Football: Video and Transcript from Coach Tressel Weekly Press Conference – Ohio State Buckeyes
10/14/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
COACH TRESSEL: A tough Big Ten win. It was an exciting weekend. There was a lot of things I thought were pretty special about the weekend. Donte Whitner got to come back, for a third-year NFL guy to be selected as the captain for the Buffalo Bills and we had a chance to have him come back for our honorary captain. It was a neat thing for him to interact with our guys because he had played with a number of those seniors when they were young, so it was neat to have him back.
And we had Lieutenant Colonel Gatson back, one of our wounded warriors who had some special time with our guys in the spring and he was back. And of course Coach Tiller’s last ball game, he’s just a classy guy. He had his team ready to play and they played aggressively and took no quarter and went after it and made it a tough ball game. So there were a lot of neat things that made it a tough weekend, special weekend.
When you start off with a punt block and get yourself out ahead and put the pressure and maybe make them feel a little bit of like, oh, man, we’ve got to catch up type thing — interestingly, if you look at their game against Penn State the week before, they really had tried to be a little more balanced, only threw the ball 27 times and ran it a little bit more. Ironically they ran it for 3.3 per carry against Penn State and they ran it for 3.3 per carry against us.
I think when we jumped up on it, all of a sudden they threw it 51 times in our ball game, so I think that little bit of pressure you put on them, it certainly helps from that standpoint.
Our defense got a good test when you have that many balls thrown against you. I thought they kept playing and playing and playing and when you come up with the turnovers, that’s what this world is all about. All you had to do was watch the games last weekend or watch the NFL games last weekend or watch our Brownies last night. Turnovers is what life’s all about and you just hope you are the ones getting them and not giving them. So our defense came up with those takeaways, which were huge.
Offensively, the best thing we did was secure the football. We have a list of things we try to do that you can receive a unit helmet award for and one of them is if you have no turnovers and every possession change occurs beyond the 50 yard line, then that’s huge. If you’ve done that for your football team, and that was one of the helmet awards that the offensive group got, I think they only got three, but that was the number one thing we did.
Probably the poorest thing we did on offense was our lack of consistency and it showed in our grades. We didn’t have anyone grade a winning performance, therefore there must have been enough errors by guys through the course of the time that you were going to have a hard time putting together a string of first downs.
On the other hand, defensively I think we had six of our starters grade a winning performance, and when you have that type of consistency, the people doing their job and taking care of what they need to take care of, their end of the bargain is going to be held up and, hence, a three-point game with Purdue’s only two scoring opportunities being both field goals over 50 yards, which we thought was pretty significant.
From a special teams standpoint, we thought we did a solid job. Our kickoff coverage was very solid. We had a tackle back on the 14. We had a couple of them right at the 20. Even when we mis-hit a kick into the wind, I think they only still got out to the 25 or six, so it was good solid kickoff coverage.
Our punt team did a great job by knocking them down inside the four yard line which makes it difficult for anyone to start a series there. Field goal-wise, except for the miss, which was disappointing that we missed the one, when you hit a 49 yarder and you hit a couple others, that’s a contribution. From that unit standpoint on our punt rush unit goes without staying, coming off the edge and making them pay was a huge thing there. So obviously there were some up things. Etienne Sabino was the special units player of the game. It probably could have been Malcolm, quite honestly, but Etienne was on four units and did an excellent job, graded out in the special teams on all four of his units and anyway.
Malcolm Jenkins was going to get the defensive player award, it wasn’t just his block for a touchdown but his interception and his pass break-ups and his solid play and in those kind of spread offenses, those corners get tested and he was tested and he passed the test with flying colors and almost came up with another pick to the house and just right off the end of his fingertips, so played a very, very good game.
