’s talk about — maybe if you go into these situations knowing that the players understand the drill, you’ve won at Iowa, won at Texas, won at Washington, won the game this past week, is it kind of a quiet confidence knowing you can win in these situations now?
COACH TRESSEL: I remember a night game in January we didn’t do real great.
REPORTER: That wasn’t a road game.
COACH TRESSEL: Just a faint memory.
REPORTER: That wasn’t a road game. I’m just talking about going to someone’s —
COACH TRESSEL: I think we’ve always tried hard to prepare, and some of the games that we’ve gone and not been successful, I think back to Penn State, they weren’t bad that year. Wisconsin, the year we lost up there at night, they weren’t real bad. So you’ve just got to go and see how you can fare. Purdue is a good football team. I’m not sure that it’s are we a good night team or not a good night team, no matter when you play Purdue, you’ve got to be good.
REPORTER: What’s more annoying —
COACH TRESSEL: What’s more annoying? Not letting a guest ask a question.
REPORTER: I’m not a guest, nobody ever lets —
COACH TRESSEL: Okay, we can’t use up our time.
REPORTER: How much of the extra conditioning that Beanie had this summer and the advice Eddie (George) gave him, how has that affected him now? How has that affected his reps in practice and carries and endurance?
COACH TRESSEL: Guys that want to become good players want to hear from those that have done it and the legacy around here, and Coach Cooper could speak to that a lot better than I could, is that Eddie would come in for multiple runs, he wouldn’t just run with the night group or morning group, he’d be in with all of them and just getting himself ready to be that warrior and if I mention that, I don’t look much like a warrior, but Eddie George mentions that, and that isn’t like it was the first time brought up, that’s just one of those folklores around here, if you want to train like somebody, train like Eddie George did, so I think all that kind of thing just encourages you. And I thought Beanie had an excellent summer.
He really worked extremely hard this summer and got slow a little bit in the preseason and missed a little practice with the ankle, but came back. I think like all tailbacks knows that he’s going to hurt until about Thursday, that’s just the life of a tailback, but he was feeling good on Sunday. The discipline of keeping up with your in-season lifts and your in-season rehabs and if you’re a hamstring guy, which he’s not, but you’ve got to work on your hamstring all year around because you might have a propensity to have those type of injuries. But Beanie has worked extremely hard and I think he’s really growing.
REPORTER: What about mentally in his confidence level?
COACH TRESSEL: I think he’s grown there. I know he wasn’t happy about a fumble late in the game, but like most good competitors, he’s going to make sure that he steps up the next time.
REPORTER: In terms of artificial noisemakers, what’s more annoying, that growl at Penn State or that whistle or whatever the heck that thing is at Purdue?
COACH TRESSEL: You know, you need to ask the players that, because someone brought up that whistle at Purdue and I didn’t know what they were talking about. But again, I don’t have to be out there trying to snap the ball and that kind of thing. But that’s one of the things we sell in the Big Ten is you go to Big Ten stadiums and of course kids get to visit ours when we invite them to visit, but we tell them, you get to go to places that just are off the charts, and Purdue is one of them and Penn State and all the rest. That’s part of the fun of playing in this conference.
REPORTER: Coach, could you tell us a little bit what you think about Curtis Painter? He doesn’t seem to be as physical of a runner as other quarterbacks you’ve had is that going to be a big advantage for our strong offensive front?
COACH TRESSEL: Painter obviously has got great command of what they do, tremendously quick release, great touch when he needs it, and he’ll kill you with the run when they need it. If you look at their ball games at some times they run that little read option zone play and there have been times where the game was — there was little question about which direction it was going and here came Painter around the corner with the ball, and he’s probably not going to go 80 yards,I hope not, but he can really hurt you and get those 12 to 15-yard runs when you’re least expecting them and he comes off those fakes sometimes and even throws a little bubble and those kind of things. So he’s not an immobile kind of guy. He’s not going to win the 100-meter, but he’s got Dorien Bryant who can do that for him. He just brings so much confidence and so much experience and toughness, you don’t throw that many balls and get hit that many times in a career without being tough, and I love that most about quarterbacks.
REPORTER: With so many seniors that they have, how much of an advantage is that compared with how few you have and especially being on the road do you think?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, having experience is a great plus for you, but they don’t get any points for it, but they get good performance from it and we’ve just got to perform as well or better than they do despite the experience difference.
REPORTER: With this being October and despite the opponent, does the mentality change around here? Do you guys take more of a business sense approach?
