COACH TRESSEL: A question was asked last week, often would you rather have a game or an open date. I fell on the side of thinking what we needed was a game and I think that was the case. I thought our guys did a good job preparing this past week. I thought they came out with the idea they knew what they needed to do. They prepared, they went out and the good news was a bunch of our guys got significant snaps. We probably had more people get 20 or more snaps than we've had in a game that I can remember and we'd like to think that will pay dividends down the road because as the grind gets tougher and the battles get harder, more and more people are called upon sometimes when they least expect it, so it was a good opportunity for our guys to have that opportunity.
The one downside, of course, was we lost
Aaron Pettrey. Aaron, we're hoping, will get back. In fact, I saw Dave Motts from the Hall of Fame here somewhere, he might have left already, but the Canton Pro Football Hall of Fame is partnering with Texas again in the Nation Bowl Game and Aaron has been invited to play in that game and our goal is to have him ready for that. He won't be ready for the rest of our season, so that was obviously the downside.
It was interesting after the ball game, as the two teams were congratulating one another and so forth, the young man that actually was involved in the play where Aaron got injured sought me out and said, please tell your kicker I apologize, I didn't mean to block him below the waist, I just was trying to go make a play and you could just tell the young man was distraught. And a couple of the other kids found
Jon Thoma, our punter, and told him to tell Aaron the same thing, that the young man -- that just sometimes that happens in football and there was no intent involved, but it's a reality for us so
Devin Barclay and
Ben Buchanan -- Ben was not in uniform Saturday, he was out last week. He'll be back, I'm told by the trainers that he'll be able to work today.
So between Devin and Ben, we've got to step up. I'm not sure any of us expected that, but that's part of football, but all in all, I thought it was a positive step for us this past weekend. It needed to be, because we're getting ready for Penn State. Penn State is solid Penn State. If you turned film on and didn't have a program in front of you you could guess which year it is because they've been doing the same things very well and adding new wrinkles, of course, based upon their personnel and what people do better and so forth and so on. But their general philosophy defensively is much the same, very strong up front, very difficult to run on much they don't give away easy plays in their secondary. Their linebackers are very, very disciplined and run extremely well.
Offensively they have the blessing of having a very veteran quarterback who you've seen grow as each year's gone on, I think this might be Daryll's sixth year because I think he spent a year at prep school and then redshirted and so forth. He's a good player. He's a physical player. Hasn't run as much this year. I would expect him to run a little bit more in this game because they're going to do whatever it takes to do in this battle, but he's making great decisions. He leads our conference in passing efficiency and he's very much in command and when you have a guy in command there, along with a good back like Royster and his change-up guy Stephfon Green and excellent fullbacks, their tight ends have always been very versatile in both the run and the pass game, their receivers are younger, probably the youngest part of their team along with a couple of their linemen, but they're the similar Penn State fashion, very, very good, and special teams-wise, their punter has got a huge leg. I think they've punted 35 times this year and he's dropped 15 of them down inside the 20. We've punted 37 times and dropped 16 of them down inside the 20. So neither punter has as big a net as maybe a couple other people in our league, but I'll bet you if you did a little measurement of where teams started after the ball was kicked, you'd find both our teams put people in tough field position.
So they've always been excellent special teams folks. They pay very close attention and the excitement level of the arena that we're going into, I think it's much like when people come to the Horseshoe, they always tell us that it raises their level of play because it's so exciting and there's so much energy and electricity, we feel the same thing about going to Beaver Stadium. It's a fun place to play. There's noise. There's excitement. There's not a question whether or not people are interested much it's a fun place to play and in recruiting we always talk about the fact that you're going to get to play in three of the biggest venues and most exciting venues in the league when you come to the Big Ten and we want them to play more of those games here, but when you have a chance to go to Beaver Stadium, it's a fun thing. So we're looking forward to Saturday afternoon and a great week of preparation must begin today and we'll be ready to go.
REPORTER: Any idea how you might deploy the two kickers, do you know what you'll do with them yet?
COACH TRESSEL: No. If we had a game this moment, Devin would kick off and kick field goals because I haven't seen Ben for a week but we have Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday practice.