The attack force player of the week was James Laurinaitis. Again, a double-digit tackle type day, where he was supposed to be, disguising his blitz packages, getting us lined up, just doing from an assignment standpoint, I think both Malcolm and James graded right around the 90 percent area and when you have consistency like that, you have a chance. We didn’t have any winning performances on offense, therefore it was hard to have an offensive player of the game or an offensive lineman of the game. If we didn’t have anyone that played from a winning performance standard.
We didn’t have a Jack Tatum hit of the week. Sometimes in those spread games, the field is so spread out that there aren’t as many of those type collisions and we didn’t have one on the special teams so we didn’t have a Jack Tatum hit.
Our scout teams continue to work hard. The thing I like about them is they study the film, they try to emulate what our opponent does and they give us a great look. Obviously we’ll need a huge look to get ready for this weekend because Michigan State comes into the game with six straight wins. Their only loss was a tough one out on the west coast and I’m sure if they got to take away their block punt against them for a touchdown, who knows how that game would have come out.
They’ve got things going the way they’d like to go them. You have Javon Ringer who you better have a whole bunch of helmets up there to get stopped. I think he’s really grown as a runner. He was always a great kid. He was always a great competitor, great trainer, great, good receiver and special teams guy, but now he’s turned into a very, very patient runner. Like most young runners, maybe early in his career he would have a tendency to bounce it outside a little bit and now he’ll sit and wait and keep his shoulders square and so you better be prepared to have him tote the ball 30-plus times in the ball game and the thing that makes that difficult is that usually it takes extra people there to stop him, which makes you a lot more vulnerable to the play action pass and to the pass game and so forth. And Michigan State’s done a good job, especially in the last three weeks of really hurting people with their pass game because everyone has seen what they need to do to stop the run.
From a defensive standpoint, what you’ll see from Michigan State is a lot like what you see from us. Obviously it’s just a mirror image and they’re going to put a lot of people in the box and make it very difficult for you to run. They’re going to dare you to throw. They’re going to play aggressive coverage on your receivers. They’re going to make it very difficult for them to get off the line of scrimmage and they love to bring blitzes. They’re going to have two or three new blitzes, usually of the zone blitz variety. They’re not really a big blitz and play zero coverage type group, but a lot of zone blitzes and make it difficult on your pass protection.
If you recall, a year ago we had a pass protection blow on two different plays that turned into touchdowns for them. We had the one where we didn’t get something blocked and probably shouldn’t have thrown the ball, but we did and there it went the other way, and then maybe the next time we were out on the field, we were running a little screen route and we had a missed assignment on a blitz as to who they were supposed to nick before they went out on the screen and an unblocked guy comes in and causes a fumble that’s picked up and it’s 14 points later, both because they created problems in what their pass protection challenges are as they come after you.
So you’re going to see a very similar defense. They substitute a lot, which like we do, they’re rolling guys in there. Their linebackers usually stay steady, just like ours do, but they roll that front in and whether they’re a nickel or dime or this guy’s playing this series, they’ll probably play seven different DBs and they do a good job on the defensive side.
Special teams-wise, a year ago, their punter dropped 17 punts inside the 10. Three of them, you remember, were against us, and we were starting back behind our own goal post the whole day. He’s done the same thing this year. He dropped one down on the 2 against Northwestern. He’s probably had, from the ones I have seen, half dozen or so in the recent games that he’s popped down in there, so he’s been a great threat from that field position standpoint.
Their kick returner at the beginning of the year was Ringer. Now they’ve changed it to their young running back, Number 41, has come in and he’s made some big returns. This past weekend, I think he averaged 32 or 33 yards per return, and so it’s been a significant change for them. And their big tall guy, 6-2, 218 has done a nice job from that standpoint. Number 21, the punt returner, is the starting safety and does a good job on the punt returns. He’s had one long one this year, but they’ll put pressure when you’re punting, when they’re punting.
They’ve always been a fake team. They faked against us when they were at Cincinnati as a staff and they faked on the films that we have right now and so you better always be ready for a fake. They’re always out there for a field goal fake as well, it’s something that’s always been in their repertoire.
