Urban Meyer Press Conference Transcript – 11/3/14 – Ohio State Buckeyes
11/3/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 3, 2014
An Interview With: COACH MEYER
COACH MEYER: We pounded the ball out of the end zone with the wind and tried to sky it against the wind. So obviously a big week, big week, and I hope the culture is here at Ohio State that the most prepared team will win, not the most interviews, not the most conversations you have. So the mentality that we want to have is we want to really work hard Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, to get ready for the game at 8:00 Saturday night. With that, I’ll answer any questions for you.
Q. What’s the status of green things in the facility this week, is that allowed or not?
COACH MEYER: I don’t know, we’re just working on third downs and all that. Just a big game. Great idea, though. Great idea.
Q: You’ve coached a long time. You’ve coached in many rivalry games at many of your stops. You have the rival here. Now you’re playing a team that you lost to last year, you are tied for first place; it’s a big game. I know you like to talk about motivation, that kind of things with the players, is there anything different about the rivalry game where the motivation is that deep seeded every year it’s a rival versus a big game like this?
COACH MEYER: I think there’s a lot of difference. I got asked that last week a little bit. I can’t remember who did that. But I just grew up in the ten year war, and there’s a saying around here, you can lose every game you play except for the team up north. We all know that’s not true.
However, I’d love to have our players have a very clear understanding of rivalry games, the pageantry of it and when you come back to understand the rivalry.
We have one rival here. What’s happened in this situation is you have an excellent team. After watching them on film, they’re a great team. And they stand in the way of Big Ten championship. They stood in the way last year and we failed.
And so does that make them a rival? It makes them in the way of something that we all want. And that’s Big Ten championship. I think it happened a little bit with Wisconsin. I remember our first year it was big because they went to three straight Rose Bowls. I think this is a credit to their university, their coaching staff and most importantly their players.
And our guys know that. So to say this is a rivalry game, that would diminish the rivalry that’s been here for 100 years. This is a great game because it’s two teams battling for first place.
Q: Aside from the Xs and Os and the risks of playing a really good team, is there part of you that is interested to see what you’re made of and how far you’ve come and to test yourself against somebody who is an equal?
COACH MEYER: Yes, I’ve been asked that question several times. Just about playing a team at the same level as we are, which I don’t necessarily agree with. I think we’ve beaten a bunch of very good teams.
But they’re the king of the hill right now because they won the championship and you have to dethrone them. How do you do that? You outwork them Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Q: What was the difference in last year’s game that you thought
COACH MEYER: What was the difference? I think obviously came down to a couple plays. They jumped out to a quick start. We did not play very good pass defense. Gave up a big one that we didn’t need to give up.
And on offense, had the ball at the end of the game, we didn’t execute to win the game. I thought offensively, watching it, that was two very good teams playing each other last year.
Very physical, physical game that they made a few more plays than we did. But I thought our pass defense hurt us last year in that game and obviously with the ball in your hand to go win it, we didn’t get it done.
Q: Just curious, how much in general on a week like this do you fall back on that psychology degree in terms of motivating?
COACH MEYER: I think you have to fall back on that when you’re playing teams there’s not a whole lot of if we weren’t very intelligent, you’d have to be real creative. There’s not a whole lot of creativity in this one.
Everybody knows what’s at stake. I think the most important thing that I have to do and the leaders job and the coaches is the immediacy of the task at hand.
Today’s Monday. What’s the most important thing on Monday? For them to get their rest and get the treatments. We played a game; they did not. So we have to equate this a little bit.
So we’ve had conversations. This will be more about just the task at hand. And that’s a Monday, and then a Tuesday, a Wednesday, a Thursday. And try to get as many camera people want to do interviews in our locker room now and all that.
Since now I work for Jerry, I guess we’re going to do all that. So I’m just kidding, Jerry. I think it’s all good exposure for our players and coaches, but the immediacy is to get focused. The most prepared team will win this game.
Q: Unrelated, it’s such a game of routine. It’s so important. Third straight night game, how much does that help you in terms of the kids
COACH MEYER: It’s probably real. I mean, it’s not a shocker now. So I think it does help us that we’ve had some night games to prepare for this one.
