OSUBasketballJunkie
Never Forget 31-0
ohiostatebuckeyes.com
9/20/05
9/20/05
Sept. 20, 2005
TRESSEL: With school beginning tomorrow, we might be closer to 5:15, 5:30 for the post practice. Our guys are excited, I think, to begin school and I know for sure they're excited to begin Big Ten play. We had a victory over San Diego State, which gave us a lot of opportunity, I think, to learn and study and so forth. There was, I think, a decent amount of good news and maybe some not so good things that we better get good here before we play again.
From the a defensive standpoint, after that first play, I think we held them to 100 yards or less. We had eight three and outs and the defense played hard and I thought controlled the tempo of the game and dominated the line of scrimmage and really was a no contest once our guys got going, especially with the fact that there were fourteen possessions that the defense started and the starting position was on the minus 19 for San Diego State, so not only were we playing good defense, but we were doing it with the shadow of the goal post on their back and that's not the easiest place to play offense. So I think the special teams and the offense contributed to the fact that our defense had a pretty good situation to start with, took advantage of it, gave us a chance, then, to get the ball back because of our good return game, get the ball back in great field position and have an opportunity to move forward and score some points.
Offensively, I thought there were some things we did well that were real positive, one is having 82 plays, which at this point in the season, every opportunity you get to learn about yourself and get better and test people, Jim Bollman made a commitment as he went into the game that he was going to play a lot of different offensive linemen early in the game. I think it was the third series, he had nearly a brand new line in there and a lot of guys got a lot more snaps than they've been getting. Troy Smith had, I think, 71 snaps, which is a great opportunity for him. Justin still got to throw 10 balls, which came in nine for 10, so I think on the numbers of plays, opportunities, it was a real positive thing. I think on the drive lengths it was real good. We had five drives of eight or more plays with an eight play and an eight play and a nine play and an 11 play and a 13 play, and those types of drives I think help you get a little continuity and give you experience, and that was a positive thing.
<!-- STORY AD BEGINS HERE --> think on the downside, despite having good, long drives and so forth, we weren't as consistent as we need to be. We didn't do all the things you really should do when you get a chance to have those kinds of drives and have that type of field position, you need to score more than 40 points.
And obviously seven of our points, the defense gave us on the half yard line. Seven points we didn't get, we gave to them as we fumbled going into the end zone, so a little bit of a wash there. But in my opinion, that should have been a game that we should have been more consistent and scored more points than we did. I suppose if you score more points, you won't have as many plays and some of the other things that you needed might not be the case, but good game to learn from for a lot of people. Needed experience. I'm glad that we had a game where we had that much experience on offense before we go into Big Ten play, and now as we go in and start playing against these Big Ten defenses, we go in and start playing against these Big Ten offenses, and start playing against these Big Ten special teams, we need to be much better than we've been and we understand that and we're excited to take that on.
I mentioned our lack of consistency on offense. Interestingly enough, that resulted in the fact that the offensive staff didn't feel that we had a player of the week because there was really no grade consistent enough to say, hey, this person was the player of the week. Nor did we have an offensive lineman of the week. And again, it was a lack of consistency, not that anyone did horribly, but no one did out of this world and so our offensive guys didn't really think that it would be a good thing to reward less than excellence.
Defensively, Bobby Carpenter, with all the disruption he did as an end and the plays he made as a linebacker, just had an outstanding production game, was the defensive player of the week. The attack force player of the week was Mike Kudla, who really had his way with those offensive tackles for San Diego State and just really dominated his edge of the defense, was our attack force player.
Our special teams player of the week was Josh Huston who's been consistent, five touchbacks, two field goals, three extra points, has really done a good job for us and that's going to be a tremendous thing for us as we move forward in these tough games in the Big Ten.
The Jack Tatum hit of the week, without question, was Roy Hall's hit on the punt wall that was set up, did a great job. It was a clean hit. I was glad that the young man got up because he was hit hard, and sprung a long punt return, and Roy Hall got the Jack Tatum hit of the week. We had some scout team guys that have continued to do a great job. Anderson Russell's name comes up again, scout special teams player of the week. He's going to be a heck of a football player because he goes a hundred percent all the time and he doesn't care if it's practice or scrimmage or weight room or classroom or whatever. Anderson Russell's going to be good and he was recognized again by his coaching staff. Trev Robinson was recognized as the defensive scout team player. Trev Robinson, on the first play of the game, which ended up being a touchback, ended up fracturing his orbital bone and having a concussion and had surgery on Saturday night and is doing fine, but he came walking in the office on Sunday morning and his uniform was still on. That's what they do. They go take care of you. And he's going to be fine, but he'll be missing from this week. It just so happens he was the scout defensive player of the week. And then over on the offense, Robbie Schoenhoft who did a great job of emulating the San Diego State offense and does a great job over there leading those young guys and was recognized by our defensive staff as the offensive scout team player of the week.