So from a special teams standpoint, they put a lot of emphasis, they have a lot of speed, they tell their defensive guys just like we tell ours, if you can’t be a starter on the special teams, you can’t start on the defense. You’re never going to become a starter on defense if you don’t become a starter on those special teams. And they play with a lot of intensity and a lot of pride in their special teams. And their special teams coordinator is my nephew, does a good job, trying to give him a little love here. But they do a great job.
And obviously everyone knows the familiarity we have with their staff and Coach Dantonio has done a tremendous job at both Cincinnati and Michigan State and he went in with a plan, didn’t waver from his plan, demanded excellence on and off the field, demanded toughness and assignment to detail and assignment on the field, it’s critical, you can see that’s the way they play offensively or defensively or special teams, and he’s done a great job.
His offensive coordinator, Donnie Treadwell, was a young guy, I was his position coach at Miami of Ohio back in the ’70s. He’s a methodical guy, he’s a guy that’s always going to have something off of something. If they’re running this play a lot, there’s going to be a play action off of it. He’s always thinking a little bit ahead from a tying things together standpoint.
Their quarterback coach is a young guy that when I was at Syracuse in ’81, I was his quarterback coach, so I know him well. One of the most competitive quarterbacks I’ve ever seen in my life. I still have a film that I made up of him that I’ve showed for years to my quarterbacks as to how tough you need to be when you play that position. Dave Warner has done a great job with Brian Hoyer, who I think is playing like a senior. A lot of times when you get in the lineup and you’re young, you don’t — you get things thrown at you and you haven’t experienced them before, and some good things happen and some not so good, and then all of a sudden when you have those experiences like he has had, I think he’s playing like a veteran and doing a great job there.
And obviously with their staff on and on there are so many ties, so we have a lot of respect for what they do. We know how tough the football game will be because the players are going to be committed to what they’re asked to do, and so we’re looking forward to getting over to Spartan stadium and play against the 6-1 Spartans.
REPORTER: With nine starters back on this offensive unit, why are you having so much difficulty scoring touchdowns?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, we’re not — I hate to say it, we’re not executing. I wish there were something different than that. Whether it be we didn’t — I don’t want to use the word guess, but we didn’t plan for the right look that they were going to be in on first and goal at the nine or we didn’t execute the play we had designed with all 11 guys.
That’s, unfortunately, the reality in anything you do and that’s why football’s a great game because just — our second kickoff return is a great example. We had 10 guys block it perfectly. One guy didn’t. And that was the difference between taking one out a long way, long, long way, and getting tackled on the 21. No different on offense. If you have 10 guys doing exactly what you need done and one guy that doesn’t, heaven forbid if it’s the guy at the point of attack, you’re not going to score touchdowns or first downs or any of the above.
REPORTER: Are you all shaking things up a little bit up front this week with your line, lineup-wise or —
COACH TRESSEL: Right now, from an injury standpoint and so forth, there’s not a whole bunch of different ways you can shake it up. Obviously when Alex got banged up and Michael Adams went in, Michael got injured, probably won’t have him this week, so one of your first eight, let’s say, so you do shake it up only from the standpoint of some guys are going to have to do multiple things, but you’re always looking for how you can play better and how you can maybe get someone in a better position than you have them or ask them to do different things. If he’s not executing this, well, maybe we shouldn’t be asking him to do that, we should ask him to do this. And to me, that’s the puzzle of coaching any side of the ball, but most certainly on offense.
REPORTER: Are you troubled by the plan at this point the way you try to get things done up front or are you more just by the execution of the actual individual players?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, I think you always have to start by being troubled by the plan, because there’s got to be some reasons why you’re not executing, and if you say that, well, it’s just because John Doe didn’t execute, I think that’s a little bit of a cop-out. So you always — the first discussion you always have, are we doing too much or are we doing too little? Are we too simple and it’s easy for them to read route progressions or whatever or is it too much and we’re just playing with a little hesitation and those kinds of things. I think you always start with the plan. You would never start and say, well, gosh, you know, if these guys were better, we’d be fine because that’s not true.
