Urban Meyer Press Conference Transcript – 11/17/14 – Ohio State Buckeyes
11/17/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 17, 2014
An Interview With: COACH MEYER
COACH MEYER: Both played very well. I think Nick Vannett has earned some more playing time, so we’re going to try to get him more involved. He’s practicing very well. Offensive line was Darrell Baldwin, quarterback J.T., graded out a champion, and running back Ezekiel Elliott did, and player of the game was Evan Spencer on offense. Just does a lot of things for us. On defense, players champions were Josh Perry, Mike Bennett, Eli Apple, and he’s playing his best football since he’s been here, and Doran Grant is very consistent, a guy that I’m going to nominate for All Big Ten. He’s playing very well for us. Players of the game, we had two of them, co players of the game Vonn Bell and Joey Bosa, and special teams player of the week was Jeff Heuerman, who recovered an onside kick and kind of saved our bacon on one of the punts that they gave us an unusual look.
Big game. Great to come back home, two road games against top 25 opponents, two teams that we have a lot of respect for that we played, and it was every bit what we thought it would be. There’s a good chance we’ll get Bri’onte Dunn back, so we’re getting a little bit healthy.
Dontre, obviously we missed him last week. Jalyn had a tough game, but we haven’t lost confidence in Jalyn. We don’t do that here. If you don’t play hard, that’s a whole different animal, but you play hard and make mistakes, we’ve just got to fix it, and he’s going to work on a lot of things this week to get himself better.
I’ll answer your questions for you.
Q. We’ve asked you I think a couple weeks now about J.T. and whether or not you think he’s a Heisman candidate, but when you look at what he’s done and look at his numbers, at what point do you sort of endorse him
COACH MEYER: I did. I did. I don’t know if my endorsement matters, but I do statistically been fortunate to coach some guys that have been in New York, and he’s a Heisman candidate.
Q. The other question I wanted to ask you was at this point in the season, you guys are a win away from clinching a spot back in Indianapolis. Are you having as much fun now as you did when you were younger coaching?
COACH MEYER: I’m having a lot of fun coaching this team because yesterday was a perfect example, they went out and they worked their tails off. J.T. is a Heisman candidate that knows that he could have played much better Saturday, and that’s the best thing about coaching these guys right now. I hope it doesn’t change. That’s something we’re watching very closely with guys that are starting to get some notoriety. You know, Zeke has a chance to get 1,000 yards, and the minute he becomes something other than Zeke Elliott, that’s a problem, and same with J.T., same with Joey Bosa. Some of these players, Mike Thomas. Mike Thomas didn’t play particularly well. I watched him very closely yesterday and it was nothing other than go out and I didn’t play very well. I’ve got to play better. And that’s what every coach wants to be around.
This team is like, I’ve just got to make sure they don’t change.
Q. Those were tough conditions, obviously, Saturday. I know you said something about you’d like to see other teams come in and do that. First question is when you were at Florida, how tough would it have been to go to a place like that? Would it have been extra tough because of what you were used to?
COACH MEYER: I think any time if you ask a team from Ohio or a northern team to go down to a southern school in the summer, I mean, it’s ridiculous. We did that when I was there. I remember Wyoming coming down there and some teams, and there was a 100 degree differential between I remember doing that stat when Wyoming played their last game, it was 100 degrees different than when they played their first game the next year, and that can only happen a few places, Wyoming and Florida.
Yeah, it would be ridiculous to try to get a group of players from no different than a group of players from up here to go down and play in 110 degree heat index. It’s not impossible, but it’s difficult.
Q. The second part of that is when the playoff goes to eight teams, probably, not if, would you be in favor of home sites? The first round home sites coming up
COACH MEYER: We play Indiana, man. I’m not sure how that works.
Q. I know that there were points last year where you were saying you wish Braxton wasn’t running as much because you didn’t want to expose him to that much risk. Are you pleased from that standpoint with J.T. Barrett?
