Weekly Press Conference Transcript; Player Audio, Quotes – Ohio State Buckeyes
11/16/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
COACH TRESSEL: Someone described this month as tough, tougher and toughest. And we’ve battled through the tough and the tougher, and now we’re excited about the toughest and there’s just a special feeling about this week. Anyone that’s been a part of it would probably agree and not be able to describe it that well, but it’s an exciting time coming off of a tough football game with Iowa. Iowa is a very good team and you knew they were going to play to the whistle and to the final tick on the clock and then some and that’s what they did.
Now we go on the road, on the road in the Big Ten, on the road to Michigan. So our people are excited about it. It’s exciting for, I think, a lot of reasons. One is it’s Ohio State /Michigan and there’s nothing like it. And, two, it’s your last regular season game and you’d like to think that you’re going to be playing your best football in all phases, offensively, defensively, special teams, and we’ve certainly got a lot of work to do for that to be the case, but we’re looking forward to a great week of preparation. Our kids are excited, and let’s go.
REPORTER: Coach, I want to ask you about your running game, the last couple weeks over 200 yards against pretty good opponents, I assume it’s getting guys healthy, offense, and Boom, what’s been the biggest part of getting that going again?
COACH TRESSEL: I think when you do have your ability to practice with your guys, obviously it’s healthy when Boom Herron is healthy. He’s a competitive kid. He and Brandon give us a good duo there and we’re very comfortable when Jordan Hall is in the game from a running back standpoint. I think our offensive line, because they have been healthy and have been able to work together is coming along. I think Zach Boren has been a good addition and as you watch him grow through the latter half of his freshman year, he has a greater understanding of what needs to be done and loves doing it and so hopefully we’re moving in a direction that we could be a good football team throwing, running and all the rest.
REPORTER: Jim, whose idea on the staff, whatever it was, to go to the wildcat? Was that just some of that an evolution based on the fact that Terrelle was a little banged up? Have you been pleased with the way it’s gone? Obviously it seems to be getting a little bit better the more times you do it.
COACH TRESSEL: I think the first discussion of it came up when Terrelle was a little banged and our tailbacks were a little healthy. All of a sudden you had three guys. There was a time in the season where you didn’t really want to do that because you didn’t have — Terrelle was healthier than a couple of backs. And we look at it as if we’ve got four different runners and at the moment we worked it, the running backs were healthier than Terrelle. The good news is, I’d like to think we’ll go into Saturday and all four will be healthy.
REPORTER: Terrelle said he likes anything that makes him — he’d prefer to be the quarterback, but he likes anything that you win with.
COACH TRESSEL: Right.
REPORTER: Has he embraced it?
COACH TRESSEL: I think so. He’s happy for us to throw it to him. You know how that is. He thinks he’s a great route runner. I said, well, you’ve got to have somebody who can throw it. So I think he’s reminiscing about when Todd was throwing to him. Todd’s not here, so any little thing we can have to add preparation time for people to add pressure to our opposing defenses we think is good.
REPORTER: What will this week be like for Justin?
COACH TRESSEL: Justin’s the kind of guy that focuses hard on what he has to do and he was fighting a couple weeks there in the middle of the season when he was banged up and when you don’t practice, you just don’t perform like you would like to. Fortunately he’s healthy and, I thought, played one of his better games Saturday. I really did. I’m sure he’ll be excited. I’m sure it will be difficult in some ways because he has great feelings for both teams that are going to be on the field and a lot of great memories up in The Big House with his dad and himself and all the rest, but his focus will be on what can he do to help his team.
REPORTER: Do you say anything extra to him or will you do anything special with him this week to calm him or help him through it?
COACH TRESSEL: Not really. Unless it looks like he needs it. If it looks like all of a sudden he’s not himself, then what you try to do is find out what’s bothering someone.
REPORTER: I don’t know if you’ve had an opportunity to see much film yet on Michigan’s defense.
COACH TRESSEL: A little. Not as much as a Tuesday, but —
REPORTER: They’ve given up a lot of points. I’m wondering if you can characterize why that is.