REPORTER: What have you determined, though, are you asking too much?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, you know I’m not going to confide in you — not that you would keep it in the room, but we’re working on it.
REPORTER: Do you have any misgivings at all that perhaps you might have made a change at quarterback too soon for Terrelle and maybe that you could have gotten more out of Todd that would have been some more experience than Terrelle could have gotten in the season instead of playing every snap and Todd, obviously hasn’t been playing at all now?
COACH TRESSEL: Do I have any misgivings? I’m not sure what a misgiving is. Would I love to have Todd having some snaps in the game? Obviously. Because Todd’s a great kid and you would love to have him have opportunities. Do I think Terrelle is improving? I think he’s learning every day. I’m not exactly sure what a misgiving is, but —
REPORTER: You don’t have any doubts whatsoever that when you brought Terrelle in, that the timing was right for that and he was prepared for that as Todd was also to not play.
COACH TRESSEL: That’s about four questions within one. Do I feel okay about what we’ve done and what we’re doing? Yeah.
REPORTER: Jim, if you would love for Todd to get in and get some snaps, than why hasn’t Todd gotten in and gotten some snaps?
COACH TRESSEL: Haven’t determined that that was the right moment, situation.
REPORTER: What would be the right moment, then?
COACH TRESSEL: You’ll know the moment it happens. I’m being honest with you.
REPORTER: With the new clock rules you are seeing about 10 to 12 less plays per game, what’s your thoughts on that? What effect do you think that’s had? Do you like the new rules? Do you not like it?
COACH TRESSEL: There are less plays per game. There are a lot of folks that said that wasn’t going to be the case. You probably don’t like it when you’re behind and you might like it a whole bunch if you’re ahead by three and the fact that you can burn now without — you can burn two minutes and six seconds by taking a knee, whereas a year ago you could burn a 1:34 by taking a knee. It’s different. It’s reality. There aren’t less commercials in the game but there are less plays, because the games are in the same window, but it’s real, it’s what it is, and when the clock strikes zero, we need to be on the left-hand side.
REPORTER: Can you give an update on Lawrence Wilson as well?
COACH TRESSEL: Lawrence will be out for the year. Lawrence will end up with a surgery. It’s not the same leg that he had his injury a year ago. Austin Spitler may very well be back. We’ll know a lot more on him, but all indications are he will. Dane Sanzenbacher will be back. Rory Nicol should be back. Probably won’t know on Boom until Wednesday because today, now, he’ll get a chance to do some of the cardio running, some of the things, and then tomorrow we have to see, okay, can you play football and not have any adverse effects. We’re very conservative when it comes to the head things and his hasn’t, quote, cleared up quite as quickly as Dane’s. I think it was a little more severe. Mike Adams, I mentioned, probably wouldn’t be able to go.
REPORTER: JB?
COACH TRESSEL: JB has been out for some time. No, he’s not coming back.
REPORTER: Jim, some of your offensive guys were frustrated after the game.
COACH TRESSEL: That’s a good thing.
REPORTER: How do you guard against the finger pointing and how do they seem now? What’s it been like so far this week?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, you hope you have the right kind of people, which I think we do. Is it human nature to be disappointed when you don’t do as well as you’d hoped or as well as we need to be? Absolutely. But I guess the only way you can avoid finger pointing is be so focused on what you have to do to aid the cause and get better and not spend a whole bunch of time analyzing or talking with whomever about what may be the solution and control what you can control.
REPORTER: How did you feel about — you were talking about Terrelle earlier, in terms of last week, did he progress the way you wanted him to and how did he come out of last week, I guess?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, he didn’t grade a winning performance, but I thought he progressed. Like I told him just yesterday we were sitting and talking that the number one quality that Troy Smith brought to our team was he was tremendously careful with the football, and as he grew into understanding the whole game, he became lethal for the opponents, but it started from the right foundation. And knock on wood, Terrelle’s done a pretty good job from that standpoint. I think he has grown in his understanding, and I think he’ll do nothing but progress.