COACH MEYER: Yeah, a lot of his are scrambles. The one that he came out the other end, the 90 yard run was a called run or whatever it was, the 80 some yard run was a called run. It’s just such a good thing to have as kind of your crutch. We’ve got to get off that a little bit. But a lot of J.T.’s yards are he’s he’s a very good scrambler. The thing that J.T. does so well, and that’s why we stay on course a lot of time, is if it’s not there, he puts his foot in the ground and gets six yards and that puts us in 2nd and 4 instead of hanging around that’s a great quality of his right now and we don’t want that to change.
I don’t mind that because he’s pretty good at getting down, but we’ve got to limit the quarterback run calls, but we have. We’re not nearly like we were a few years ago.
Q. Speaking of good runners, Kevin Coleman, what is it that makes him successful?
COACH MEYER: I have not studied him. I see his statistics; they’re ridiculous. I met with our defensive staff again this morning, last night and this morning, and they think he’s an outstanding, great back. Not real big but fast, extremely fast. I have not studied him. That’s usually Wednesday I do that, but I know our guys are that’s the threat, number one threat on their team.
Q. Tackling was a big issue for your defense last year. It seems much better this year.
COACH MEYER: Much better.
Q. I know there was still one where they were trying to pull the ball out and Cobb went in for a touchdown, but overall can you just talk about the tackling?
COACH MEYER: Yeah, we’re not a big strip. You won’t see that. I’d better not see that. If you’re wrapped up you can go in there and get the ball, but that was really bad two years ago. Coach Fickell and Coach Ash are the primary guys that teach that long with Coach Coombs obviously. But we work I can’t imagine there’s a team that works harder on tackling than we do. We work that every week, and that’s non negotiable.
Q. Backup D tackles, you talk about them a lot. Is there one guy
COACH MEYER: Schutt is close. He had a good week of practice. I like Tom Schutt, disappointed in him. I thought when we recruited him, he’d be a guy that would roll in there, and we’re meeting every week now. He’s asking what he can do better, and he had his best week of practice, so he’s a good guy that comes from good people and we want to get him on the field, but he’s got to play better. That’s an area that’s not where we need to be right now.
Q. As a coach when you leave a game like Saturday, Dontre two weeks ago, Jalyn Saturday, do you leave more worried about the ball security or pleased and encouraged by when he holds on to the ball?
COACH MEYER: No, very concerned about we’ve fumbled it more this year than we have, and we’ve had a little conference about that, our offense coaches, myself and our players yesterday, and I think we got lazy a little bit in practice, and that’s my fault; I’ve got to hold these guys accountable. So no, very disappointed when that ball is on the ground. You don’t you’re not going to win a close game by doing that.
Q. You prefaced these last couple weeks, this philosophy that guys can’t be afraid to make mistakes. Did you think the last two years, last year at any point that you had a team that was afraid to make a mistake?
COACH MEYER: I don’t think so. I just don’t want to I’ll hear people say, if he fumbles, he won’t play again for another six games. If I see a fundamental flaw in how he’s holding the ball, then he won’t play for six games, but fumble, like if a guy jumps offsides, that’s part of I want a real aggressive team that’s not worried about making mistakes, and I think we have that.
But they’re also it’s a fundamental. When you start seeing I’m seeing our receivers not very tight with the ball right now, and J.T. Barrett and Ezekiel Elliott are very tight. You watch them all the time there, we call it chin chin chin, they’re real tight with it. It’s a fundamental issue right now, not an effort issue.
Q. Following up on that, though, other than the drops, have you been pleased with what Jalyn has brought to the table
COACH MEYER: Yes.
Q. From the standpoint he’s always cutting up field locking for that play?
COACH MEYER: Yeah, he’s real aggressive on punt returns. That’s something that I’m getting ready to make a change at punt returner, and then Zach Smith and I had a long conversation, we went and watched every one of his punt returns. He’s very aggressive to the ball. They don’t drop very often on him. He’ll go get it, and we don’t want to lose that. So we’ve just got to make sure we’re taking care of business, getting the reps.