COACH TRESSEL: It’s harder to get much more serious than we are. I’d like to think that there’s a heightened awareness because now we’ve played some games and so has our opponent. A lot of times you go into a game, so and so is supposed to be good this year and here’s what they were last year and we’re supposed to be good or not supposed to be good or whatever. But now we’ve played some games and we get to watch them for five games playing in 2007, and just having that extra video, early in the season when you’re watching last year’s stuff and you’re sitting there saying, now 72 is not there anymore and that’s going to be so and so and this guy’s not there and this guy switched to here and this guy’s jersey changed from this to that, it’s not the same as, hey, this is who they are and prepare.
REPORTER: Are they better than Washington on paper as you prepare for them?
COACH TRESSEL: They’re much more experienced than Washington. I think both teams are talented. Obviously Painter has a lot more experience than Locker. Sheets, probably superior to the running back, Rankin, the kid at Washington. Defensively, probably have a little more depth at Purdue because of all those kids that have played so much and that kind of thing. The only way you know for sure is if they play.
REPORTER: Nobody’s labeled their defense is real shutdown unit, what do you see when you look at their defense?
COACH TRESSEL: They’ve given up 20 points in the first half of five games, so that’s an average of four points. So if we can give up four points in a half, I’d call that pretty shutdown.
REPORTER: They gave up 28 to Minnesota in the second half.
COACH TRESSEL: Right. They’ve had the unique situation of being way up in many games, and that’s always one of the hardest things to do, when you’re way up, play your finest, and I think if you judge when the games are even, they’re as shutdown as anybody.
REPORTER: Is there any part of you, and I know you’re focused on the game, but some of the hype in this is Purdue’s got the number one offense in the Big Ten and the Ohio State defense is number one in the Big Ten, one of the best nationally, is there any part of you that goes into a game like that interested to see how that supposed kingpin match-up when Purdue has the ball turns out.
COACH TRESSEL: I don’t know if it’s because it would be labeled a kingpin match-up, but I’m always interested to see how our defense can deal with their defense and their defense can deal with our offense and each of those special team plays, but again, I don’t know that you’re far enough into the year to start talking about particular units. Again most of us have played one or two conference games throughout the nation, until you’ve had to weather your conference, you don’t know who you are.
REPORTER: Is it possible their offense is as good or better than Florida’s offense?
COACH TRESSEL: Oh, gosh, I don’t know. Ask that on Wednesday afternoon.
REPORTER: Just on paper as you look at them.
COACH TRESSEL: They’re different. Very different, I think, than Florida.
REPORTER: Jim, you had several guys kind of hobble off the other night but came back, is anybody lingering?
COACH TRESSEL: No, I think they’re going to be in good shape. We do get one guy back, Andre Amos, did I mention that? He came back after surgery, had to work through rehab, the last two weeks he’s been out in the field doing everything but being given the green light and he’s been given the green light for this week. He gives you a little more depth at corner and help at special teams, that will help us.
REPORTER: Do you see Jermale Hines making a move this week?
COACH TRESSEL: Hines will be back, but we mentioned that last week.
REPORTER: Do you see him making a move, the way you liked him in preseason?
COACH TRESSEL: He’s going to jump in there being the two deep in special teams right off the bat. Now, he’s missed some growth and he wasn’t allowed to even be in watching films and meetings and all that, so we’ll have to see in the defensive scheme of things how quickly he’ll get back, but the thing I was impressed with Jermale, I was amazed how he picked up all that our defense does, which is significant.
REPORTER: With the success that Bryant has had as a kickoff returner, what do you need to do to keep him in check?
COACH TRESSEL: That is a hard one. You better hit the ball high, so your coverage unit has got a chance. you better do a good job of reading their scheme, because their return unit, it’s like anything else, if you think something good is going to happen, they think, you know what, if I get this block, there goes Dorien. So we better do a good job of being aware of what it is they’re doing and then being able to defeat comes just like defense, you’ve got to defeat the guy trying to block you and on the kickoff cover unit or the punt cover unit, they do a good job holding you up, when you punt, they do a great job of holding you up and you can’t give him any running room.
Now, on the kickoff, you can’t kick it in the stands or they keep moving you back, on the punt, you might kick it in the stands and be better served. But he’s — I remember when we played them in ’04, and I thought to myself, oh, my goodness, I know we’re not playing these guys for a couple years, but that guy’s going to be back. Dorien Bryant is good, he’s a good player. He’s a leader. He’s got electricity about him. He’s going to be a fun one to watch. I just hope he’s not too much fun.
