Weekly Press Conference Transcript, Player Audio – Ohio State Buckeyes
9/29/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
COACH TRESSEL: I don’t see the victorious honorary captain.
REPORTER: He’s here.
COACH TRESSEL: Oh, there he is. Okay, I was looking around.
REPORTER: Don’t make him mad. Same seat.
COACH TRESSEL: Same seat, okay.
COACH BRUCE: I had to boot someone out.
COACH TRESSEL: Coach Bruce did a good job of putting finishing touches on the week. I thought our guys did a good job of focusing on the task at hand, the Big Ten beginning. And once the game began and the conditions were what they were, I thought they did a good job, for the most part, we had a couple mistakes with the football, but for the most part I thought we did a good job of handling a game type that we hadn’t been in in quite some time.
It’s one of the things I worry about sometimes when you have an indoor facility. All of a sudden it starts pouring rain and you run inside so that you can get a little bit better quality work or save your balls from getting ruined or whatever it happens to be. So you don’t get a whole bunch of days where you’re out there in the rain. And I thought they kept their focus and knew what they needed to do.
Obviously our defense sets the tone. Even if the opposing team starts a couple first downs and so forth, they don’t panic, they just keep playing, come up to the play. Brian Rolle coming up with the play in the first drive obviously was huge. From a winning performance standpoint, we had maybe five on the defensive side and three or so on the offensive side, so it wasn’t a flawless performance by any means.
We enjoyed the decisiveness of the score and the fact that it was a shutout was something you take tremendous pride in as a defensive football team, but we’ve obviously got a lot of work to do.
We had some outstanding performances: Aaron Pettrey, I thought, on a day like that, to bang a couple field goals outside of 45 and they were at a time when you really needed them to get something on the board when you had some field position and didn’t quite execute well enough to cash in touchdown-wise.
From a defensive standpoint, Doug Worthington was very, very steady. His leadership has been steady. He was the defensive player of the game.
Offensively, our staff had a little bit of a difficult decision trying to decide between Boom Herron and Brandon Saine, so they decided to name Boom and Zoom as the offensive players of the week and I think they combined for over 150 yards rushing and took care of the football. Both of our turnovers occurred not from the running back standpoint and they did a good job of carrying the ball and making sure that they handed it to the official and we thought that they played with good vision and good toughness and on a day where you most certainly were going to need to run, they provided that for us, and so they were the offensive players of the week.
The Jim Parker offensive lineman was Jake Ballard. Jake graded very, very well and also caught a pass for six yards, but had the highest grade on that group up front. Defensively, the attack force player was Jermale Hines. And Jermale did a good job. We were in nickel most of the time, so he was in that attack force a good bit of the time and is a very good player and continues to get better and better and was awarded that attack force player.
Someone asked me just now on the Big Ten call, what are the reasons that our defense has played well, and I think it starts with good personnel. There’s no doubt about it. We have some veterans who have been there and grown and so forth. We have a little bit of depth such that we can play 15 or 16 or 17 guys a week, but they prepare awfully hard. Their coaching staff does a great job. The kids come in on their own a great deal and study the opponent. But also the scout teams, in my mind, need to be added to that equation because our offensive scout teams take excellent pride in studying the opposing offense, whatever it happens to be, whether it’s Navy’s triple option or SC’s power look and play action look or Toledo’s spread and hurry-hurry/look-look phase that they do, or Illinois’ plan with the use of the quarterback and so forth.
Our offensive guys take a lot of pride in trying to give the best look they possibly can and this week on offense, especially good, and he got the scout team offensive player was Jermil Martin. He did a heck of a job. We like to work against one another a little bit so that our defense has a little handle on a lot of different things conceptually. So I think you add all those things together and that’s why we’ve consistently been solid on defense and continue to work that way.
The scout special units player of the week was James Georgiades. James has been a solid fullback for us, kind of running third behind Zach Boren and Adam Homan, but he’s also been on some special teams and does whatever we could possibly ask for on the scout special teams, so he’s been a heck of an addition.