Q: Pat Narduzzi obviously has an extra week to come up with something for you guys. How in practice can you as coaches get J.T. Barrett ready to face something that he might not see on film?
COACH MEYER: We’ve seen it all this year. The one thing about their coach and coaching staff, they’re pretty set in what they do. They’re really good at it. This is not one of the star wars where change of defense every week, and there’s the inherent problems with that when you face a team that changes, changes, changes, because you’re not really quite sure.
But we have to be ready for adjustments. They won’t change their defense because they’re too good. It’s the ones that maybe are struggling on defense or come up with something.
But they’ll have a little wrinkle here and there that we have to be ready for. That’s why we’re watching what we did against them last year. And how do you prepare for it? We anticipate and you give them that rep in practice. That’s the only way to do it.
Q: In talking to your defensive coaches, do they say that they see a lot of difference between Connor Cook last year in that game and now?
COACH MEYER: You’d have to ask them. I’ve not had that conversation yet. I will. I’ve not been so knee deep in there. I haven’t had a chance to talk to them yet about it.
Q: You guys have been so prolific offensively this year. One exception might be short yardage situations. That’s probably going to be a big part of this week. Offensive line and just as you analyze the short yardage situation what do you think
COACH MEYER: Two things, I think we had a big back last year that ran through some tackles and I think our backs are pretty good and they’re going to get more physical, the older they get. But they’re playing pretty good.
Teams also give us some pretty tough looks to run into and I think we’ve got to be we’ve tried to do a little throwing in certain situations. So that’s certainly an area that we’re going to take a look at and obviously we had one last year we didn’t convert on a fourth down.
So that’s a big part of the game now. The personnel and defenses are so good in those situations that it’s something we’re going to sink a lot of time into.
Q: Michigan State has I think seven fifth year starters; you obviously have a very young team. How much of a factor do you think that is?
COACH MEYER: It’s a huge factor. Last year I thought we were kind of a veteran team, certainly on the offense, with those linemen. And that’s certainly not the case this year.
So that’s a big factor once again it’s a factor but not much you can do about it but go back to work and do the best you can. So that’s certainly a factor.
Q: Something about Devin Smith, two years ago he had the huge catch. He’s had kind of a different role this year. How has he adapted and how important is he?
COACH MEYER: He’s great. He’s the best gunner in America. He does a great job for us on that. He’s also our downfield threat. Does a very good job on that as well. He’s adapted well. I’m not sure how much his role has changed other than the fact that we had no one else a couple of years ago. That was the biggest difference. Now we have a variety of different body types and skill sets that we try to utilize.
So his role or value hasn’t changed. I mean, it’s just a couple of years ago it was Braxton right, Braxton left, throw it to Devin down the field. And it’s changed a little bit.
Q: Last week you kind of captured the whole picture from your comments about driving towards student section after they’ve run off 24 straight points. I might have thought you were thinking about what first play is going to be second play, any new things to combat the noise. How often does that happen, it’s almost like a fan snapshot of what it was like?
COACH MEYER: You’re talking about the Penn State game?
Q: Yes.
COACH MEYER: I shared that with our players. I shared it with you guys, that was one of those moments I’ll never forget, a young football team, freshman quarterback jogging out after getting punched right square in the mouth for about a quarter and a half, getting ready to lose a game, because everything was pointing we’ve all seen that; you’re about to lose a game in overtime to Penn State at home and our guys snatched it up and did well. That was the offensive line and the quarterback.
So I’m not sure what that has to do with this. But that’s a snapshot.
Q: They had all the momentum, too, looked like?
COACH MEYER: I never felt like we let that one go. I felt they scored right at the end of the game against Wisconsin in overtime. This one, they beat us. And we had to come back and snatch a victory from a loss. And to do that with a young group of players, that normally doesn’t happen.
Q: Couple of years ago you said that the Michigan State game I think in ’12 was a turning point.
COACH MEYER: It was.
Q: Is this an opportunity, though, for a different sort of signature win, for you guys maybe to earn some national respect back?
COACH MEYER: I think so. I think that will be a conversation I have with our players. I think they know that already that there’s been, this is a game to get the respect that Ohio State deserves and has had in the past. You have to go compete and win this game and it’s going to be a task. But that’s real.