COACH TRESSEL: There’s usually two reasons that you give up points. One is if your offense puts you in poor field position or if you give up big plays. Most defenses don’t give up extensive long drives time after time and that type of thing and there was a stretch in the middle of their season where they had more turnovers than certainly they could afford and then there was a stretch in there where they gave up some big plays. But the interesting thing about watching Ohio State /Michigan film, getting ready for the Ohio State /Michigan film getting ready for the game is you’re not really watching who you’re going to play and it’s — maybe the schemes you are, but the people play a notch above so we’ll study the schemes extremely hard. We go into the game assuming everyone’s going to be in their gap and everyone’s going to be in their zone and everyone’s going to be covering their man and we’re going to have to earn every inch. So I think you have to be a little bit careful. Very seldom do you go into this game and study the statistics sheet. That’s just not the way it works.
REPORTER: Is the rivalry, is it starting to lose anything as it gets one-sided or if one team is really struggling like Michigan was last year and to some extent this year?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, not if you’re a part of it. If you’re an observer, perhaps, I don’t know. But if you’re a part of it and you’ve felt those feelings and had those experiences and just know what it means to both schools and so forth, that would never occur to the participants. You know, perhaps to someone from the outside, someone from, I don’t know, Utah or something might not maybe jump on it because neither team is being talked about every day in the national scheme of things, but not with the participants.
REPORTER: How do you tell your players to keep Michigan from being taken for granted with that being said?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, there’s a reality in life that if you take anything for granted, you’re probably not thinking right. We talk about a lot of things that we shouldn’t take for granted. Maybe some things that aren’t even that real to us, but when you talk about the Ohio State /Michigan game, that’s very real. So I’d like to think our guys don’t take anything for granted, although I’m sure we all do take things for granted, but this wouldn’t be one of them.
REPORTER: Do you place a lot of importance on the punting game? Are you a little bit concerned about how the punting game is going right now?
COACH TRESSEL: We’ve done a pretty good job coverage-wise and punt-placement-wise. I’m a little disappointed with our length this past weekend, but all you have to do is go two weeks back and a long, well placed, well covered punt set the stage for the beginning of a field position victory. So we didn’t have our best punting day Saturday, to answer that, I guess, as directly as I can. We need a better one this Saturday. Their punting game is extraordinary. Their kid leads the league and the nation maybe, I’m not sure, but he’s extraordinary and if you lose field position every time you punt you’re in for some problems. So we need to, as I say, in your final regular season game, the goal is to be the best at everything we do, the punt, kickoff coverage, offense, defense. You know, everything we’ve got. And we certainly want to be better this weekend than we were last in our net punt.
REPORTER: Saturday you won the game with the special teams play but a special teams play by them got them back in the game.
COACH TRESSEL: No question.
REPORTER: How unsettling is that for you at this point in the season?
COACH TRESSEL: It’s very unsettling because we’d like to win the special teams. We call them the special units and each of the special teams make up the special units and we couldn’t say that after that game. We didn’t win the punt game. We didn’t win the kickoff cover game. Now, we can’t diminish the one we did win with and that was extraordinary, that was great, but again, we need to be at our best in all of those. You can’t go on the road and lose the special teams and win the game.
REPORTER: What’s on the line for you guys this week? You’ve already got a Rose Bowl. You’ve got a share of the Big Ten. What’s on the line for you guys Saturday?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, it’s Ohio State /Michigan and I’m sure you could talk to some people who have participated in this game as a player or a coach and they could tell you that probably in the forefront of their mind of their memories of their time here, more so is the Ohio State /Michigan things that flow through their head than it is which bowl did you go to and where were you ranked and this and that, so what’s at stake is Ohio State /Michigan.
REPORTER: Jim, you talked about your team playing a notch above in this game, everybody seems to.
COACH TRESSEL: Well, you need to, yeah.
REPORTER: In your time as an assistant or head coach here, have you ever walked off the field after a Michigan game thinking, we didn’t rise to the occasion, we didn’t play a notch above, maybe they didn’t seem as focused in? Have you always felt that for Michigan?
COACH TRESSEL: I don’t know if I would go as broad as focused in because I’ve never seen a team, either side, not come into that game and be wired in. I didn’t think we finished very well, obviously, in 2003. We got behind, but fought back pretty well and had our chances and didn’t finish things, and we had a good team. We did not play — you know, they had a good team obviously, but I didn’t think we played equal to or above ourselves that particular day, that’s for sure.