And the scout defensive player was Adam Bellamy. Adam is a young offensive lineman from Arora. I felt he had a good week playing against our offense, gave them a good look, played really physical, really growing into what Coach Heacock expects against those offensive lineman and really had a heck of a week so he was recognized as that scout defensive player.
Our guys quickly shifted gears this week especially to the next opponent which is Indiana because our calendar changed a little bit. The first three ball games of the year, we gave them Sunday off and then we began to work on Monday. As school has begun, we bring them in midafternoon on Sunday and we get two or three hours of looking at ourselves and then looking forward to our next opponent. So our guys had a chance to get to work on Indiana. Obviously they watch TV. They watch the highlights. They see the facts and figures and they saw that Indiana had every opportunity to win their Big Ten opener and put up a lot of yards and made a lot of plays, so our guys went to work on that. And then yesterday was their day off from an academic perspective and we’ll be back at it this afternoon. It will be critical for us as we go on the road, now as you look back having that experience of going to Cleveland and playing Toledo away from Ohio Stadium hopefully will serve us, the fact that we’ve been on the road and been elsewhere and traveled and gotten through all those experiences and now, to maintain our focus as we go on the road, it’s a little bit different travel in that there’s really nowhere to stay in Bloomington so, therefore, we’re staying in Indianapolis and it’s quite a journey into the game and it’s at night.
So for us to make sure that we have a great week of preparation and then do a good job of focusing in throughout the course of the entire day on Saturday, it’s going to be a great atmosphere. They have a tremendous new renovation to their stadium. People are excited about it. It’s going to have a lot of electricity in the air, so our guys are looking forward to that.
The thing I like about Indiana’s team, when Coach Hoeppner went in there a few years back, they put a plan together. Obviously unfortunately he passed, but his plan has remained and Coach Lynch and the rest of the staff took over and have just tried to carry it on, and right now if you look at their defensive side, for instance, I think there are like seven true seniors, either four this-year or fifth-year seniors that are contributing and there’s four fifth-year juniors. There are guys that have been there, played against everybody, experienced a lot, and they play with that maturity, and then over on the offensive side I think there’s at least three or four of those big guys up front that have started some amazing amount of games. They’ve started 80 some games on their offensive line going into the year, and so they have that background. They’ve settled in. I thought last year they hurt themselves a little bit by having that unsettling issue at quarterback. Sometimes it was Chappell, sometimes it was Lewis and back and forth and it was tough to get continuity for them and Chappell is their guy. They brought in an influx of young talent and you can see the young guys making some plays.
They made a move in the off season that looks like it has served them well. They moved Raymond Fisher over to corner and he not only is playing good at corner, but he’s a frightening return man. He’s taken one kickoff back for a touchdown already. He took one back about 65 yards against Michigan this past weekend. He’s a punt return guy that you don’t want his hands on the ball.
So they’ve done some things to progress to this point and obviously sit at 3-1 and I’m sure feel deep down that they should be 4-0 and had the opportunities to do that and will have learned whatever it was that made it not possible to take that step. I know they’re excited about their first Big Ten home game, so our focus, our preparation, our advancement, our progress has got to be straightforward and incremental as we get ready to go on the road in the Big Ten.
REPORTER: How damaging to your continuity is the loss of Coleman?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, you can never look at losing a player as something that stops you in your tracks because guys sprain ankles, they twist knees, they pull hamstrings, they hurt elbows. You better have been getting ready the next guy at any position. So do you like losing guys? No. I think we’ve been pretty fortunate.
Jimmy Cordle will still be out. Tyler Moeller, obviously, is out. Aaron Gant is a guy that we were hoping would be back by now and he’s not back. Jamaal Berry will be close and he’s looking like he’s got a chance. Zach Domicone will get back, which will be a plus for us because he was on a number of our special teams and so forth before he got injured. So hopefully you’re getting people ready so that when those things happen, you’ve got a guy to step in and I’m sure that’s what our guys will do.
REPORTER: Jim, how did he take the news? Kurt.
COACH TRESSEL: We talked about that a little bit yesterday and kind of that was yesterday’s news and so he took it like a man and we’ll go forward.