REPORTER: Can you talk more about how Barclay got here, I know he played a couple years in the MLS, he's the oldest player on your team, did you recruit him? Did he seek you out? Talk about how he came to Ohio State.
COACH TRESSEL: I think Devin was involved in the Athletes in Action Ministry and some of the Athletes in Action's leaders that minister to the MLS teams of the various pro teams and college programs happened to bring him over and he got to know our guys, I guess, our kickers, and he had forged a little bit of a relationship, I think, while he was still with the Crew. And one thing led to another and said he wanted to go to college and I remember there was some time that it took to figure out if he could come and walk on and so forth. He may have liked the fact that we were senior citizen friendly, we had
Ryan Pretorius and they had opportunities and one thing led to another and he's done a nice job.
REPORTER: Jim, you mentioned after the game that Terrelle had gotten dinged up, how is he?
COACH TRESSEL: He has ice bags everywhere. He's got one on his -- one of those fingers here all the way down his body with his knees and his ankles and foot and so forth. And we thought that he had been banged around enough and even when you don't design things for him to get banged around, he likes to make plays and he attracts a crowd, but he'll be ready to go today.
REPORTER: Did you envision him being this dinged up at this point in the season, you talked about limiting his hits and stuff.
COACH TRESSEL: You never envision things like that. We envision the next play. Do we send him down to break up the wedge on the kickoff? No. But when there's a play that unfolds, we don't tell him run the other direction or don't do what the team needs at that moment. This is a physical game and he's got over 100 carries, I don't know how many it is. Did we envision it would be that many? We thought we'd like to get him 10 or 12 a game, that he could make a difference. I don't know where we are, maybe we're higher than that, 13 or 14, but it's a physical game and it's a physical league and there's more physical to come.
REPORTER: Would you try to prepare him at all? I would think there would be a little vitriol simply because --
COACH TRESSEL: A little what?
REPORTER: Bad feelings.
COACH TRESSEL: Now you're --
REPORTER: -- because Penn State was one of his finalists because he's from Pennsylvania. Is there anything you would do to possibly prepare him for that?
COACH TRESSEL: I'm sure he's very aware of that. I'm sure as we go through the preparation for the week, we'll talk a lot about poise and patience because that's what you have to do, you have to be a poised guy, whether you're an offensive lineman and you can't hear the snap count and they're yelling at you when you're sitting on the bench that you might not look as lean as you should or whatever. That's what being part of a great environment is all about. So we'll talk a lot about poise and patience.
REPORTER: Dexter Larimore is not on the depth chart, is he definitely out this weekend?
COACH TRESSEL: No, no. The only guy I think is definitely out, outside of the ones that have been out, Moeller and
Aaron Gant and --
REPORTER: Sweat.
COACH TRESSEL: -- Sweat,
Mike Adams, I would expect everyone else would be ready to go, Dexter included. So who have we been missing lately? Dexter, he'll be back.
REPORTER: Boren?
COACH TRESSEL: Boren, he'll be back.
REPORTER: Nate Oliver?
COACH TRESSEL: Nate Oliver, we're still waiting. He won't work today. Kind of expecting him to be back though. Those other guys will all work today.
REPORTER: Paterno said a long time ago when he's still doing it that the big challenge was trying to have an impact with kids with all the turnover in personnel unlike the NFL where you just keep people. Can you kind of address that? And also, your hometown is such an OSU town, I would think all eyes are on what you're building now given what the pro team is doing.
COACH TRESSEL: Well, what we are we hope we're able to do, amongst all the interest in whether we win or we lose is try to make a difference with the young people, try to have their experience here make a difference. They're involved in such a comprehensive moment in their lives, they're academically involved, they're socially for the first time outside of their home, when you're playing at a place like Ohio State, not only are people that love the Buckeyes trying to get in and around you, but so are the people that maybe would like to represent you later if you happen to move on and all those things. So it's a very -- it's a very fast moment in their lives. What we'd like to be able to provide is as much guidance, as much logical thinking, as much reasoning, as much mentoring, parenting, whatever it happens to be to, as you used the phrase, make an impact on kids. Sometimes as teachers and there might be some teachers in the room, but you want people to learn the information now and digest all the lessons now. Well, that doesn't always happen that way. What you're hoping is that those seeds you plant some day, they're able to grow. And maybe they can reach back into some of the experiences, some of the things they've learned, some of the things they've been exposed to, that we'll impact their lives and I guess the affirmation of that that we get many times, especially in this age of easy communication, it used to be you had to sit down, write a letter, put a stamp on it and go all the way to the post office.