REPORTER: You’ve mentioned with Terrelle throughout the year how he’s tried to be a perfect player or the best player he can be.
COACH TRESSEL: Absolutely.
REPORTER: He looks a little hesitant sometimes with his decision making inside the pocket.
COACH TRESSEL: Outside the pocket?
REPORTER: Yeah, or even in the pocket at times, whether or not he should throw the ball or keep it himself. Do you get a sense from him as part of the growing process, maybe he needs to rely a little bit more on his teammates around him, the personnel or the playmakers, if you will?
COACH TRESSEL: I don’t know that that has anything to do with decision making, because the decision has to be based upon what the defense is doing, and not the, hey, by the way, Hartline’s good, so I’ll throw it to Hartline.
REPORTER: Does he rely more on himself?
COACH TRESSEL: No, I think if one of his teammates is open and he feels like he knows where the defenders are, which is the key to passing, the passing game really has nothing to do with your receivers, it has everything to do with the defenders. And you talk to any — you listen to Gonzo talk about working with Peyton, and it’s all about, he throws the ball away from the defenders and you better be there. That’s what the passing game is all about, so it really isn’t about the guys around him, when he’s got his hands on the ball, we always say you can’t wait until you’re a hundred percent sure because it’s probably too late. We like to say, and I can’t scientifically prove it, but if you’re 80 percent sure where the windows are and where the defenders are and you throw it in there with authority, probably going to be in pretty good shape.
I think right now, in his progression, he’s probably waiting until he’s 90 percent sure, and I’d rather that than he wait until he’s 60 percent sure, then he’d look like all those guys on TV that every time you turn on the highlights, someone’s running the other way with an interception, whether it’s us watching our film against Michigan State or you turn on the weekend highlights and you say, oh, yeah, Johnny threw for 320, but they had three of them that went this way. So I’d rather have him that way than, oh, it’s time to get rid of it.
REPORTER: Maybe you don’t apologize for where the offense is because the defense is playing lights out and the special teams — because you make a case that Trapasso is your MVP right now.
COACH TRESSEL: Hadn’t thought about it. The team votes for the MVP, so I can get out of that one, but if an apology is what you’d like, we can all go to lunch. I apologize. And we’ll try to get better. But we’re working and we’re trying to win games, and we’ve got a battle ahead in Spartan Stadium that it’s going to take better play than we did last week and that’s why we’re going to work.
REPORTER: Beanie was saying after the game he thought the offense needed to throw it more. Are you okay with Terrelle throwing about 15 times a game or would you like to see that number increase?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, if you check the records, we could — Kathe could show us the court records — we’ve called a lot more passes than we’ve thrown. Some of them maybe we should have thrown them in there, but you know what, some of them maybe the best decision was to not. Some of them we’ve had a little bit of protection problems.
Early in the season, some of them our protection problems were fine and all of a sudden we left the confines of our protection, so if — I don’t get real caught up in how many passes we throw. I get caught up in how many we complete and how many we throw to the other guys, but — no, I would like to — in this day and age, I suppose you’re going to get 65 plays to 70 on a normal game and I would like to throw it 30 times, that’d be great, run it 35, throw it 30, but let’s make sure that a good bunch of them are completions and a couple of them are touchdowns and none of them interceptions.
REPORTER: Specifically on the offensive line, with swapping the two guards on the depth chart, is there something that Person at left guard that fits better and Cordle at right guard, that’s what the depth chart said? Is that true?
COACH TRESSEL: Shelly probably was dyslexic on that one.
REPORTER: That’s not a change?
COACH TRESSEL: That was probably a typo.
REPORTER: Steve Rehring then, he moved around several different positions, seemed like he maybe didn’t play his best game at any of them? Where do you think he fits in now down the line?
