Postgame Press Conference Transcript From Ohio State vs. Indiana – Ohio State Buckeyes
10/9/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Recap | Notes | Quotes | Photos | Box Score (html) | Box Score (pdf) | Postgame Transcript
Video: Highlights | Head Coach Jim Tressel | Ohio State Players
Audio: Indiana Head Coach Bill Lynch
COACH TRESSEL: I thought we came out ready to go and — oh, about that? I’ve been here a long time. Earle said something to me this week, he said I don’t know why everybody wants to talk about this 100 win thing, what took you so long? No, he didn’t say that. He would. But, no, it’s exciting every time you win and we’ve had a lot of awfully good players here and our coaching staff has been outstanding and a lot of those 100 wins have been here at home and we’ve got great fans and so this is a place that if they let you stay long enough, you should win 100.
REPORTER: Jim, can you talk a little bit about your defense? Obviously you had a football team coming in here that threw the ball, fourth ranked in the country, you guys pretty much shut them down.
COACH TRESSEL: The thing about playing against our defense is you’re going to get a little bit less time to get rid of the ball than you’re used to, that’s one. And two is that our secondary breaks on the ball and plays you close and because they’re counting on the fact that you’re going to have to throw a little bit sooner and they’re very, very well prepared. I mean, they just — that defensive staff and those players have such a commitment and they know what they’re walking into each week. They knew they were walking into some great receivers and a good quarterback and I think Indiana was a little shorthanded without that good back quite honestly, and they know what they’re walking into next weekend with a great power football team and a fabulous senior quarterback. So they know what they’re heading into and they just go and they give it their best and play hard.
REPORTER: I would like to ask you about two individuals today and have you reflect on Lee Tressel, number one, with that honor, and what he meant to you and what — this is something, I’m sure, he would be extremely proud of you, Jim, and secondly your quarterback set a passing record for himself today in the stadium, over 300 yards, could you talk about your dad and then Terrelle Pryor?
COACH TRESSEL: You know, I thought a little bit about — we had a lot of time to think in that second half, I was like, when’s this going to be over, and I thought a little bit about the fact that my dad came here in 1943 and chose to, after spring ball, go serve his country. And this was always his team, you know, no matter where he coached in high school or college, Ohio State was very special. Paul Brown was very special to him for recruiting him here. So I did reflect on that for a minute. And it was after those 300 some yard passing and all that, that Terrelle — I thought Terrelle made some good decisions. The key to the passing game is protection and I thought our guys up front did well. I thought our blitz pick-up was good. There were two or three of those, especially early on, where the backs and tight ends and so forth did some excellent blitz pick-ups, and Terrelle stood in there and he’s coming along. The beauty of Terrelle is that — and maybe it’s what’s difficult for him, too, is he can escape what’s going on if it’s not so wonderful with his feet, and sometimes he didn’t really need to, and I thought he did a lot better job of just staying in there and saying, hey, I’m going to read this thing out and, yeah, I could escape, but — and the protection was such that we didn’t need a whole bunch of escapes. We had a couple blows in there, especially that one little drive, like two in a row, but I don’t know what exactly the numbers were, 24 for 30 is pretty good. And the big one is no interceptions, and if we can do that, we have a chance in every game.
REPORTER: Jim, Terrelle did not have a carry today. Did you come in with a game plan to try to limit him at all in the running game and did the quad strain have any effect on him today?
COACH TRESSEL: I think he had — seemed like about minus 200 yards to me. Didn’t we get sacked a couple, three times? Oh, no, we didn’t have — as I’ve said to you before, we don’t do a whole bunch of designed called quarterback runs. We think that he’s naturally going to get some step-ups and so forth. We didn’t really have that need, the protection was good. When it broke down, it broke down such that there was nowhere to go and unfortunately we had two or three sacks there that will reflect as minus yards. But could we have? Yeah. We could have, but that’s not what we thought we needed to do. We wanted to try to get it to the running backs a little bit, so I didn’t have to answer all those questions Tuesday about why we don’t ever give it to the running games. I wanted to get it to the tight ends a couple times so I could sidestep that one, tried to throw a screen so you didn’t bring up the screen thing, so, you know —
REPORTER: Coach, I’m curious if you’d see yourself replacing that one with a two or a three there, one milestone begets another milestone?