REPORTER: Jim, I know it’s yesterday’s news, but this is still something people want to know about. Do you believe it was a late hit?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, our directive was to make sure that it’s yesterday’s news and not comment further.
REPORTER: Have you reinforced, though, that heading forward looking into Saturday about leading with your head and stuff like that, obviously like you said at the end of the week last week, that people are watching?
COACH TRESSEL: Oh, yeah, we’ve been talking about that and it’s — we don’t want to violate the rules or have anything happen from an injury standpoint or a penalty standpoint. Selfishly we don’t want to lose 15 yards and those kinds of things. We talk about it constantly and like I said, we’re going to move forward and get better and talk about it no less, that’s for sure.
REPORTER: What will the rotation be? Who will move over there? I presume Russell will probably play more at nickel back.
COACH TRESSEL: We’ve been playing three safeties a lot, whether we’re in base or nickel. Anderson, Kurt, and Jermale have been playing. In base, you have Jermale and Anderson. Your next safety, and I guess I’m speaking a little bit out of ignorance, because I haven’t sat and had that discussion with Jim Heacock and Luke and them, would be Orhian Johnson as the guy that’s had the most reps. Getting Zach Domicone back is certainly helpful there from a depth standpoint.
REPORTER: Why was Kurt still on the field in the final minute of the blowout?
COACH TRESSEL: You know what, I can’t answer that question. Probably because he was told to. He wasn’t taken out.
REPORTER: Do you find that unusual at all for a starting safety to still be in there that late?
COACH TRESSEL: Lots of times you’ll leave a veteran or two in so that the young guys can get lined up. It might be a center on offense. It might be a safety or a linebacker on defense. But we didn’t have that many safeties when you talk about Gant and Domicone are out, but I don’t know specifically. I couldn’t answer specifically.
REPORTER: What will he do this week, Jim? He’s practicing with you, I would assume. Is he working scout teams since he’s not going to play and does he go with you Saturday or not?
COACH TRESSEL: He wouldn’t work scout team because his presence and leadership and so forth to help the guys get ready. I don’t think, and again I haven’t looked that far into it, but my assumption is when there’s a suspension, it’s a suspension and they’re not part of the game.
REPORTER: Jim, obviously we talked some after the game about the rushing attack and what you guys were trying to do there. As you looked back on film, again sort of running from the shotgun like that and some of the things you guys did, did you sort of know it would go that way? Were you even maybe happier than you expected? Are there still things in trying to run the ball that way that you want to get better at this area or that area or as you looked back again, how did you assess that?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, we felt pretty good about our assessment in that they were so stout up front. They had a big, strong front. And things that took very long to develop were going to be difficult because to sustain your blocks on those guys would have been difficult. So we felt, looking back, that that was the right thing to go to.
Are there some things we need to keep getting better at? For sure. And we need to keep growing into who we think our guys can be, but I think our guys felt pretty good about the fact that we didn’t have very many mental errors. I heard Jim Bollman say that he thought Mike Brewster called his best game since he’s been here, from a decision of where to go. They did a lot of different things back there. Mike did a good job of knowing where the safeties were spinning down and knowing where to turn his line back and so forth. I think we got a step forward in confidence, but it has to be followed by another one, obviously.
REPORTER: We were talking with some of the linemen after the game, they seemed actually excited about the way things went Saturday.
COACH TRESSEL: I think because we were a little simpler and it worked, it’s a lot easier to be excited when you say, oh, you know what, the things that we planned seemed to be the right things. Those were some tough guys to block. I mean, they have some — there’s two or three of those guys in there we were trying like crazy to get to come to Ohio State and we’ve got some good guys.
So I think our guys were excited, when you can run the ball a little bit, we always say if you can run for more than 200 yards, you should feel like your contribution is very, very good and I’m sure we were over 200 and I think they did feel good.
REPORTER: That group especially, they’ve been maligned a little bit, what does it do for the group?