REPORTER: Jim, you guys are going to wear new uniforms for this game, one-time deal for the ’54 team, do you like them and how did this week come about? How did you pick this week?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, it was a — I think it was kind of a nationwide initiative that Nike was a part of with their schools. I think there are eight or nine schools that have done it already during the course of the year and they kind of pick the game for you and we were able to pick the team. We went through a group of — actually I was out of town. I don’t know if I was in Iraq or where I was, but I guess they gave us a bunch of different examples and so forth and we had a couple players and a couple coaches and administrators and whatnot and we got to choose which way we would go. And that seems to be kind of a thing that’s done all over the place now. I’m a little old school, but even I’m trying to mature a little bit and embrace things like that, but to me, it’s an awesome responsibility to play in the Ohio State /Michigan game and it adds a little bit more when all of a sudden you’re wearing what the people did that were extraordinary in a given year so it will be exciting.
REPORTER: Do you like them?
COACH TRESSEL: Yeah.
REPORTER: Does it come with an alternate coach’s outfit at all?
COACH TRESSEL: If it does, I don’t know. I might be wearing one of those trench coats and a little Paul Brown hat. Not sure. Throwback sweater vest, I don’t know, with buttons in the front, I don’t know. I don’t know. Whatever they give me, I wear.
REPORTER: The fact that regardless of Saturday’s outcome, you already know what bowl game you’re going to, the fact that no player on this team has ever lost to Michigan, how much of a concern is overconfidence with your guys and how do you kind of keep them in check, so to speak?
COACH TRESSEL: I’m not worried about overconfidence because we’ve got enough guys that have played in this game that they know better than that, so if there’s any inkling of overconfidence, it will get knocked out of their throwback uniforms on the first play, so —
REPORTER: Injury updates on guys like Mike Adams, I know Larimore has been back a little bit, Shugarts, can you give some injury updates on those guys?
COACH TRESSEL: Mike Adams probably could have played. We thought Jimmy Cordle did a great job against a great player. That Number 94 for Iowa is something now, and we thought Jimmy fought like crazy. Didn’t win every battle, but we thought he fought like crazy and did a heck of a job and we just didn’t see that the moment that we should have changed that because he was trying to get a feel for all the great things that kid does, but Mike could have played. J.B. Shugarts played a little more than I thought he might. You never know how those foot injuries and all that, especially early in the week, you’re looking at him saying, man, I don’t know if he’s going to be ready to go and later in the week, yeah, he’s pretty good, but we’re not doing that much. So how do you know? So we decided, I think, on the third series we were going to have him go in, that way Marcus Hall will have gotten his nose bloodied a little bit and then we’ll have J.B. go in and see if he can hold up. He went in actually and did a pretty decent job in there. So I would expect him to be even better this week. Dexter Larimore played, I don’t know, seven, eight, nine, 10 plays, I’m not sure. You’d hope he’s even better this week. One thing is getting healthy, the next thing is being ready to get into the fray. We should sure use Dexter being at his top level.
REPORTER: How valuable was Marcus Hall’s play? A freshman starting in a game that decides the title, what have you seen out of him as this season has gone along?
COACH TRESSEL: Marcus Hall is going to be a very good player. He’s really — our coaches really think for a young guy he’s an excellent pass protector and that’s usually the last thing that comes along. They say he’s got a heck of a good punch and so forth. He hasn’t had the experience handling all the different things. The one thing I felt going into Iowa was Iowa’s not that fancy and there weren’t going be to be confusing things going on, there was just going to be tough things going on, so I felt comfortable that Marcus would be able to bang in there pretty good and I thought he did. So it’s been very valuable having — we’ve had really five different tackles if you count Andrew Miller and Jimmy Cordle and Shugarts and Adams and Marcus, yeah, we’ve had five different tackles, which they’ve all played a lot now.
REPORTER: Would you go through this week with him at Number 1 there or if Shugarts could go number one big time —
COACH TRESSEL: No, I would think the fact that Shugarts probably had 50 plays would lead you to think that he would probably go. Now, this is Monday and we don’t know — haven’t been out there yet, but if the game were today, I would expect it to be Shugarts.
REPORTER: One of the unique things about the Michigan rivalry is the gold pants and I was wondering just how unique you think that aspect of this rivalry is compared to the rest of the country, I don’t know if anybody has anything like that, and number two, what do you do with your gold pants?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, I don’t know what other people have in their rivalries and so forth, some people have trophies and all that stuff, but I just take mine home and give them to Ellen never to be seen again.