Q. You mentioned Eli Apple a little while ago. Can you talk about his rise just in the last four or five games? Obviously he gave you a spark when he came off the bench at Michigan State four or five games ago.
COACH MEYER: Wasn’t full speed, either. Yeah, Eli Apple is a guy that I’d like to think is a product of the way we do our business. In the weight room, in the classroom, he’s kind of a how can I say that? He was not what we wanted when we signed him. He was lazy in the classroom, lazy about his business, got a great family, they really supported us in our disciplining of him, and he’s doing great in school and great on the field. And I grabbed him yesterday and I said, this is what we recruited. He’s playing pretty well.
Q. I’m just wondering, do you think, I know you’re talking about Indiana, but do you think the committee is going to take into consideration y’all were playing in constant snow on Saturday, 16 degrees, mistakes happen? Do you have faith in the committee to look at everything, I guess, and they judge teams nationally?
COACH MEYER: I think I see some coaches on there that probably have been in Minnesota and played, I guess. For the person that has no clue, I have no faith in them. For people that understand ball and all that, yeah. Once again, I don’t really know who’s on it. I’m sure they were well picked.
Q. A little bit along those lines, you guys are kind of on two tracks here. You obviously have to win. That’s all you can control. But there is this playoff, you’re trying to get into the playoff. At 31 24 win over Indiana probably won’t help you. How do you kind of balance the idea that you have to obviously take care of business, but there is this perception game?
COACH MEYER: That’s not even going to be addressed. We wake up every November or we wake up every day to compete for championships in November. It’s at the doorstep now. They’ve done a good job getting us there. If you’d have told us after week two that this would all start to materialize, I think we just keep doing what we’re doing, and that’s get better, get better each week. We are lights out a much better football team than we were at the beginning of the season, and that’s a credit to the players and the assistant coaches for getting them there.
But those kind of conversations I think take place in here. They certainly don’t take place within locker rooms, not that I’m aware of.
Q. Would you be willing to say that you’re one of the four best teams in the country?
COACH MEYER: Not right now, no. No, I don’t, because I don’t want to make ignorant comments. I just don’t know. I’d make the comment that we’re one win away from representing the East in the Big Ten Championship game, because I do know that.
Q. With Zach Smith and that receiver group this year, what have you seen just in terms of they have that zone six thing they’ve made for themselves. In terms of what Zach has done with that attitude in that room or the togetherness in that room. We know that room has been an issue at times in your time here. What have you seen? Obviously they’re playing better. Is there something about the way they’re approaching things?
COACH MEYER: I wish you would have asked me last week. I would have been more positive.
Q. I know.
COACH MEYER: They didn’t play very well this week, so that zone six stuff or whatever, I’m going to blow it up. I told Zach, I told him he coached his best game against Michigan State, high energy, very good blocking downfield, making plays downfield, just and then this past week we didn’t play very good. The dog ate my homework excuse about the weather and all that, that’s the way it is. He has done this has been a good year for Coach Smith and the receivers, much different approach to the game than when we first got here, so he’s done a good job.
Q. I know you have you’re worried about your thing with your team with Indiana, but Florida is making a coaching change. For anybody who goes in there next from what you know, having gone in there when Florida was down, what do you need to do
COACH MEYER: I’m just worried about Indiana. Nice try, though.
Q. When you talked about goals and motivation, whether last January or at any time up until now for this 2014 season, returning to Indianapolis for the Big Ten title game, how big was that?
COACH MEYER: That was everything. That was everything we did was to get another shot at the Big Ten Championship. Everything, and that’s at the doorstep. I imagine that’s why they were pretty juiced up yesterday for practice.
Q. Indiana is rushing for like 265 yards a game or something like that. Could you address what your run defense must do against a team
COACH MEYER: You know, we played much better than I anticipated watching the film. We had some missed tackles, safety position missed a few tackles, bad ones, and we have to work on that. But I thought our defensive front I didn’t get the feel during the game our defense Mike Bennett played one of his best games as a Buckeye, Joey Bosa was ridiculous, Steve Miller was going hard, and Adolphus didn’t do bad. We just got to make sure we’re gap sound, be very smart, and we’re facing one of the best rush teams certainly in the Big Ten, and we’re just I think we’re comfortable with the style of defense we’re planning to go play Indiana and stop that run limit that run offense.