Q: After the game last year, some of us observed you sitting in a golf cart. What was kind of the immediate thoughts that were going through your head right after that game?
COACH MEYER: Just get a team back from a tough loss after just get them back after a tough loss, go play in the BCS Bowl game, because you see the horror stories of teams that don’t show up for Bowl games because they’re devastated. Your job as leader and coach is to move on.
I thought we did. We didn’t win the game. But our guys came back and played their tails off. It’s part of the game. We’ve just gotta do the best we can and we’ll certainly do our best this week.
Q: When you look back on that game, like you said, Michigan State is not going to change a lot defensively because of how solid they are. What gave you all the most problems last year in the Big Ten championship game?
COACH MEYER: Good players. Good players and a good scheme. That’s a rugged this is a rugged game. We’ve got to be very smart on how we go about our business and preparing the players this week on how much contact they have.
This is going to be the one thing about when the two experiences I’ve had with Michigan State in 2012 and ’13, I mean that’s a sledge hammer. These are, say what you want about any other teams any other conferences or whatever, this team can play at any level, any conference, anywhere. I’d like to think that the Ohio State Buckeyes can, too. This is going to be a big football game that we have to be very smart.
The whole key, I don’t mean to keep going back to this, but the only thing that matters is when the foot hits the ball at 8:00 that night that our guys are mentally physically ready to rock and roll because it’s going to be a rugged game.
Q: When you look at J.T., do you feel he feels he has the freedom now to create sort of like what Braxton had last year and stuff, meaning, is he over that hump of just running the offense but also being creative in tough situations and making what’s your sense of how he’s embraced that?
COACH MEYER: The one thing that he does well, even better than Braxton, is when something because it happens quite often when something is not there, he puts his foot in the ground and gets us to second and four, second and five.
I can count three or four times that happened on Saturday. Those were not designed runs. But sometimes things don’t work out the way you envision them. Someone blitzes, someone flashes. Someone misses a block, screen pass, someone peels, and he puts his foot in the ground we’re even teaching him to get down.
So you get offensive football and we Jerry showed me again the stat. We’re number one in the country in average start field position on offense, average start field position on defense. And that’s for a variety of reasons.
Number one reason probably is we don’t have penalties on special teams. I don’t know if we’ve had any this year. I’ll go ahead and say that, we’ll get french fried Saturday.
The other thing is good coverage units. But the other thing is our quarterback. And the loss yardage plays don’t happen a lot.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.
An Interview With: COACH HINTON
Q: I know Jeff got shaken up a little in the game Saturday. I assume he’s fine.
COACH HINTON: He’s absolutely fine. He’s gotta catch the play. He actually got minus on the play. Gotta make the play.
Bottom line, they did a pretty good job rotating their safeties to stop the play. We’ve got to make that play. Those are the big plays that get a quarterback on a roll.
I talked to our guys about it all the time. Our job is to make our quarterback play really well. So make that play.
Q: You’re well past halfway in the season. Do you kind of relish the fact that you can find out a little bit more about your team playing against a high caliber opponent?
COACH HINTON: There’s no question. The thing is when you come to Ohio State University, is there any reason why you don’t want to play in these kind of games?
You sign up for this. And this is what it’s all about. National TV, prime time and all that kind of stuff and getting an opportunity to play a great opponent and a Big Ten opponent and all those things are exactly why you signed up to come to Ohio State. Let’s go.
And I know our kids are really excited. I know they’re going to spend an awful lot of time in the film room themselves this week. And this is really, really what defines a season are these kind of games, obviously, because you’ve got to go play well on the road. It’s a tough environment.
It’s a unique locker room setting and all those things. So you gotta go in and kind of keep yourself focused and let’s go play a great game against a great opponent.
Q: Do you have nagging questions that will be answered most likely Saturday night?
COACH HINTON: I don’t know in my case if they’re nagging. I think the one thing that a coach’s perspective is a little different. I think from the outside we see it every day. So you know where some of the strengths are. And there isn’t a football team in America that doesn’t have weaknesses and you know where those weaknesses are.
So you look at it and you say, okay, I know what we’re capable of doing. And sometimes through the public you may not get exactly the way you want it on that game day. But you’ve got to give them credit, too.