As you look at Iowa, you look at quality. You look at excellent teaching. You look at physical play. They tackle so well. I just love watching their film because they tackle. They have great leverage, great team defense. Offensively, you'll see that their run game is much improved over a year ago where they had all those injuries at the running back position. Drew Tate continues to grow. Obviously they've lost a game, but it was a game that they didn't have their quarterback, their leader, their playmaker, and the two games that they've had him, Drew -- granted it hasn't been against the competition that Iowa State is, but the efficiency of which he has played, I think he was nine for 10 or 10 for 11 in the first game and the third game he was, I don't know, just whatever, 12 for 14 or a bunch of touchdowns and just been very efficient.
And he creates a lot of problems because he can make plays when there's no play there to be made. Has good command. Slows the game down. Makes good decisions. And then I think the thing, if you look at the history of Iowa in the last four, five, six years as they've come along and become, I think, an outstanding team is their special teams have become so good. They had a 90-yard punt return for a touchdown. Their kickoff coverage team is extraordinary. Their punter, actually they have two punters, and it's almost alternated every other punt. One's got seven punts, the other has six or something like that and both excellent, good placement, good hang time. Everything they do on the special teams is very, very good.
Defensively, we know about how sound they are. We know how well they cover and tackle. Their linebackers are as good as there is in the country. Their secondary, I think, are the surest tacklers I've seen thus far this year. Their defensive front is new. They had a veteran group last year. They play low. They play with their hands. They do a great job of locking you off and getting rid of you once they recognize where the ball is going, so they are a typical Iowa team. They're going to be sound. They're going to be tough. They're going to expect a win and it's going to be a battle for the Buckeyes. Questions? Marla, last question?
REPORTER: Coach, your guys have kind of hinted that maybe a little revenge could be in store for this game. Do you feel the guys are going to use that as motivation or will that be a factor in their mental makeup for this week, revenge for last year's game?
TRESSEL: I don't know if revenge is the right approach. I think remembrance of how good you better be because you have to play a lot better than the last time you played them. If revenge becomes a factor, I'm afraid you lose sight of what it is that you're trying to square away. It's our performance that we need to square away, but all of us have lived with our lack of performance that day, whether it was coaching performance or playing performance, and you would hope anytime you have shortcomings that that serves as added incentive to do better.
REPORTER: Was there something last year that they did particularly well that you guys have to look at, that the whole team will recognize and remember from last year as to say these areas were, you know, much worse than they typically should be?
TRESSEL: I think their offense did a great job of mixing it up and just making plays. They made the plays and their defense, I thought, did a great job of just letting everything come to them and not letting us get any type of tempo and so forth, and to me, though, probably the turning points that I recall vividly are when it's still a 10-0 ball game, we have a penalty on a kickoff return that was an 80-yard return, so that was a 60-yard turnaround, but overcame that and drove it down into the 10 yard line or so and then throw an interception, but it's still a 10-0 game, then we come out and turn it over, all of a sudden it's a 17-0 game. So, again, I think we've got to focus in on a lot more of what we need to do better and the types of things we shouldn't do, but there's lessons throughout that game as to how we could have played much better.
REPORTER: Are you frustrated with where you are offensively or do you think you're pretty close to putting it all together and is the fact that Troy hasn't played as much a part of that?
TRESSEL: Well, I guess frustration on where we are doesn't jump up as much as what we try to do, constantly sit as a staff and say, okay, what are the things that we can help our guys be successful with. And then secondly is we better have an understanding of these defenses we're getting ready to face. We have to have great execution, great precision, give ourselves a good chance to take advantage of opportunities when they're there. But I don't know if I'd use the word frustration because I don't know what good frustration does. If you're frustrated and work better at it and harder at it, then maybe frustration is good, but our people work pretty hard and I feel good about that.
REPORTER: Defensively, it seems you guys had a problem containing Tate a year ago; wrinkles that Coach Heacock has put in, maybe using Bobby Carpenter, is that an example of containing him a little better this time around?
TRESSEL: Well, a lot of those things depend on who's in the game. When people have three wides and four wides, we will go to our nickel-type personnel and that's when Bobby ends up on the edge. If they have regular people or two tights, two backs, that type of thing, Bobby would be more of the third linebacker. For instance, Jay Richardson, who normally plays, let's say, 40 plays a game, played seven because we were in nickel so much, we only played 42 plays. But I think we were in nickel 35, 34 plays, something like that, so according to what they're in, yeah, that could be something that helps us.
REPORTER: But that's obviously got to be an emphasis affecting him?
TRESSEL: Oh, absolutely. That ought to be the emphasis every time we play. You've got to affect the quarterback's job because no one has a harder job than the quarterback, and if you make it even harder, I think you have a chance to stop an offense.