Q. Dovetailing off of that, you’re playing Kevin Coleman who had a 300 yard rushing game last week, played Jeremy Langford a couple weeks ago, this Cobb kid, Melvin Gordon is going crazy. People talk about this league. Have you run into this many backs it seems like
COACH MEYER: No, I haven’t, and then you see that they’re doing it against some of the top rush defenses in the country. That’s one thing I noticed about it; I was just looking at our conference, rush defenses, and who we’ve faced the last few weeks, they’re very good against the rush. I think the last two were top 10.
Q. Minnesota was 21, Penn State was 5, Michigan State was 5.
COACH MEYER: So just very good run defenses, and then you throw these big time backs in there, so there’s some NFL players in this league carrying the ball.
Q. Nationally a lot of times
COACH MEYER: And I think Zeke, I’ve got to throw my guy in there now. For whatever reason, he’s not having the same touches, but I like our back.
Q. Nationally a lot of times people have talked about the Big Ten and this and that, but heading into last week, the committee had five in the top 25, you got out of Minnesota with a win. You’re in the middle of this. Are you seeing any downs in the Big Ten as you’re going through this?
COACH MEYER: I think the upper half is I think the one thing that I’ve got to be smart how I say this. I think the Big Ten Conference, it’s no secret, the difference between that and the other top conferences is not one through five. I think it’s the whole thing, and I see teams getting better, to answer your question. Northwestern goes in there and beats Notre Dame, and Northwestern to me is last year I remember they were 15th in the country or 16th in the country, so the consistency of teams in our conference, I think, is the only thing lacking at times. But that’s without studying it, but the top five teams in our conference, they can play anywhere.
Q. You’re playing a team like Missouri, I know they’ve had injuries to the quarterbacks, but
COACH MEYER: Yeah, they beat Missouri at Missouri, and I think Missouri is first in the East, in the SEC.
Q. What have you seen out of Curtis Samuel? I know he was really involved at one point. He seemed to run pretty well when he was returning kickoffs. What do you see from him?
COACH MEYER: We’ve got to get him in the game. Zeke has got the hot hand right now and playing really, really well. He’s playing high, high level football for us, and we’ve had some really tough games. You want your best guy with the ball in his hand right now. So that’s the only thing. He’s not done anything wrong. He had a little injury two, three weeks, but he’s full speed now and did a nice job. The kickoff return before the half got us I was ready to just kneel on the ball and get out of there because of the conditions of the field and everything, and we knocked it out past the 40 yard line, went down and kick a field goal because of that kick return. He’s doing great, we’ve just got to get him more involved.
Q. You addressed a week or two ago, but every place I go people are asking me about J.T. and Braxton, how that’s going to work next year. You said it would be great to have two fine quarterbacks here if that’s the plan. Can you clarify, is there another plan in place, or is it just going to
COACH MEYER: The plan in place is to try to clinch the Big Ten Championship, representative of the Eastern Division. That’s our plan.
Thanks, guys.
An Interview With: COACH SMITH
Q. Zach, you guys, Urban was saying that you guys played your best game two weeks ago against Michigan State, the receivers, and then last week not so much. How much are conditions realistically a factor in the throw game? The ball is slippery, it’s hard
COACH SMITH: I think conditions always play a part. It was not a great atmosphere and weather condition to throw the football certainly, but it’s not an excuse. We’ve got to be able to throw the football in any condition. But I think it definitely affects it, but it wasn’t it wasn’t our best game. It wasn’t terrible, but coming off of the week before, we wanted to take a step, and we didn’t take that step.
Q. As a receivers coach, when you watch the play where J.T. kind of eluded pressure, stepped up, threw off balance to I think it was Jalyn
COACH SMITH: Yeah, it was.