Now you can shoot a thought to someone immediately and we get lots of communication from our former players that, hey, I'm in my business, it's tough right now, but I'm using every single thing I learned in football or I learned in college or whatever it happens to be, and those are the ones that give you that warm feeling. It doesn't change your urgency and passion to win on Saturday, because that's still first and foremost eats up the bulk of your time, but at the end of the day, your record, which won't be published, will be about your impact.
REPORTER: Jim, is Terrelle debilitated at all by these little nagging injuries or is this just the wear and tear you get playing a full football season?
COACH TRESSEL: He better not be debilitated because those guys chasing him Saturday are -- no, I would expect him not to be debilitated. Adrenaline is an amazing thing, even when you're feeling a little bit sore or whatnot. All of a sudden the blood starts flowing and the lights are turned on and it's time to go. I'm not sure any of our guys whether it's the ones with the ribs or the elbows or the ankles or the hips or the knees or the ankles, the feet, we've got a little bit of everything, he'll be ready to go.
REPORTER: Also about the -- the follow-up was, I know it's tough enough carrying the banner here at Ohio State, but with the Cleveland connection, with so many players coming from there and with the Browns' struggles, it seems like more people than ever are probably following the Buckeyes, even though this hasn't been your best year, it's a lot better than what's going on, would you just comment on that?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, we'd like to think that the entire state follows their state universities. I think because of so many players we've had now and over the course of time from the Cleveland area, for instance, that we do have good following there and the head coach is from there, so there's a little bit of pride in that, I guess, when we do well, but we don't feel anything, any extra burden or anything. In fact, someone asked a question on the Big Ten conference call, have we talked to Terrelle about the difficulty of, there's so much scrutiny and all that stuff and have you worked with how he feels about it and the hard thing is, it's how you feel about what you're doing for the group and so you're no going to change how anyone feels. We feel strongly about the people in Cleveland having great pride when we do great things and the people in Cincinnati and Dayton and Toledo and Mansfield and everywhere else and when we don't, we feel bad about what we didn't do. Same thing with Terrelle. Terrelle is a guy that he's a caring guy. If he doesn't do what the maximum is he could do for the team on the moment, he doesn't feel good about it. Do you have to talk to him about it? No, but you do have to talk about the fact, okay, the next play is here. The next moment is here. And we're going to have to think about those other things another time because here we go again.
And it's kind of the same with us, we're busy and whether the Browns or the Bengals are doing well, I've never given that much thought, I've just always wanted the Buckeyes to do well or the Penguins to do well or whoever I was representing.
REPORTER: Given this kind of game, are you putting any more emphasis on trying to score early?
COACH TRESSEL: You put emphasis on trying to score.
REPORTER: But I mean, Penn State's been pretty good at keeping teams out of the end zone early in the game and I know sometimes you have struggled offensively off the bat, do you address that a little more?
COACH TRESSEL: No, there has the been a game yet where we've said, you know what, we're not going to worry too much about how we do early, we're going to turn it on later. It's not what you do. You work hard on every play, hope to prepare it for every look that you might get, and then adjust according to, are you getting those looks, did you execute it right, should we not do that again? No, we shouldn't not do that again because it was our problem, it wasn't that it isn't a good thing. So you go into I every moment and you just keep trying to get better. If we can score -- if I'd have thought that theory was that important, I'd have said, Teddy, don't take that touchdown back-up challenge into the game, that's too fast, we're going to work on scoring later this game. Can't do that. We want to take every point we can get and, believe me, every yard in this game is going to be precious.
REPORTER: Is that mainly because of a lot of injuries, I know, and guys in and out of the lineup, but at this point in the year are you not as far along offensively as you thought you might be or a little inconsistent, compared to past year, sometimes you seem to have been more settled at this point, I guess.