Sometimes we always laugh because we walk in and you say, okay, this is what they’re going to do this week. When has that ever happened to us?
Maybe there’s some weeks there’s carry over. When we go to play them, it’s not the same defense or the same style. And give you a great example, we ran a couple of counters early in the game. Well, they had played their defensive ends one certain way every game this year against us they changed the defensive ends.
So those counters weren’t very good plays in the end. But we ran them because of what they did. So we get a lot of that. So the question is what is next and what are we really expecting next.
So if we get a team that we can line up and really get an idea where those birds are, I think we’re okay. And I know there’s a lot of great players and J.T. will be even a little more healthy this week based on that injury.
And everything about the game, we’re going to live up, and this team is going to play really well. I don’t know if I need any more answers, just go execute what I know we can do.
Q: As a position coach on the offensive side of the ball, do you look at that offense and in some ways is it more complete than it was a year ago?
COACH HINTON: Boy, that’s a great question. The one thing about this offense, and we had a little bit of I don’t know what the word was couple of bad things happen to us Penn State a couple of weeks ago and kind of got in that lull. And we ended up picking it up in the overtime.
When you look at that offense, the thing that keeps telling me over and over again, who do you stop? I mean, you look at it, the word complete in my mind comes really into the picture because our X receivers are making plays, Z receivers are making plays. Tight ends have had plays down the field against Maryland. We had two vertical throws and catches against them.
And we had one I think also against Rutgers. And then you look at the running backs and catching the ball, they’re catching the ball in passes and running screenplays and getting the balls in certain runs and being able to perimeter run. We’ve had some nice north and south runs. When you look at it it’s a very complete offense.
And I always wonder what do you really walk in, say, okay, I gotta take this person away or that play away, because we are very versatile at what we do. And sometimes when you have those little lulls in the games, mostly it’s because you’re playing the checker game.
There’s that little adjustment. Now the checkers are moving and can we get the checkers to line up the way we want them to line up to make the plays that we want.
And that’s really where it is. I mean, we’re obviously in that position sometime during the game they’ll make us make the adjustments. But I really like what we’re doing.
You can obviously sense the staff’s been together for three years on the offensive side of the ball. There’s a lot of things that is already happening in motion before the thought comes up and being verbalized, that you can see that we can make the adjustments pretty quickly in the game.
That part of it is really good. To me it’s very versatile because it can hit you and attack you in a lot of different ways.
Q: The other thing I wanted to ask you, what’s Urban like to work for in a week like this?
COACH HINTON: Like this one, these are the good weeks, to be real honest with you, because everybody knows what the price is. And as a head coach, he has a job to do. It’s the weeks where would you be complacent are the worst weeks to work for any head coach. Because what happens he’s not going to allow any complacency.
So weeks like this, are you kidding me, it’s all business and here we go. But you know everyone’s really focused from the manager up, everybody knows what’s at stake and everybody loves the opportunity to go up there and compete.
I mean, really looking forward to it. We’re all wired to go do this. I mean, this is what it’s all about. Let’s go play.
Q: Tim, with that said, last year I was asking Urban what gave you guys problems defensively from them. Obviously that fourth and two play Jeff and Denicos Allen didn’t quite match up and stuff. How often do you bring those things up this week or show
COACH HINTON: I’ll tell you, if I show it too many times to Jeff, he’ll jump off a building. I’m not going to show him that play very often. Took me a week to bring him back down to earth after that game. I can tell you that one.
Here’s the thing. You look at it, you look at it and defensively when you look at what they’re going to try to do, the one thing about Michigan State over the last several years, they don’t change much. They are who they are. What they do is they know their defense extremely well.
There’s little intricacies. In that play, for example, they went double rifle blitz, they didn’t run it all game long. It was the only snap of that in that game. And obviously we practiced against it.
And the doggone blitzer didn’t blitz what he had really shown in what he had shown in practice in other games. Because I think the blitzer made a mistake, to be very honest with you. Then all of a sudden he recovered and Jeff wasn’t able to recover with him.
So you look at it and you say that’s how fine line it is when you play a team like Michigan State because they’re going to give you all really insight. They’re going to line up, play 4 3 quarters and press the number one receivers. What week haven’t they done that in their entire last nine years or 10 years how long they’ve been Michigan State? That’s what they’re going to do.