Q. Just how difficult of a play is that to make at that position?
COACH SMITH: I mean, playing that position is hard enough as is, but that play specifically being able to elude pressure, find a window and still remain a passer under pressure, that’s tough for anyone to do. A lot of quarterbacks you see will scramble in that situation because under pressure, a lot of times you just try to escape, but he stayed a passer, he slid, a found a window and found an open receiver, and that obviously resulted in a big play and a touchdown. It was impressive for him, but it’s impressive for anybody. That’s tough to do for sure.
Q. Urban mentioned that maybe you guys hadn’t emphasized ball security as much the last couple weeks as you should have. What does that mean or how does that change your approach to coaching your guys?
COACH SMITH: There really hasn’t there’s been an increased emphasis I’d say as a whole, but that’s something that’s emphasized week in, week out. I coached no different on Sunday at practice that I have any other practice, and that is ball security is the utmost emphasis with my guys because if they’re going to touch the ball, they need to secure it, obviously.
Looking at Jalyn’s fumble that he had when he was playing offense on the goal line there, he held the ball correctly, he had it high and tight, he had it secured, it was just one of those things where he didn’t have great strength on the ball, and it got hit kind of perfectly. The guy’s helmet hit the ball, and it was something that I don’t know that other than having the ball in the other hand that he could have done much about it. But fumbling the football is unacceptable, so we’ve obviously addressed that and will continue to coach it hard every practice.
Q. Is there something that it takes to be able to bounce back from that? Dontre had that problem two weeks ago, fumbled, scores a touchdown. What does it take to bounce back from something like that?
COACH SMITH: Well, I think when you’re invested as a football player and you care about your teammates and care about your team, when you fumble the football, you know how detrimental that can be to your team, and it’s really hard to overcome. It’s something that’s necessary, it’s something that a skilled athlete, really any athlete needs to be able to overcome adversity, but it’s not easy to do, especially if you’re invested and care. So that was something that was hard for Jalyn in this game and was hard for Dontre the game before, and Dontre did a great job coming back and making a play, and Jalyn needs to do that this coming week for sure.
Q. I’ll ask you about red shirting. I know Urban is not a big fan of it, but it’s really benefitted a lot of guys, including Michael Thomas. Could you address how much that year really helped him and your philosophy on red shirting?
COACH SMITH: Yeah, it’s not something that we look to do. We don’t want to do it. We feel like if you’re going to red shirt, that means you’re not quite good enough, and you might get out recruited in the long run then, but for Mike specifically, that was something that it worked. It fueled his mentality and his approach to the daily grind because he was so hungry for taking a year off, especially the year ending how it ended. It really did wonders for him.
Every guy approaches and comes out of a red shirt year differently, and it really worked for him and how he went about his business. So it was very positive in his case.
Q. What about Jalyn? Obviously a tough game for him. How do you kind of get him back, make sure that his confidence doesn’t wane?
COACH SMITH: I think the biggest thing for him is facing the adversity after the game as much as during the game. I mean, he played actually a pretty good game. He had 100 yards receiving almost, and he graded high other than those glaring mistakes that we all saw, and then it’s more a young kid that then has to face the social media backlash and the hypothetical fans that want to say just absolutely derogatory things on a 19 year old. That’s the stuff that’s hard for him to overcome, I think. But he’s been great. He’s had a great mentality, had a great practice on Sunday, so I think he’ll be he’s going to be fine, but I think that’s harder for a teenager to overcome than anything.
Q. How hard is it for you as a coach to know that those kind of comments are out there? He is a 19 year old, and how do you shield him from it? You can’t really.
COACH SMITH: It kind of comes with the territory, right? People are going to praise you for doing well, they’re going to be critical when you do something that’s not positive. It’s something kind of in the growing process of an athlete at this level that he’s got to get used to, and I think he is, just understanding with the good comes the bad. You could also not be at Ohio State, not getting praise for a great game, and that wouldn’t be as fun. So it’s something that you’ve got to learn to deal with.