COACH TRESSEL: Probably not.
REPORTER: No?
COACH TRESSEL: The one on the far side, I want to replace it with a one.
REPORTER: That’s as far ahead as you’re thinking?
COACH TRESSEL: Right.
REPORTER: Brandon Saine didn’t get a single carry today, but he was second in receiver, I wonder if you see him being featured more as a receiver going forward?
COACH TRESSEL: We said going into the game, we were going to try to figure out more ways to get him the ball. I don’t know that we necessarily went into the game thinking he wouldn’t get any of them from a hand-off, but we didn’t have that many plays. I don’t know how many total plays we ended up with, 64, and 31 of them were passes. But we think he’s really dangerous as a receiver and as a runner and that long one was an important one. I don’t know if that put us up two touchdowns or three, but that was huge.
REPORTER: Jim, I just wanted to ask about the two guys we saw come off, J.B. and Cam.
COACH TRESSEL: Cam had cramps. J.B.’s foot’s been bothering him and for, like, three years, and it was bothering him a little bit more in practice this week and we just felt like we didn’t want to get it to the point where it was going to be something that he’d be out. We have a lot of confidence in Andrew Norwell and I can’t remember exactly what the score was when we decided to take him out, but it might have been 21, but it’s just he’s had a banged-up foot.
REPORTER: Jim, did you all tell Terrelle you’d prefer him not to scramble, not to run today, or was that ever spoken about this whole week?
COACH TRESSEL: No, we talk a lot about that decision that you have to make to allow the routes to express themselves and hold that ball for a fraction of a second, or when you see that crack, take off and go because he can do some damage that way. We did talk a little bit more this week in some film session about hanging on and letting it go and letting things express themselves because we did feel like we could protect.
Now, when it totally breaks down, it’s all bets are off, but we work hard on him keeping his feet nice and tight and continuing to progress. We know that he can gain yards running, and we want to keep being a threat in the pass game.
REPORTER: For the linebackers that have played you now, patented that deflection over to Bryant, Bryant, how did you pick that off the field and, Ross, did you think you had it?
ROSS HOMAN: I mean, I tend to — I looked up in the air and I saw a flash come across my face and I knew it was 36, so as long as someone came down with it, I didn’t care.
BRYANT BROWNING: It was kind of unexpected honestly, I thought he was going to catch it. I was looking to throw a block and he was just like this, and I just, honestly, I just reached out and grabbed it, just made sure I turned securely, but I thought it was a good play. I’d call it an assist rather than an interception.
REPORTER: Brandon and Dane, Terrelle today set his career best passing mark. Could you both, since you both got passes from him, talk about his development as a quarterback and his performance today, starting with Brandon and over to Dane.
BRANDONE SAINE: I think it really started today with the O line giving him plenty of time to make the decisions he had to make and he was putting the ball on the money, and I think he was just going through his progression and doing what he knew how to do. He practiced really hard this week and it really showed.
DANE SANZENBACHER: Yeah, I think the same thing. I think it always starts up front with having the protection and having the time to do that. I think we’ve — I’ve probably answered this question like seven times. I think, like, as he — the more experience he has on the field, he’s going to do nothing but get better and the more comfortable he is back there and the more time and everything, so I think he wasn’t as worried about, you know, the injury all week as everybody else was and he just stayed focused and it got him prepared.
REPORTER: I’m going to ask this for Cameron. With this being Coach Tressel’s 100th win, how does it feel to be a part of his milestone and this game and this team at this point?
CAMERON HEYWARD: I think it’s pretty great, but like Tress said, he’s looking forward to 101. We’re looking to get better every week and being part of it is something special and hopefully we can get a couple more for him.