COACH TRESSEL: We don't do a whole bunch of comparing to the past or comparing to what we hoped we would be. We do all our comparing on where we are. And where we are is we know we're facing a great defense, we've got to make sure that we eliminate anything that we can control like don't get in that stadium and jump off sides like happened to a couple of the teams early going into the games and you got them against the count, don't go into that stadium and turn the ball over like we turned it over early in the ball game against them a few years ago, not that any of these kids were here, but we're working on making sure we can plan and practice and then execute what the offense, in this case, contribution can be and what could be a very tough, tough football game.
REPORTER: Does Aaron's injury, in a game like this, the circumstances, change the way you, the coaching staff, think in terms of maybe we need to get a little closer for a field goal or maybe fourth and one and go for it? How does that play out?
COACH TRESSEL: Yeah, Devin or Ben, I don't think, are going to be your 57-yard kind of guys. Not that that has everything to do with it much if you're kicking a 57-yarder, that means the ball's on, what, the 40? And we don't want to give Penn State the ball on the 40, so it wouldn't be all about Devin because if Aaron was the kicker, I can't promise you you'd try 57 with the percent chance that we might give Penn State the ball back on the 40.
So it might change it a little bit, just have to see how Devin and Ben are looking and the conditions, the wind, the footing, and all those different things, but, yeah, it does. I mean, we were very comfortable with Aaron from anywhere. He had a great leg. I've seen him hit 63-, 64-yard field goals in practice, not just standing there alone, I mean with a rush coming and the whole deal, so these guys aren't quite there.
REPORTER: Jim, is there a chance you would use both on Saturday, maybe one for kickoffs and one for place kicks?
COACH TRESSEL: If it unfolds in practice that one looks significantly better than the other, absolutely. We won't be afraid to -- it's not like we're saving anyone's redshirt or one's been in the game a lot more than the other. Ben's been in the game, he did a good job filling in for
Jon Thoma when Jon was out with the flu, so that could happen.
REPORTER: Do you feel like you have to tone Terrelle down, it's a big game for him, big homecoming, et cetera, what's going to be your approach for him from the standpoint of keeping it under control, so to speak?
COACH TRESSEL: The constant discussion about what's most important is us having the ability to do our job. Now, obviously you have to be focused and poised and not distracted and sometimes when you get too excited, anyone, you get too excited about that three-foot putt that might win the match and you get excited, you're probably not going to putt it as well. So you have to be -- you have to play within yourself so that you can do what we need done.
REPORTER: Do you have more of a running back feel at this point because some of these guys have been --
COACH TRESSEL: Well, with getting Boom back, that helps, and with Brandon and Boom and we're very comfortable with Jordan, Jermil now has played a little bit, so absolutely. We're -- knock on wood, we're pretty healthy there and we weren't for a bit and I thought Boom was probably 90% Saturday, he didn't have quite that burst, but now he's been through it, he's been out in a game and had a couple days rest and November practices won't wear you out, they're not quite as long, hopefully you don't get someone stepping on someone's foot and rolling an ankle or whatever, but, yeah, I feel like we're as good as we could be right now.
REPORTER: Is that more of a kind of a feel thing if a guy's doing well you keep him in or you rotate, rather than having one guy and a back-up?
COACH TRESSEL: Those three guys for sure will play, yeah.
REPORTER: Jim, sort of touching on again, the early scoring for you guys, I think the last six games I think you had one field goal in the last six games on your opening drive and the other five didn't lead to points. Is there any common denominator that you see early in the game whether it's focus or adjusting to the defense, anything that you would want to work on that you need to tweak when you start off the bat?
COACH TRESSEL: I think the reality in a ball game like this is every possession is going to be critical. I didn't know what you were talking about there as far as we don't really look at the first possession any different than the second possession. We look at the execution or the decisions as to what to do. I think last year, wasn't it some excellent thing like seven or eight of 12 or something we scored than on the first drive and, I don't know, maybe we -- maybe we should do -- say, you know what, this week we're going to work harder on scoring early, but we're just going to -- where did we get the ball after the kickoff or if we didn't start with the ball, where did we get the ball back? You know, one thing about Penn State is they're not going to be totally different because they have a lot of -- just like our defense, you're not going to see a bunch of different things from our defense against Penn State's offense because they are who they are. They do what they do. They're going to tweak some things.