Q. Urban was in here talking about how y’all didn’t take that next step as a group coming off that Michigan State game as receivers. You had three touchdown passes; what is he talking about? What was missing Saturday? Was it running crisp routes? Was it blocking? What was missing from the group?
COACH SMITH: I think it was we obviously have a mission at my position to be the best receiving corps in the country and we took a step towards that against Michigan State, and we wanted to take another step against Minnesota. Now, whatever the reason, the snow, the cold, the dog ate my homework, whatever it is, it’s just an excuse at that point. We didn’t block as well as we have blocked, and we didn’t execute the throw game as well as we did previously. There’s a number of reasons, a number of excuses. At the end of the day, it’s did you get better from the game before or not, and we did not. Now, it wasn’t like we were a glaring issue on offense or with the team, but it just wasn’t the progress that we wanted.
Q. That’s what I’m talking about. The interception that turned the game there, that was just an overthrown pass that the guy ran down and things like that. Were routes not being run crisply? What are you talking about?
COACH SMITH: Little things. I mean, just attention to detail, depth of routes, spacing of routes. A lot of times what wide receivers don’t understand is they feel like if they got open, they did their job. That’s not always the case. You have to be at a certain depth, at a certain time, at a certain space and then get open. You can’t just get open when you feel it necessary, and there was times of panic where routes weren’t run at the correct depth, maybe a couple yards short or a couple yards too tight, and that doesn’t look like it’s as big of a problem as it is. A guy gets open and you say, oh, shoot, he overthrew it. Well, he might not have been where he was supposed to be. So just little details that we’ve gotten better at and needed to continue to get better at that maybe we didn’t.
Q. Obviously Jalyn, when he catches the ball, he is intent on doing something with it.
COACH SMITH: Without a doubt.
Q. How do you do one thing without taking away that? How do you tame him one side but not take away that element?
COACH SMITH: Yeah, without a doubt. He’s an aggressive ball carrier, certainly, but his issues were not in that aggression. His issues were catching punts, obviously, and that’s something that he’s been phenomenal at and just didn’t have a great game for whatever reason. And then he fumbled on the goal line like we talked about. But I think that’s something that we can get corrected without taking anything away from his aggression with the ball because that’s one of his greatest traits. He is aggressive, he’s trying to make a play, he’s trying to attack a defense or attack coverage, so we can definitely fix the issues without hindering what makes him good.
Q. James Clark was a highly recruited guy, had the injury last year, of course. Is that still holding him back a little bit, or how close is he?
COACH SMITH: Yeah, I think it is a little bit, maybe more psychologically than anything because he’s 100 percent or close to it. I think he still favors it a little bit, but he’s gotten better. Through the course of this fall, he came into fall and just didn’t look the same as we had hoped he would look coming off the injury, but he’s gotten better and better, and you’re starting to see it a little bit now where I would hope that given some time, given some success where he can gain some confidence, that will come back, and that’s kind of our plan right now is get him that success so that he can get a little confidence in his leg and in his speed and in his ability so that he can take that next step and kind of start to contribute around here.
Q. It’s so early in his career. Do you have to remind him of that sometimes, hey, you’re just a red shirt freshman, your time will come?
COACH SMITH: No, that’s not really how we operate. I think it’s kind of we expect you to correct now, I don’t care if you’re 18, 22, 25, it doesn’t really matter. We’ve got to go. What he needs to understand is, and what he does understand is, he’s coming back from a pretty significant injury, but it’s healed, and he needs to gain confidence in that and start playing like he should be playing as a second year guy.
Q. With the zone six stuff and stuff in your room this year, did you really want your guys to have an identity like that within the team dynamic but really take on something other than just being the wide receivers?