COACH TRESSEL: He’ll play at right guard and right tackle like he has ever since he’s been back, which was against two games, one and a half games counting the restroom. Just the facts.
REPORTER: But that right side rotation with Browning, that will continue as it has?
COACH TRESSEL: Yes.
REPORTER: How’s Brandon Saine?
COACH TRESSEL: Yeah, he’s okay. He hasn’t progressed as much as we had hoped. He’s working hard in practice and we felt going into the game this past weekend that the two most deserving runners were Beanie and Mo. But Brandon, a great kid, he’s working hard and just hasn’t jumped up after missing all that practice time which we would love to see.
REPORTER: With Michigan as your chief rival, do you get any enjoyment out of what’s happening up there?
COACH TRESSEL: No, the Big Ten is what we’re a part of, and obviously every time a Big Ten team plays another team, we want the Big Ten to win. And I know how hard it is to go in and transition in a program. Every little thing that makes it harder, makes it harder. So I don’t wish those kinds of things on anyone. But the nice thing about it is, I think any of us that have gone in and taken over programs, we’ve looked back and had the greatest joy in handling the adversity that’s come our way, and I’m sure they’ll do the same.
REPORTER: How much do you think Lawrence Wilson’s absence will be felt? Obviously you’ve rotated a lot of guys there, but that’s a veteran guy.
COACH TRESSEL: I don’t know. I mean, do you want a percentage or —
REPORTER: Well, just to lose —
COACH TRESSEL: We’d love to have him. Yeah, shoot, we’d love to have him. Are we going to think about that? No, we’re going to — the next guy’s got to be ready. He’s got to get in, got to play hard, he’s got to do what Lawrence can do and you have X amount of guys that share duty, so you’ve got one less, so people have to step up. Cameron Heyward and Thaddeus Gibson and Doug Worthington and on and on and on, have to step up and go because Lawrence is a good player, but we’re not going to invest any energies into thinking about, gosh, I wonder if that’s 11% worse than we were going to be or — we’re going to go.
So I feel terrible for Lawrence. I feel worse for Lawrence than I feel for us, because anybody can sprain an ankle and you not have him in that game, but for a guy to go and went through a surgery a year ago, going to have to go through a surgery now, man, he’s a great kid, but unfortunately, that’s what happens in this game.
REPORTER: Are you at a time right now where it’s not uncommon for two or three top ten teams to lose every week. At the end of the day, do you revel in the fact that you’ve gotten another victory and dodged the bullet or are you somewhat concerned that sooner or later all this is going to catch up with you?
COACH TRESSEL: Well you never revel. Hopefully you don’t revel at the end of the year if you happen to be champions, because when the calendar changes you’re going to have to line up again. So, no, I hope no one was reveling. Are we concerned — when you say all this catches up to you, I’m not sure what “all this” is.
REPORTER: Your lack of offensive production when it’s not where you want it to be.
COACH TRESSEL: Sure, absolutely. You want to get better. You want to make sure that you can progress because you’re getting ready to play Michigan State and it’s simply that. It’s not, well, we’re going to get knocked out of the top 20 or whatever. It’s, we’re playing Michigan State and we need to be better than we were, and we need to be better than we were on defense against the things that Michigan State doesn’t maybe we have been or whatever, but we don’t stop and revel we don’t stop and worry, we go, and that’s just what you do in life, I think.
REPORTER: What is it like coaching against a guy that knows you so well, what’s it like preparing for that?
COACH TRESSEL: From an Xs and Os standpoint, it’s not really an issue, because he knows we’re going to try to do what our guys can do and that’s changed every year according to who’s in your line-up and who’s healthy and who’s playing well, et cetera, et cetera.
So X and O wise, I don’t think it’s an issue. Where I don’t love it is I happen to know all those guys and had a relationship with all those guys and I’d just as soon not play my brothers, but that’s part of the deal and I think it gives us a little bit more perspective as not only do we see what we see on the film, but we know what they’re being taught from a detail standpoint, discipline standpoint, that every single thing you see on the film, you know is how they’re being instructed and all their plays don’t work all the time, all their defenses don’t work all the time, but you know they’re going to be steady.