COACH TRESSEL: Sure. Well, as you sit back and assess what you do and when it is more successful, then you go back and say, well, why was it more successful? Didn’t have as many penalties. I think we had one procedure maybe. Didn’t have very many missed assignments. We weren’t perfect by any means because I’m not sure that we had an interior guy grade a winning performance, but I think they all graded a lot closer to a winning performance than maybe we’ve had, so you’ve got to go back and assess, okay, what did we do well, why did it go a little bit better? You’ve got to hug those backs a little bit because they made some nice cuts and hopefully we can become that balanced team that we would like to become.
REPORTER: Is there anything, obviously we’ve seen whether it was Troy or Todd, different formations, different personnel, under center, in shotgun at different times to be almost exclusively in the shotgun last week, is there anything with that that fits Terrelle better? With his skills, with his comfort level, is that something down the line that maybe we’ll just see more and more and more of the shotgun as opposed to the back and forth?
COACH TRESSEL: I think if you’re a defense, you’re a little more concerned about the quarterback as a runner when he’s in the shotgun as opposed to having to go backwards to run forwards. But outside of that, the down side to the shotgun quite obviously is that when I’m under center I can have my eyes on those safeties all the time and I know how they’re spinning their coverage and I can get my post-snap reads and all that. When you’re in the shotgun you have to look down for the ball and you lose a little bit of sight and you lose a little bit of speed in your decision making.
So that’s why I don’t know that you ever see everyone all the time necessarily in the shotgun and you might see some people, but that’s just what they do and so forth, but there are some advantages to both, but I think as a defensive coach you would be more concerned about the use of the quarterback as a runner when he’s back already and didn’t run forward. Anyone over here so I don’t get a stiff neck?
REPORTER: You’re a guy that’s embraced social networking.
COACH TRESSEL: I have?
REPORTER: Twitter, facebook.
COACH TRESSEL: No, I don’t think so.
REPORTER: I’m following you.
COACH TRESSEL: You’re following the wrong guy.
REPORTER: Mike Leach down in Texas told his guys that he doesn’t want to Twitter anymore, wasn’t comfortable with what they were putting out, a lot of your guys do that stuff, do you worry at all about that whole atmosphere and do you counsel your guys on what they can and can’t?
COACH TRESSEL: We do talk about the fact that anything you put out there is there for good and whether you’re trying to get a job at a corporation some day or the NFL as they look at your background and so forth, so if you put it out there, you’re stuck with it. But, no, we don’t counsel them as to what to say or whatnot to say or, hey, Terrelle, why don’t you go Twitter this and they’ll think we’re throwing this pass or something, you know. So just good, common sense and that you represent more than yourself, you represent your family and your school and your teammates and your team and college football and all the rest, but outside of that, we don’t.
REPORTER: Do people bring things to your attention along those lines, like if someone Twitters or posts something that’s inappropriate, is that brought to your attention?
COACH TRESSEL: Haven’t had that at this point. Now, we do check all those pictures that are — what’s that on, myspace, facebook? We have a person check that out because you never know who’s putting you on where, it might not even be you and that’s the hard thing we tell our guys, hey, if you’re anywhere near where someone can have a camera phone and you’re not doing something appropriate, you might be on record. And so we do have someone peruse that, but I don’t think we have anyone peruse Twitter. If we do, I didn’t know it. And if someone’s representing me on facebook or Twitter, I hope they’re doing a good job because it’s not me. I don’t even know how to spell it.
REPORTER: How is Ross Homan, A; and B, what was your evaluation of the coaching staff, the defense evaluation of Andrew Sweat?
COACH TRESSEL: Ross got dinged a little bit there early in the game and played about 16 plays after the fact, which was a little frightening, but he seemed to be feeling fine. Probably won’t work today, but will work tomorrow. We’re very, very conservative on those.
Andrew Sweat stepped in and obviously had prepared and is a talented kid. It was a good experience for him because you need to develop that depth because injuries do happen. Things happen. And so that was a good — that was a good thing for his case, I guess out of any negative thing you can find a good thing and that was a good thing that Andrew could come in and play and he did well.
