Postgame Press Conference Transcript From Ohio State vs. Purdue – Ohio State Buckeyes
10/23/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
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Video: Highlights | Head Coach Jim Tressel | Ohio State Players
Audio: Pudue Head Coach Danny Hope
COACH TRESSEL: Well, our guys came out ready to go and Jordan Hall showed great patience on that opening kickoff letting it kind of spin out of bounds and we got to start the game on the 40.
And when you’re ready to go and you think you’re prepared and all those things and then you get to start on the 40 and a couple plays later they had a face mask and before you know it, it’s 7-0, and our defense took over from there with the shutout, and five or six different guys scored and we did a good job, I thought, the first half.
You know, we weren’t going to do a whole bunch of different things in the second half and they knew it, and they put nine people in the box, and so it was just one of those things that we wanted to make sure that we held on to that shutout and didn’t make a whole bunch of errors, and get on with the next order of business in the Big Ten.
REPORTER: Jim, after last week, you know, you weren’t probably sure exactly what you were going to face with the performance of the team.
How satisfying is this that your defense has a shutout after last week?
COACH TRESSEL: It shows our kids are good leaders and they weren’t going to let the younger kids be too disappointed, that we didn’t make some of the errors that we’d made a week ago and our opponent didn’t make some of the plays that they’d made a week ago, and we got ahead of them. And they’ve had a lot of adversity. Purdue lost a quarterback, their best receiver, their running back. I didn’t even see 25 out there very much, so they must have lost their next running back, then their next quarterback, and 16 didn’t play much in the second half. They’ve had a lot of adversity. It was a difficult situation for them against a pretty fair team in the Bucks.
REPORTER: Did you sense anything this week that this game meant any more to your players given what happened last year?
COACH TRESSEL: Obviously I don’t know and it’s usually individually inclined. Some people might have thought this game meant a lot because of last year. Others might have thought it meant a lot because of last week. Others might have just thought that every game means a lot when you’re playing in the Big Ten, so you never know, but most recent misery probably trumps past misery, but I don’t have any empirical data for that.
REPORTER: I just wonder what this game is like for you guys as playcallers. It seems like you start off with the run, that’s working, you switch to the pass, that’s working, was it kind of a dream day for playcalling?
COACH TRESSEL: You know, when you can run, a lot can work because all of a sudden the pass rush, unless they blitz, is not going to be quite as bad. Now, that No. 94 is good. He’s a good player. And J.B.’s feet — we were hoping we could get a half out of his feet, and we did, so we took the second half — I’m not even sure we got all of the second quarter before we took him out, but 94 is good if you have good feet or bad feet and he puts a lot of pressure on you, so I thought that the offensive staff mixed it up a little bit. They wanted to see a little tempo of the game and they knew that they would understand their run block against — Purdue does a lot of different things defensively. They really challenge you mentally. So I think our offensive staff just wanted to get kind of a flow before we started putting the offensive line in difficult situations and the fact that the flow then worked gave you a chance to be balanced.
REPORTER: Jim, can you talk about the kickoff coverage today? It looked like you had a couple new guys in there for personnel, what did you think of how that unit worked today.
COACH TRESSEL: Unfortunately one of the new guys we had today got hurt, Corey Brown. I’m afraid he hurt his knee. I’m trying to think of who else would have been moving there. Maybe Jordan Whiting. Have to watch the film to see how they did. I thought the one time where we got walled off a little bit and they creased it and it looked like a real long return, now, it was out to the 37 because they ran all the way across the field, but when they’re running that long with the ball on kickoff return, you get nervous, so I thought we improved a little bit.
Drew needs to be more consistent with his kicks, and he knows that, and we had a little fun in the locker room at halftime, we made him tell the team exactly where the ball was going to land when he kicks off in the second half and he said it was going to land on the numbers on the goal line, and I think that’s about where it landed. So I’m going to have him start predicting more often and, you know, we still have a ways to go there. And you hate losing guys. You know, Corey Brown has been such — a guy that’s come a long, and you could just see he’s really going to help you. I’m afraid we won’t have him for a bit.
REPORTER: A lot of offensive stars, anybody stand taller than others, Boom or —
COACH TRESSEL: I think Boom got us started, which Boom has that ability to electrify the huddle and the room when he walks in it and everything else, but, you know, obviously T. P. threw it, I don’t know — maybe I do know — 16 for 22. The two picks, the one bounced around, I think, off our hands. The other, I think he didn’t see the drop end off of his own blitz, but, you know, 16 of his 20 throws were pretty fair. And Dane and DeVier looked like they had a pretty good day, but up front, obviously we must have done something right. Will we let Boom get over a hundred? Yeah, we’ll let him, just breaking an 80-yarder, doesn’t have to let us let him.
REPORTER: It appeared Kerrigan tried to snooker him a little bit, was that part of the game plan today to cut the screens?