REPORTER: You were joking over the summer I think, that Woody once said that for every sophomore you play, you lose a game. I was wondering if you were ever concerned that putting a true freshman in at a high-profile spot like quarterback and pulling the senior, if you were concerned that might cost you a victory this year.
COACH TRESSEL: Oh, I get concerned, not for the reason that Woody said, that there’s this magical formula, if you have a sophomore, you lose a game, or whatever. But every decision you make, you make with the idea of it can happen you win a game or two games or three games or on down the road. No, I never had a feeling that, oh, we put a freshman in there, that means there’s two games we’re going to lose somewhere along the line so I guess we’ll just wait to see which two those are and we won’t go to work.
So, no, you make decisions based upon what you think the needs of the team are and with the evaluation data that you have on the practice field and then the game field and all the rest and are you always right? No. Haven’t found anyone. Larry Kerris is close, but outside of that, we’re not always right.
REPORTER: Do you draw a balance when you have a player like that with maybe there’s a mistake or something that, well, you know, he hasn’t seen that before, he’s a freshman, he’s learning, with I don’t care whether you’re a freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, you have to know to throw that ball away, what’s that fine line with you?
COACH TRESSEL: Yeah, the fine line is this, no matter what grade you’re in, if you don’t know why you threw it where threw it, then we’ve got a problem. And if you do know why you didn’t throw it or you thought you saw — I never question a guy when he says, you know what, I didn’t throw it, I thought the safety was — hey, I’m with you. That’s why I threw it out of bounds, that’s why I stepped up and ran or whatever because none of us can see what he’s seen. And we can watch the film and say, man, I can’t believe you didn’t go to that guy. Well, you know, our film view doesn’t happen to be from the helmet cam. So I never question a guy if he knows why he did what he did. I question the guy a lot when he says, well, I didn’t see him. You didn’t see him? That’s what you’re supposed to do is see him. So I don’t think grade has anything to do with it.
REPORTER: Where has Terrelle been in your evaluation of his decisions?
COACH TRESSEL: I think he’s been very careful of the ball.
REPORTER: But I mean knowing why he did it.
COACH TRESSEL: Oh, when he’s erred, he’s known why. Terrelle’s one of those guys, as I’ve said to you many times, he wants to do things right. He’s one of those guys when he makes a mistake, oh, that mistake will never happen again, and not many of them have, but that’s the way he looks at things.
REPORTER: Have there been times you’ve encouraged him to throw it away, there’s times he’s running around a lot and gets sacked.
COACH TRESSEL: Every week, one of the things we talk about is your best throw of the day might be a throw-away, might be the best decision you’ve made all day. I think that’s something that’s not clearly internalized yet by him, because he’s had so many things happen when he’s kept the play alive, for us and for his teams in the past. So he’ll get to that point.
REPORTER: If Todd got back into games, do you think it could have any impact on Terrelle’s development in terms of the snaps he would lose or maybe looking at another quarterback then or any impact on the team in that if there were two quarterbacks back in the mix that that would — maybe guys would be confused about who the guy is then?
COACH TRESSEL: I think the reality is when he gets back into a game, because he has to assume, we have to assume there’s going to be a moment where he is going to be back in the game and it’s going to be huge for us. Hopefully Terrelle, when he watches that film that Sunday, will learn as much as he does when he’s watching himself. As far as guys being confused, I think us humans are confused generally. So, now would there be more confusion? I’m not sure. Just depends upon the guy.
REPORTER: How big after challenge will this be for a young quarterback going into this situation with what Dantonio will try to do?
COACH TRESSEL: Michigan State will do a great job of confusing and all those things and how difficult a challenge? It’s a big challenge. I think they do a nice job. And they’ve done such a good job of creating confusion and hesitation with guys, that’s why they have all those picks or that’s why they have some of those fumbles. So how big of a challenge? It’s a big challenge.