For instance, I thought when Penn State played Minnesota, they did a little bit more of having two over one against Decker because 80% of throws were going to Decker. So if something's really skewed, they're going to change a little bit, but we've got to do well every possession and hopefully improve that statistic, although you've given us a tough challenge to -- picked a tough week to improve that statistic.
REPORTER: Can you talk about Joe's contributions and maybe what he's done when he was getting some flack two, three years ago and now he seems to be the guy, I don't know, maybe remark a little bit --
COACH TRESSEL: You know, Joe has been there through the ages. He's seen so much change in the game. He's seen so much change in the hype of the game. He's seen change in the academic expectations for the people that play the game and he's been in the forefront of not being afraid to stand up, when he was independent for what independently they thought, nor is he afraid to stand alongside the Big Ten with the things that we happen to believe in, and he's not afraid to stand by himself, you know, but I learn something every time I'm around him because his perspective is so broad, to him, making sure that the kids graduate and get prepared for later in life is critical.
Now, does he want to win? He's as competitive as -- he wouldn't be coaching right now if he wasn't as competitive as there is in the world, but he's got a pretty good peace about him that he feels as if they're doing it the way it should be done and making sure that the experience is good for their student athlete and for their fan and they've been a good addition to our conference. I don't think anyone would question the fact that adding Penn State to our conference didn't make it a better conference.
REPORTER: Do you ever discuss or do other coaches discuss with you players you got? Did he ever say anything about you getting Pryor and them not?
COACH TRESSEL: No, but you do talk a little bit about guys that you may have recruited and you say, how's so and so doing, well, he's coming along, the ones that are obvious you can see on film how they're doing, but you might talk about -- like I asked him about Michael [strike] sore addition's [/strike] Zordich's boy who's playing for him who I've known since he was that big and that type thing, but the obvious things, I'm not sure there's any need to talk about.
REPORTER: How did Iowa hold them to 10 points on their own field?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, Iowa's good.
REPORTER: Besides blocking a punt for a touchdown, have you seen anything in that game that --
COACH TRESSEL: Well, Penn State got the big play and you can't let them have the big pass play like they got. And had the lead. And really kind of had command of the field position of the game. It was 10-5 when they were in midfield getting ready to punt them down inside the 10 again and played stout defense and then the special teams mistake happened which turned the thing around and changed the urgency of maybe what had to be done. You couldn't go back to the field position battle because you needed to -- you needed to catch up type thing, but Iowa's just so sound and so solid.
The only Iowa film I've watched in crossover is the Penn State game. I don't think we've had a team that they've played, have we? Prior to us playing them? So I can't picture watching them much other than watching them in the Penn State game, and they're just solid, they know what they do and their defense obviously has made a huge difference for them and they've come up with plays when they've had to and that's what they did at Penn State, it was a heck of a ball game.
REPORTER: Jim, you said in the preseason we would talk to you about the offensive line and the two tackle spots. Do you feel like you now have tackles, your tackle situation settled that you can contend for a championship with these guys? I mean, what's your feel of how that's come along? Obviously it's been a revolving door there at one spot especially.
COACH TRESSEL: I think those are critical positions and I think those will have significant say in whether or not we do contend. I feel as if we're contending right now. If we continue to contend, we're going to need good tackle play. I think
J.B. Shugarts has shown a lot of improvement and I think
Marcus Hall has shown a lot of improvement. They've both been in there. They haven't missed any practice. They haven't missed any games and you can just see their steadiness.
Mike Adams was coming along, got banged up and so forth, and Jimmy Cordle was in and out with a foot, Andrew Miller was out for two weeks. So have they shown the steady progressive improvement? I don't think so, but the good news is, both those kids have been back for a couple weeks now and that's why I think having another game was a good thing and if we're going to contend, they're going to have to play well against very good players.
REPORTER: Last week, Terrelle had a ball early in the game where he just threw a ball kind of up for grabs to Dane in the end zone, did you think you were past that with him or was he just taking a shot? He had a couple other balls that could have been picked.