The thing is there’s a lot of little intricate battles going on about how they’re going to play their front and how they’re going to line up and where they’re getting their rotations in the secondary to get run fits and those things. That’s where the battles will come in.
That’s what makes it all fun. That’s the strategical part that you absolutely love and we’re looking forward to that challenge.
Q: As an offensive staff, do you all look forward to another shot? You all got them up
COACH HINTON: You mean like when you lose a game you look forward to playing another opponent. At them?
Q: At them, at Narduzzi?
COACH HINTON: Absolutely. We’re all competitive. I grew up the youngest of five boys, whenever I lost to one of my brothers in a game, I was going to go out, let’s play another one. I think we all have that innocence. And we do know the challenge.
It’s a good football team and they’re a well coached football team. They know their stuff very well. It’s a staff that’s been together for a long time. They know their system. They know what they’re going to do, and our job is to execute a game plan really flawlessly.
Q: You obviously know Mark Dantonio. What do you remember about when he chose to leave, go to Michigan State, what do you think of the program he’s built there?
COACH HINTON: In reality I was in a car with suitcases in a car driving towards an airport, and I called Mark and I said I can’t go, I’m going to stay at Cincinnati.
I was supposed to have gone with him. I do know Mark very well. The thing that’s really interesting about Mark and that group, they are they have a unique way of saying, okay, I’m going to put the chip on my shoulder somewhat. There’s going to be something that comes out of this press conference, I’m going to guarantee you they’re going to put on a bulletin board somehow some way the world’s against them.
That’s been their MO since the day I’ve known him. And they’re going to do a great job of playing that out. Mark is a phenomenal coach, is really good people. And the bottom line is that they’re going to have an element of toughness which they bring to the day.
They’re not afraid to surprise you with some things that you haven’t seen. And obviously whether it’s a fake punt, fake field goal or one of those things, they’re not afraid to bring that out and expose it to you.
And they’re going to those kids have been in some really big games lately. I mean some really big games. And they don’t back down. So I think and Mark does a great job of preparing them to play in those kind of games.
So I look forward to the challenge. Obviously he’s a long time and will be a life time friend and the bottom line is it’s time to go play the Spartans, though.
Q: Having worked for both of them, what’s the difference between Mark and Urban?
COACH HINTON: Oh, my gosh, it would take a long time to talk about that difference. Only because everybody is different.
And I’ve had the unique pleasure of working for a few different people and with Mark Dantonio and Brian Kelly and Urban Meyer here in the last 10, 11 years, and they’re each unique in their own way and each are great coaches and special people and they all know how to do their job very well.
And it would take a long time probably to sit down and explain all those.
Q: You have the luxury of having two good veteran tight ends with Jeff Heuerman and Nick Vannett. If something happened to those guys, how close is Marcus Ball being able to hold the fort down for you guys?
COACH HINTON: He’s really made strides. Started on two special teams on Saturday. Very pleased with his results on those special teams. He’s made a lot of strides. He got eight or nine plays in the game Saturday, and he didn’t grade out as well as I would have liked for him to.
But it’s part of learning and experience. And I gotta there’s really an improvement in him.
His off the field stuff has been fantastic and on the field stuff is improving. He got to the point where you guys know, by the media, Coach Meyer is pretty particular about who he runs down on kickoff.
He was starting No. 3 on kickoff, which is a phenomenal thing for us. It was a great challenge for him and I’m glad he got an opportunity to do that.
Q: Sam Hubbard, do you think his future is at tight end, and do you have some arguments with Coach Johnson?
COACH HINTON: There will be a lot of arguments over great players. The bottom line is whatever is going to be best for the team in the end, that’s where he’ll be. He’s a great young man. He works at the game really hard, will dedicate his life to being a great Ohio State Buckeye.
And where that all ends up, I don’t know. But I do know this, there will always be a fight for a good player.
Q: In practices, does he rep with you guys or the defensive ends?
COACH HINTON: Predominantly now going with the defensive linemen. But we spot him whenever we need him in practice because scout teams I think sometimes that gets lost in the message.
Scout teams this time of year are absolutely huge and how well they perform against you is really how well you’re going to play on Saturday. So we put him where we need him to get to.