REPORTER: How valuable has Jim Cordle been? You couldn’t have imagined him being the left tackle, he’s been moved around so many places, just in summation, what has he contributed?
COACH TRESSEL: I think the way he came back from his injury/surgery so fast was an inspiration to the rest of the group because some people think, oh, he’s going to be out a long, long time, but his passion to be back and his willingness to do whatever, center, guard, tackle if you need me the unselfishness of a senior, his favorite position is center, but that’s what leadership is being all about, being unselfish and serve whatever the group needs, so to me he’s been extraordinary. He fought like crazy on Saturday and that was a tough task and we’ve got another one coming up because there are some elite ends in our league, Scofield and 94 and 55 for Michigan, Brandon Graham, so he’s going to need to keep fighting.
REPORTER: Jim, when you prepare for a team, Michigan’s 5-6, they’ve faced the possibility of not going to a bowl for a sixth straight year if they don’t win, obviously Rich Rodriguez is under pressure. How much do you figure in as you prepare for a team maybe the desperation factor of the other team, of let it all hang out type?
COACH TRESSEL: The nice thing of the Ohio State /Michigan game is it’s always let it all hang out because this is it. I mean, this is what it’s all about. And I think if you look specifically at Michigan, they could be at eight or nine wins right now with the ball bouncing this way different or a call being made this way different. I mean, that’s the fine line in college football amend it’s not going to get any easier. There’s a lot of good football players, a lot of good teams and what we’ve got to focus on is feeling like at the end of this game we’ve played the best we’re capable of playing. It’s game 12. We’re as healthy as we are, whatever it is and got all these experiences and learned all these lessons and did we play the best we were capable of playing? Making the assumption Michigan will do that, because most people do that in the Ohio State Michigan game, so all those other outside things, whether they’re outside things in their world or outside things in our world, this week there’s only one thing.
REPORTER: From the time you took this job, you made it very clear how important this game was. Is it difficult to maintain your edge personally when the series has been so lopsided in your favor?
COACH TRESSEL: No. No. I’ve known before I was even part of the series of the significance of the game and the excitement of the game. It’s part of you if you like football and you’re from Ohio State or you’re from Michigan. If you’re in the Big Ten. You just grow up knowing that we’re fortunate to be a part of this game. It’s extraordinary.
REPORTER: Rich Rodriguez last year was preparing for this game having never been through it. He’d heard about it from everybody but not experienced it. How do you think it might be different for him now that he has lived through it once now coming back for this, obviously you’d done it before, you were head coach, you’d lived through it, but do you think it will be different for him having done it?
COACH TRESSEL: Every team you work with is so different in every scenario and where you are on the road to your development is so different and every one of those experiences that gets you a little bit more of an understanding of what you need to do to get where you want to go is helpful. So I hope that us going into our ninth one is helpful. I’m sure going into a second one for a number of their players and their whole staff and those kinds of things, absolutely. The more you understand something, the better you can deal with it.
REPORTER: Terrelle came in here as the preseason Big Ten offensive player of the year and you talked about how the main goal was the post-season player of the year, where do you think he is? Is he a candidate for that?
COACH TRESSEL: Oh, gosh, I don’t have any idea about that, but I do know this. We always talk about quarterbacks in terms of where are we in the standings, and we have a chance to land well in the standings, so with that in mind, I’m sure as you look at your pool of candidates, you can’t leave out the ones who have helped guide and lead their team.
REPORTER: How did he grade out last week?
COACH TRESSEL: Really good. Really good. What was the number? Like 78 or something. I mean, it was — it was good, very solid.
REPORTER: 80 is a winning percentage?
COACH TRESSEL: 85. Coach Sis is a tough one now. Those young coaches, they’re — I guess I was that way back in the day, but very, very solid. There were some things we didn’t get done that we needed to, but very, very solid.
REPORTER: Standing there now, do you feel like he really gets it as far as the quarterback and what you demand of that position?
COACH TRESSEL: I think he’s getting more of it, but I don’t know if you could only have played two seasons of college football and could ever sit there assuming, okay, I’ve got this figured out, just like I’m sure in the NFL, you’re there 13 years, you can’t say, oh, shoot, I’ve got this down because the world changes, scenario changes, but I think he’s certainly — I’ve said all along, I think he’s progressing and I think he took another step.