REPORTER: What do you tell a young quarterback when you know, Mark was your defensive coordinator, you know how he went after people, what’s the key to telling a young quarterback about maybe simplifying it in his brain as opposed to trying to know everything or see everything?
COACH TRESSEL: In this particular case, what you say is, you know how it every Tuesday and Wednesday when we go live against the defense and you have no idea because you haven’t studied their film, you’re just going out and you’re reacting to whatever blitzes they’re putting in or whatever — you didn’t practice them in the individual and group period leading up to it. Assume that’s the way it’s going to be on Saturday. You’re not going to know what’s coming. Now, Michigan State’s not going to come in with a hundred percent new stuff. They’re going to have 85 percent, 90 percent what they do and they’re going to have that one or two little things that cracks your protection that they think you’re going to use, the things that you’ve been using, and if that ends up matching up, the protection breaker is called when that protection is called, then you’re going to have to handle something that you’ve never seen before. But the same will be true your senior year when you play Michigan State, so that’s how you present it.
REPORTER: As you watch the offensive line or just the offensive tape from this past game, what was the main errors you saw? Were you just seeing guys missing guys? Were you seeing missed assignments? I guess what I’m asking, was all this stuff correctable in a week’s time from last week till now, to this coming Saturday?
COACH TRESSEL: I think coming off the field what I felt was that we didn’t do a very good job blocking at the point of attack and sometimes when there’s a couple glaring ones that were critical, they really stay with you. We probably did a little bit better job blocking at the point of attack than I thought we did, little, I’m not saying wonderful. Little. We did have those couple or three that were impactful. Probably made as many of our mistakes, I don’t want to call them backside, but somewhere in between frontside and backside, some decisions we made as to who to go up to and that type of thing, but it was — it’s when you have those ones at the point of attack at a key time that you’re like, you know, or you have some decisions. I told Terrelle, I said, Terrelle, you probably only made one, what we call an MMIH, which is a “made your mind up in the huddle,” and if you’d have handed that one to Beanie, he might be in St. John’s lobby. I mean, but you decided to keep it. Those things are going to happen. So the glaring things jump up at you, but I don’t think there was as many as I felt, but unfortunately, the little things kept things from happening and you don’t score enough points.
REPORTER: Coach, you said earlier that you try to look at each game as to what the team needs and make decisions based upon that. After the USC game, what is it that you saw the team needed that Terrelle brought that Todd did not bring? Was it change for change sake or something else?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, it certainly wasn’t change for change sake. I can save you a little time there. We probably don’t have enough time, nor would I share every little reason, rationale, whatever, for any personnel decision, whether it be the right guard, left guard, weak side backer or quarterback, but it was just a decision based upon our compilation of data and we felt we needed to go that direction to beat Troy, which was whatever coming up. Dionne? We’ve got to go with Dionne, because my guys are waiting out there. Shelly keeps waving at me because Emily has surrendered.
REPORTER: You said Terrelle is often a victim of trying to do too much and the a passing game is not about the receiver. The last few weeks it doesn’t seem like Brian Hartline hasn’t played with the consistency that he did last season.
COACH TRESSEL: I think anytime it’s not going exactly as you like it, we press. I don’t care what it is we’re doing. So I couldn’t say that that’s not happening. I think our guys are practicing hard and they’re trying hard and sometimes you can press. You’ve brought up Brian Hartline. I can picture one play in the game we threw him a good ball and we probably weren’t going to get the first down. It was a third and 15 after a penalty or something and he could have caught it at about 8 or 9, but he started to run before he caught it and didn’t make the catch and all of a sudden, it would have been a much better field goal distance if he’d have caught it and those kinds of things. And I think that was an error of trying to make something happen. So that would be kind of a pressing example, but from a general performance standpoint, no, every once in a while, I think we all do that.