COACH SMITH: Yeah, certainly, certainly. We operate on the power of a unit, and I wanted our unit to be the strongest unit on the team, in the country, whatever it is, and however that mentality got developed, I wanted to kind of help that along. It started coming together in two a days, it really started coming together in spring, started to get stronger in two a days, in fall camp, and then we started to go through the season and that was something they kind of came up with on their own and that I helped fuel. It’s a mentality and a lifestyle that they have adapted to and bought into, so within the team concept it’s basically us saying we’re going to hold our own as a receiver corps. That’s our job and our commitment to the team. So that’s what they’ve bought into and really ran with.
Q. What does that just the difference just interesting the difference of that. Every group is tight and wants to be as good as possible, but it seems like you guys have taken it that one little step farther. Do you think it does does if make guys more accountable to each other? Does it inspire guys to hold up their individual part of it more? What do you think that does?
COACH SMITH: Yeah, I think it just kind of gives a mentality to what we’re striving to get to. It makes them it reminds them of what we’re trying to be constantly and a lifestyle that we’re trying to live, a way we play 24/7 in practice, in games. I think you’re right, that whatever you want to call it nickname, has given them a constant reminder of, listen, this is what we’re trying to do, why we’re trying to do it and how we’re going to do it, and nothing else is acceptable. That is the lifestyle we’re going to live as a corps. Whatever the reason, that nickname, that mantra, has kind of reminded them constantly that this is how we’re going to live. This is how we’re going to operate, this is how we’re going to play, and nothing else is going to be accepted as a unit.
Q. Urban just had mentioned that he had a conversation with you maybe talking about Jalyn needed to come off punt return but then you guys talked about how aggressive he is to the ball. Can you just talk about that, the things that you like about him as a punt returner back there?
COACH SMITH: Yeah, I think obviously the switch was made, whatever, five weeks ago, four weeks ago, because I felt like and Coach Meyer felt like he really gave a lot to our unit being aggressive to the ball, catching the ball, and really not necessarily gaining yards after the catch but really preventing us from losing yards where the ball is rolling. He was very aggressive to the ball, and that’s a trait that we really liked, and so we put him in that situation, and he’s been physical since we put him there.
This last game he had two hiccups. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, it was just kind of a bad day for him, so we’re just going to work really hard to make sure he doesn’t have another bad day like that. But the positives that he brought before, he still brings, and so we’re excited about it.
Q. During the off season conditioning, lifting, seven on seven, spring, fall, everything, how big a deal was made of the fact to get back to the Big Ten title?
COACH SMITH: That’s why we wake up in the morning and brush our teeth and do what we do. That’s been the ultimate goal, the number one goal, the thing we had to do was get back there and win a championship for this University. That’s all we really talked about. There was no greater goal, nothing beyond that talked about, and that’s been what our sights have been set on since day one, pretty much every day.
Q. I’m not asking you to be the social media police here, but when you see what Jalyn is going through on Twitter, do you pull him aside and have a conversation with him? And then the second part of that is when young guys through something like that, can something like that make him a little jaded toward fans then?
COACH SMITH: I think any young guy is going to have a reaction to something like that, but I’ve pulled him aside, we’ve talked about it, and believe it or not, other guys have talked to him outside of me, Philly Brown talked to him and other guys just around the building that have dealt with that before have talked to him. I think that’s a part of the maturation process of a football player at a university or a program of this magnitude. It happens everywhere. It happens to everyone. That’s just something that maybe he hasn’t experienced that now he has, and he’ll grow from. But I don’t think it changed his feelings towards fans in general or anything like that. I think it was just something that he had to realize like, okay, this is how it happens when things don’t go well, I need to learn from this, and realize that when things don’t go well, not everyone is going to have my best interests in mind.
Q. A lot of fans defended him, too.
COACH SMITH: Without a doubt. No question, you know how it is. People are passionate about their team and they should be, so when things don’t go well they’re passionate about them not going well. But for the most part fans were supportive and awesome to him and to everyone, really.
Q. Did you bring it up or did he?
COACH SMITH: I brought it up. It never fazed him, it didn’t seem like it fazed him, but I wanted to address it because I know he saw it, and I know he’s young, so I wanted to make sure that I addressed it with him before it festered into something else.