REPORTER: It’s almost been like a home game when you guys go over to Indiana, there’s always a ton of Ohio State fans. With the success they’re having this year and with everything that’s going on, do you expect it to be any different this year?
COACH TRESSEL: I just tell our guys, all that red is for you. I don’t know who’s for who when we’re in that stadium. Like if we go to somewhere else that has different colors than us, it’s obvious, but when you go there, it all looks red and I don’t expect the crowd to be partisan in our favor, that’s for sure.
REPORTER: Did you see anything controversial called in the Michigan-Indiana game when you were looking at the video?
COACH TRESSEL: Did I see the catch?
REPORTER: Yeah. I was wondering what your perspective was on it.
COACH TRESSEL: The perspective is there’s no such thing as a simultaneous catch, so whoever ends up with the ball, it’s their ball. And I’m not sure, honestly, I’ve heard it described that way prior to this week, but it sounds to me like when the play ends, you better have the ball, which our old corny phrase we always say, you hand the ball to the official, there’s never a question, and I guess it’s really magnified in that case.
REPORTER: If you’ve had teams in the past that have had a call along those lines or something late, the game’s flip-flopped on a flag or a call, typically how does a team react the following week? I’m just wondering what IU’s mindset might be thinking perhaps they could have won that game.
COACH TRESSEL: I’m sure they’re like most of us and that’s that we say way at the outset, you’ve got to make sure that your victories cannot be affected whatsoever by someone outside of yourselves and again I’m not questioning the call, but we can’t blame the weather. We can’t blame the officials. We can’t blame the ball bounced funny. We have to decisively win the game. And if we don’t, then we don’t deserve it.
So I’m sure Coach Lynch and his staff convey the same things. Now, whether they’re believed or not, who knows. There might be four people that let that bother them and 92 people that don’t or whatever the percentage, but we’ve all had ball games that we said, what if, but you need to put it behind you and study what happened in the game because there was more than just that play or just that official’s call or just that bolt of lightning, whatever, so —
REPORTER: Can you talk about Lamaar Thomas’ role? He’s your number one punt returner, he’s maybe fifth on the depth chart. There’s been some talk, I don’t know if there’s any truth to it that he’s a little upset right now, what’s your take on Lamaar Thomas right now?
COACH TRESSEL: He’s our kickoff returner, he’s not a punt returner and he’s one of the best in the country, I think, and I’m hoping he can rip one out of there. Right now he’s battling in that fourth or fifth area from a receiver standpoint, but we’re working hard. I’ve never seen anything other than positive work ethic and positive attitude. You may have seen different, but he goes to work and we have good expectations for Lamaar.
REPORTER: What was your read on Terrelle’s game Saturday, just because of the weirdness of the weather in the first half and not throwing the ball, was it harder to evaluate him this week given that maybe you didn’t do everything you thought you were going to do coming in?
COACH TRESSEL: We didn’t have as many decision-making opportunities for him from a pass game standpoint than we would have liked, but the nice thing was that he was as jubilant about the fact that we did what we had to do as anyone and once the rain got stopped there early in the third quarter, we were able to throw it a few times. I thought, what did he throw it 13 times or something? I thought most of the decisions were very, very good with the exception of one. We threw late back over the middle down in the red zone and that will be one that he knew when he let it go just like all quarterbacks do and so that will be a good learning thing for him because I don’t know what the score was, it might have been, I don’t know if it was 16 — no, it had to be — what was the halftime score? 13. So it had to be 16 or 23 maybe and who knows, if they catch that and go for a touchdown, the world changes. But really outside of that decision, I thought he made good decisions. He made very good decisions in the run checks. He ran the ball well, but it was not a wonderful day for a quarterback and I thought he handled that fine, but we’ve got to have more balance than we had.
REPORTER: You probably didn’t think you were going to shut out Toledo. You probably didn’t think you’d shut out Illinois. What are your chances of getting three straight against this team?