COACH TRESSEL: The one thing about him is he’s going to attack you, and we did want to screen. We did want to trade our tight end a little bit and make him switch technique that he normally plays, and we wanted to zone block him a little bit too and put two people on him and have him rub off up to the linebacker level. There was definitely a lot of thinking with 94 in mind and he also was a great indicator of where they were blitzing from because he’s a guy that was there flat, we call them a big stick blitzer that goes two gaps over on zone blitzes, so we had a pretty good feel for where he was going to be and we have a lot of respect for the kind of player he was, and it will be interesting to see his look back in the film how successful we were. We chipped on our backs a little bit with him. One time we missed the chip, and one time we missed who the back was supposed to block because he was so busy chipping 94, we forgot he only chips if the linebacker doesn’t play, but anyway, he’s a good player.
REPORTER: Jim, it seemed like you worked Philly Brown maybe a little bit more today, how is he coming along? He had a nice touchdown catch.
COACH TRESSEL: That was nice seeing him go up in the air. That’s the thing you have to have down at the goal line. You don’t have enough depth to throw it over linebackers and drop it in, so you’ve got to have people that can go up in the air and make plays and that was nice to see him make that. He was playing every other series at that third spot, which is about what he’s been doing, and we rested, I think, Dane and DeVier a little bit more than we typically do, and that was consciously, went into the game with that thought.
We felt the third quarter, late third quarter last week, that we had maybe taxed them too long and here we were really in need of coming back with the pass game and we might have left them in the game too long, so we consciously tried to sub a little bit more out wide. I think we consciously tried to sub a little bit more in the D line, if you go back and look. At least that was the discussion going into the game and I think they probably did that.
REPORTER: This question is for Brandon and Bryant. This team came out after a loss and established themselves immediately in the first quarter and 42-0 at the half, can you talk about the satisfaction, and Dane, if you jump in on this as an offensive player, just the satisfaction of establishing yourself early and setting a tone after the loss last week.
BRANDON SAINE: We talked this week about starting off fast, last week we got behind and this week we needed to change the pace. We went out, tried to execute and things went our way.
BRYANT BROWNING: This week we went out with the momentum, definitely this week it was on our side and this week it just carried through.
DANE SANZENBACHER: Obviously the same as those two guys, the kickoff going out of bounds, giving us great field position starts it and we kind of knew the first drive was going to be huge for us, you know, our first time getting back on the field after a loss is a lot of emotions and everything so we just wanted to get things started.
REPORTER: This question is for Cameron Heyward. It seemed like there was a lot of action going on after the whistle involving you today, what was going on out there?
CAMERON HEYWARD: I don’t know what you’re talking about. No, it gets physical sometimes, but I think we just do a good job of keeping our head. You know, the coaches got after us, but, you know, we knew we had to expect that, just looking at the film, but I think our guys handled it pretty well.
REPORTER: This is for Cameron and Brian, what does it mean for you guys to finally get a shutout, a notch on your belt, especially after last week, bouncing back from that situation?
BRIAN ROLLE: After last week, you want to win. But to get a shutout against a team that had a quarterback that was able to run the ball and was able to shut him out from running the ball and trying to throw the ball, it was just great, not giving up — a field goal would have been bad as well, but we talked about it at halftime, we had to keep our foot on the pedal and the guys did that. We didn’t talk about Wisconsin. We didn’t talk about anything. We talked about this game. So we knew we had to stop the quarterback, a young guy made the throw and created turnovers, that way we could preserve the shutout.
CAMERON HEYWARD: Just building on what B. Rolle said, I think our whole team just played well. It wasn’t just the defensive line, it wasn’t just the linebackers, it wasn’t just the DBs, it was everybody working together, and I think we just executed very well.
REPORTER: Dane, can you talk about last year’s game against Purdue and maybe if that was a little bit more emphasis of getting out and starting early and keeping that going, where you guys got behind early and it just kind of all snowballed from there.
DANE SANZENBACHER: I think we’re always in the mind set where we want to get out there and start early. I think it did become a part of that game. Obviously we heard a lot about last year’s game coming into this one, but at the same time we kind of had — we had a lot of film to watch to get a game plan and get schemed with, but, yeah, we always want to get out there and start early, especially being at home, momentum is huge, so that’s always kind of our mind set.
REPORTER: This question’s for B. Rolle and for Ross. Andrew Sweat had to move positions due to injuries and everything, kind of grade what you saw out of him, two and a half tackles for loss out there today?
BRIAN ROLLE: Sweat, to be honest, it’s kind of like having Ross out there, he was playing well when he was doing well, we kind of had to move him and back. He did a good job, always in practice communicating things, and when he didn’t understand things, even asking Coach Fickel also, it was great to have him out there and be confident in what he was doing and be able to make plays.
ROSS HOMAN: He did a good job all week, even at practice, trying to hold out any way possible, moving him from Sam to Will this week, but he did a great job today.