COACH TRESSEL: I thought that was the poorest decision he made. I thought some of the other long ones that we didn't hit were thrown on time and I understand why they were thrown because of what else was going on. That was probably the one that was like, that wasn't what we're looking for. He felt as if he didn't see the safety and he just saw our guy breaking free and that can happen when you're being chased around a little bit, but we need to -- we're on, I don't know, the 35 yard line or whatever, we can't afford to have mistakes like that and again, that's a good lesson. We know as we go into state college that you might not overcome a mistake like that and we have to grow from it.
REPORTER: Those deep balls, some you've hit, some you haven't, you've had some success, what Penn State does defensively, do they maybe take that away?
COACH TRESSEL: They're not quite as sit down on your routes as some people.
REPORTER: Does that mean the middle of the field or the mid range passing game is maybe a spot?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, the corners don't sit down. Their linebackers handle their zones in the middle of the field pretty well and their free safety does too. New Mexico State was going to be feast or famine. They put eight guys up there and played the other guys press man and you're going to have to throw it up a few times to see if you can come up with one of the three of if you take a deep vertical ball, if you can hit one of the three, you've had a good day.
It's kind of like baseball, 333, you're probably doing well. That's the way it was going to be. We hit probably, I don't know, three, maybe four vertical throws in the game. We had 14 plays that accounted for like 400 yards and 50 other plays that accounted for 160 yards, something crazy, but it was that kind of defense you were facing. You're not going to have 14 plays account for those kind of yards against a defense that plays the way Penn State plays. They're going to make you beat them one first down at a time.
REPORTER: At left tackle do you expect kind of a platoon situation with Cordle and Miller?
COACH TRESSEL: Right now we're working them both, yeah.
REPORTER: Coach, your team hasn't beaten a team rated this highly in almost three years and a lot's been said about the problems Ohio State's had in some of the big games, I guess. What's kind of the message maybe to kind of block out that history and what maybe you have learned from those experiences?
COACH TRESSEL: The message for who to block it out?
REPORTER: Well, for your team. What's the message you give your team to say we have to get over this hump and obviously you have another one just like it next week but I know if you don't take care of this one first, I mean, what do you say to your team to kind of --
COACH TRESSEL: You don't really say anything about getting over any hump, you talk about playing Penn State and what's it going to take to beat Penn State. I don't think you even go back and say, now, Penn State -- I don't know where they're ranked.
REPORTER: 11.
COACH TRESSEL: Penn State's ranked 11. Now, we've had five games against guys five and better and we didn't do these things, so here's what you've got to do against Penn State, here's what we have to do. I would be surprised if our guys have any notions like the one that you suggest.
REPORTER: Penn State obviously, both these teams are ranked high defensively, statistically have done very well. When you look at Penn State, what stands out, what kind of pressure have they gotten on the quarterback this year?
COACH TRESSEL: I think good defense starts when you're good up front and both teams that you'll see in state college are good up front. Which team blocks the other better? Is going to have a big head start in having a chance to win. Probably have a big head start in eliminating turnovers because if you can block the other guys, you're probably not going to have pass protection problems and those kind of things, pressure problems, throw it before I'm ready problems.
So the answer to the question's easy, it starts up front, very physical, very strong, aggressive style, not unlike ours, and then very steady in the back seven. Not going to err, not going to flip their hips the wrong way and go to the wrong zone and all those kinds of things, just very well schooled and execute very well. Lori, last question.
REPORTER: Do you look at what Northwestern did to move the ball against Penn State and think that's something we need to try or do you look at that and say, Penn State's going to have that figured out this week?
COACH TRESSEL: We do some of the things that Northwestern does. We probably don't do them 70 times a game. I think you have to go into a game against a defense like this and make sure that they know that you're going to attack them a lot of different ways. If we go in and just say we're going to do what Northwestern did and the outcome is based simply on our pitch and catch and ability to protect, because I don't even think Northwestern tried to run, we probably won't do that.
Now, I thought Northwestern was doing a great job. They were -- I don't know that Penn State was playing at their best, just watching the speed at which they play in other games and then that one, half empty stadium, away from home, all those things, but when Northwestern lost a quarterback and they couldn't pitch and catch anymore, all of a sudden Penn State kind of had their way, but I think you have to have them out here and have them in here and wherever you are, execute when it's called upon.