COACH TRESSEL: All I know is they gained about 450 yards or something last week, so we’re — our guys, the good thing about our guys defensively is they go into every game wanting a shutout and then they play each play. Wanting a shutout is in the back of their minds, but they go out and play every play and if it doesn’t go great for a while, they keep playing every play. And that’s what the veteran leadership does. They seem to be a neat group in that there’s no, quote, stars or people that everyone’s talking about and so forth and that maybe everyone’s just looking to — they look to each other, they look to the whole crew. Its doesn’t matter who’s up front on defense, they’re leading. The linebackers have rotated in, they’re pretty good. Brian Rolle had to play a lot of weak side backer when we were in nickel and so forth. So they’ve had to do a lot of different things and so forth, but they’ve just, hey, what do you want me to do, didn’t get to rep that maybe in practice, if someone against banged and stepped up our guys go into every game with a shutout in mind, but they also know how hard that is, especially against teams that pile up the yards and points.
REPORTER: On Kurt Coleman thing, as you look back on it, was it your thought that it happened in front of 105,000 plus all the officials saw it and their judgment was then it was a 15-yard penalty, but not an ejection, is that summing it up best that you thought the people on site judged it one way and then people who have judged the video saw it a different way?
COACH TRESSEL: You’re killing me. I made my comments yesterday on that subject.
REPORTER: But you’re not going to —
REPORTER: At the tailback position, maybe Boom could get 30 carries, you kind of have I-A and I-B, do you like having guys that will share carries? This year it’s a different dynamic.
COACH TRESSEL: This year is not that different. When we had Pitt and Beanie, that was a good deal. Jordan Hall has stepped in and said, hey, I’m going to be able to add to this group. Jermil Martin is a little healthier now and showed last week against our defense that he could bang it in there and if you could bang it in against our defense, you could maybe help. I think Jamaal Berry is going to be very good, we just need to get him healthy. By committee doesn’t bother you because we’ve all been in circumstances where you didn’t have enough tailbacks and you had a lot of injuries or whatever the case, but the more the merrier.
REPORTER: If they stay healthy, do you see Boom and Brandon Saine pretty much splitting carries for the season?
COACH TRESSEL: They would be the two guys that would get the most, who would get more, a lot of times depends on how they drive and keeping momentum and not wearing a guy out and so forth. We kind of felt going into the spring that those guys were going to be good ones and felt the same way in preseason and after four games, I think they can be pretty good.
REPORTER: After Saturday, are they seeing more things than they were at the beginning of the year because they’re playing more?
COACH TRESSEL: I think their experience helps, but Coach Bruce used to always say, get the running back’s feet to the line of scrimmage and then he’ll take care of the rest, you don’t have to coach him after that. It’s when the running back’s feet get behind the line of scrimmage and that’s why I thought the feeling that our offensive staff had that, hey, you weren’t going to be able to just knock these big guys backwards this week, you’re going to have to hit them a little quicker and so forth. So I thought the plan was good. Experience helps, but those are good backs. If you can get their feet to the line of scrimmage, we have a chance.
REPORTER: Did you really think that Illinois could score two or three times in that last couple of minutes? That was your explanation?
COACH TRESSEL: Uh-huh.
REPORTER: And that’s why you went for the fourth and two or three?
COACH TRESSEL: Absolutely. We had that discussion. In fact, I even flipped over to the defense.
REPORTER: The way they were playing, though —
COACH TRESSEL: Well, hey, easy for you to say, all you do is cover it afterwards. If they’d have been playing all of a sudden the last minute and a half —
REPORTER: That’s a lot of on-side kicks.
COACH TRESSEL: All you’ve got to get is two. Navy, what was the score? 31 to — what was it? 31-14 with five minutes to go in the game and —
REPORTER: 29-14.
COACH TRESSEL: Was it 29-14? Yeah, that’s right, 29-14 with four minutes to go in the game and you don’t exactly look at that offense as a two-minute offense.
REPORTER: But, Jim, no second thoughts about having Terrelle on the field and passing for a touchdown with a minute and a half left?
COACH TRESSEL: No, not at all. We only had Terrelle on the field passing 12 times up to that point.
REPORTER: I just wondered, you said after the game that you were concerned about blocking a kick or whatever, but with a wet ball and passing the ball.