REPORTER: Some criticism out there about the method that you guys won the game on Saturday, playing conservatively and this kind of thing. Does that argument, does it kind of apply to two facts, it is a game of offense, defense, special teams, your defense slammed the door in the overtime and you won the game on the basis of that, and secondly, Ohio State has been to more BCS bowls than any other school that’s out there, eight times in 12 years, I mean, do the results just kind of back up the method? I guess, just kind of your thoughts about that.
COACH TRESSEL: Well, it’s a little bit easier to back it up when we ended up winning. Certainly arguments, people take on statistics and whatnot and say, hey, if they would have done that, they probably would have come out better, but we talk a lot about the fact that we do want to make sure that we’re a part of each other, offense, defense, and special teams. And our defense did come out and probably play their best three or four plays of the game and our special teams hadn’t done great, but we had every confidence that we could do the normal stuff, nothing out of this world. I would have liked to pound it down there a little bit closer, but we didn’t get that done and I don’t know what it ended up being, a 40 something?
REPORTER: 39.
COACH TRESSEL: 39, which our guys will make 39 yard field goals. The object is to win the game. I guess the other sport is to discuss how it was done or wasn’t done.
REPORTER: You got skewered pretty good, there were at least three national guys that skewered you and your guys pretty good, do you let that bother you or roll off your back?
COACH TRESSEL: Probably neither. A, I don’t see it, and, B, I’m not on the air to say, hey, look at their record. So consider the source, probably weren’t any of the current coaches.
REPORTER: After the game on Saturday, I think Tate Forcier said something that we’re determined to get this team to a bowl game. I’m wondering in the tape you’ve seen, how much respect do you have for him?
COACH TRESSEL: I love the competitiveness of Tate Forcier. I’ve watched more of Michigan’s offense than I have of their defense because as we’ve been getting ready for opponents, Iowa, Penn State, I’m trying to think who else we had in crossover, Indiana maybe, the guy loves to play, the guy loves to compete. There’s no question about it. If he’s got a pulse, he’s going to compete and so that’s — I would think nothing else but for him to feel and say that because that’s the way he plays. He backs it up with his play.
REPORTER: We know Mike Brewster has dealt with the ankle injury this year. What’s it been like for him this season, kind of battling through that and where is he now both from a health standpoint and just in his understanding of the game now that he’s had two full years as a starter?
COACH TRESSEL: I think he’s way ahead of where he was a year ago this time, knowledge-wise. Health-wise, I think he’s better than he was three or four weeks ago. He’s learning what it means to be an offensive lineman at this level because you’re always hurting. That’s just the life you lead. Jim, how many surgeries did you have?
JIM LACHEY: Eight.
COACH TRESSEL: Eight surgeries. That’s just the life they lead. And none of the surgeries do you have during the middle of the season, although Cordle was unusual. Usually you just play with it and then you get it fixed later when there’s some time. So that’s a new experience for him, but I think he’s dealt with it very well.
REPORTER: Are you guys scheming things up differently up front on the offensive front than you were earlier in the year?
COACH TRESSEL: There’s not that many things to do. You either man block, down block or pull someone, I don’t know what else to do, draw block, I guess.
REPORTER: Are you embracing what you are offensively maybe now more than you were?
COACH TRESSEL: I think we’re trying to get better at what we do and you embrace that if you do it well, but then if you do it well for a week, you have to do it well the next week and so — there’s not a finality in any of those discussions until it’s over. And then once it’s over you go back and you look at it and so forth, but our guys haven’t stopped trying to get better.
REPORTER: Did you feel the wildcat you introduced a couple weeks ago, did it bring a little bit of excitement and freshness to the practice sessions, et cetera?
COACH TRESSEL: Our guys don’t get all that enthused, “Oh, we get to run this play.” I mean, we get up on the line of scrimmage and here’s who we’re blocking and they’re more tuned into who they have to block, who knows, maybe those running backs liked it, they felt like maybe they were in command or whatever, but I didn’t see — that’d be a good one to ask our guys.
As a matter of fact, I think we’ve got Dane and I think we’ve got four offense and two specialists and then six defense, is that right? And are they placed? I don’t see Lori here, we’re going to have to go without Lori. Are they placed? Let’s rock and roll. Thank you.