COACH TRESSEL: You mean as far as an interception? I’d have tackled him. No, I wasn’t concerned one bit.
REPORTER: Jim, has he graded a winning performance yet?
COACH TRESSEL: Not yet, but his grades have steadily improved.
REPORTER: What are some of the things that go into that?
COACH TRESSEL: Oh, my.
REPORTER: Can a guy get discouraged for not grading a winning performance yet this year?
COACH TRESSEL: Craig probably had won a National Championship and hadn’t had a winning performance yet. It’s hard. Those guys have a lot of decisions, a lot of point of attack grades. Simple thing like not carrying out a fake costs you percentage points. We’re pretty mean.
REPORTER: Is it like 85%?
COACH TRESSEL: They’ve got to grade 85, yeah.
REPORTER: Has that been something with him this year, not carrying out fakes?
COACH TRESSEL: I thought he did a good job — I thought he did a better job this game and I think he now has the understanding that if he starts one direction, there’s going to be some people watching, which sometimes people that are not egotistical and arrogant don’t think that way, he’s not. He’s one of those guys, what would they be looking at me for, he’s got the ball. Well, they’re going to look at you just in case because if you happen to have it, it could go to the house. Yeah, I think he’s improved in the understanding of those little things. I’m going to get Lori because my guys will kill me.
REPORTER: Can I get this one in quick? You’ve got Posey and Sanzenbacher who have been doing pretty well, but you don’t have anybody else at receiver. Just after four games, is it time to get some other guys involved and get them going because if somebody takes one of those two guys away from you, with a good corner, presumably one of the better teams you’re going to play down the line, you’re going to need some other guys to step up, I would think. Are you going to get somebody else in there?
COACH TRESSEL: We haven’t completed as many passes period as I’d like to complete. And really, if we’ll just throw to the guy that’s open, I really don’t care if Ray Small has 11 catches this week and Dane and Posey have none and then you ask, why aren’t you getting Dane and Posey involved? Well, because he wasn’t open. I hope we’d go that way if Ray’s the one that’s open. I think Ray and Duron and Lamaar, anything we can do to add them to the burst, because they can go, and if they get their hands on the ball — but I haven’t seen any situations where our quarterback had those guys open and went — said, well, I’m going to throw it to Posey because we came in together or I’m going to throw it to Dane because he’s my friend or whatever, but the more the merrier, I don’t mind throwing the tight ends, the backs are okay, so there’s only one ball and all of a sudden if you start running it well, then you’re going to not have as many balls to go around but those guys are coming along. They’re going to be okay. All right, Lori, we’ve got to go.
REPORTER: You referenced the adjustments you had made both after the game and then just a few minutes ago and I’m wondering if those were opponent and weather-specific or if those are things moving forward that you can see using against different opponents in dry weather conditions.
COACH TRESSEL: I referenced that the offensive staff made those adjustments.
REPORTER: Yeah.
COACH TRESSEL: They were probably most opponent oriented based upon how we thought we matched up and what we thought they did best and perhaps the things like we felt we could do against them. They weren’t at all weather related. We were going to do those things regardless of the weather. Probably would have thrown more if the weather was better, just to make sure we give them a lot of problems, because Illinois did a good job, they crammed the extra guys down in the box and made it harder for us.
There were some plays where we didn’t have enough hats to block the number of people they had, but, no, they were personnel related, theirs and ours. We felt our guys understood and did those things well and we thought those were the best things against Illinois and now that’s what they’re hard at work at on Sunday/Monday is trying to figure out what’s the best match-up versus Illinois and how much one back, how much two back, how much under center, how much shotgun, how much three wides, how much four wides, what’s the best thing for us, and just like in our special units meeting this morning, Paul Haynes was talking about our kickoff coverage and so forth and it’s really been pretty good, we’ve gone now three straight games where they have not done one thing they did that we prepared for and so you spend all that time and here’s what they do and you go through all that, you slam into each other all week in practice and they have a totally different kickoff return. But that’s — they’re allowed to work too. They’re allowed to scheme also and we’ll go to work this afternoon.