REPORTER: What were the discussions like in the offensive room in those days after Iowa, because there seemed to be a transition, if you look back on that game until now, about what you all like to do. Obviously the quarterback got hurt and you put Troy in, but you told us after that game there was a chance Troy was going to go in anyway, because it wasn't getting done. What were those days like for you guys offensively?
TRESSEL: I think anytime that you have an injury and you know exactly what the line-up is going to be the next day, you go back to, just like I was saying, okay, how can we put these guys that are going to play on this day in the best position to succeed. And I think if you look at the evolution, I don't know if we had a huge change the week after Iowa in what we did. I think there was a little change, and the next week there was a little change, and the next week there was a little change, and by the time we got down to game 11 and game 12, you'd seen weekly incremental changes and then you'd seen guys like Tony Gonzalez come around and really get comfortable in what we were doing, and added to that, it just so happened at the same time that Troy became no doubt the guy from the standpoint of -- I think Justin was out four weeks. He was ready for game 11, but we were building not around both guys, but maybe around just one guy.
REPORTER: The game Troy had against Michigan last year, which was obviously such a great performance, if you watch that and you watch the San Diego State game from this last weekend, did he just have an extraordinary day last year or is he maybe forcing some things that worked against Michigan that maybe some defenses are catching up to or is it just a case of having a better day one Saturday as opposed to --
TRESSEL: You know, I think he was a little further along with his incremental progress and he had so many snaps and so forth. The other 10 guys did a lot of good things in the Michigan game and made things happen. I think the question you had about is he trying to press a little bit and so forth, yeah, I think that's evident. He needs to take a little bit off the ball at times and those things, but when you have competitive guys who want so badly to get it done, that one, I thought he killed Gonzo on the one little slant route there, but we'll get there, and again it goes back to having that command, and the thing I feel for certain is Troy Smith can do a lot. Now we've got to make sure that he just does what we need him to do and that's, in part, the job of the coaches, but Troy Smith can -- we've all seen, can do extraordinary things and make, along with the other 12, 13, 14 guys that play a lot on offense, give us a chance to become an extraordinary offense.
REPORTER: It looks like Troy's maybe locking in on one guy and not maybe checking to the next or the third receiver, if that guy's not open, he's taking off running. That's how it looks to me. Do you see that? Does he seem to need to get better at reading defenses?
TRESSEL: I think at times a guy gets locked in on who he thinks will be open based on the presnap coverage and if that's not the case, he's got one of three choices: One, find the next guy, if there is such a thing; two, take off running; or three, throw it away. And none of those three are bad, as long as you pick the right one at the right time, but I thought San Diego State did a pretty nice job. They came out and lined up five DB's against the board and they spun to different coverages at times and I thought they made a good game plan against us that at times I'm not sure we read them perfectly and at other times, we saw what we saw and it was the right thing and went to the right place.
REPORTER: How much is trying to get the ball to the playmakers on offense -- it's almost detrimental that I've got to get it to this guy?
TRESSEL: I'm sure that in the human sense, a guy like Troy or Justin hears, we've got to get the ball to Gonzo, Teddy's on fire, someone's making plays. Forget all that. Design the plays, look for who's open, no one's open, let's go. But I think as time goes on, that's what we need to get better at, and I'm sure Troy will.
REPORTER: How much does your play calling change or does it depending on how you see players performing that day? In other words, if you see a guy have a couple of drops or Troy's not quite on, does that change how you call a game?
TRESSEL: A guy dropping the ball some wouldn't, you know, because that's going to happen some and you go. If conceptually we're working on a concept that it doesn't look like we've got down what they're doing to combat it, you might want to say, hey, look, we need to sit down at half time and have this on the board when it's quiet. Our defense only gave us like 1:20 to talk about things this last game. They got a drink of water and we were back on the field. But I think you need a chance to sit down, talk about it, say here's what they're doing, we haven't seen it, they're spinning down here, when we're lining up this way, here's what they're doing. There are times when you say, let's not run this one for a minute because I'm not sure we see how they're defending.
REPORTER: At least on the surface it seems like such a different offense from the last three years to the second half of last year. How comfortable are you doing this type of spread offense, is it something you've brought from Youngstown State?
TRESSEL: Well, one or two years at Youngstown State we were an empty group that just happens to be what we were good at. One year we were a split back pass team. I don't know if we've ever been a three by one or a two by two team like we are right now. And Coach Bollman keeps reminding me that it's okay to pass it on third and two, which the old-fashioned part of me says, how can we pass on third and two. Woody would be killing me. But I think it's an evolution and a transition for everybody.
REPORTER: So you're comfortable?
TRESSEL: Oh, yeah.
REPORTER: What's your evaluation at this point of the running game?
Antonio Pittman, Troy, I guess, has been significant.
TRESSEL: Not as consistent as we need it. I think if you get to the point where you have a consistent running game and then all of a sudden when you have three by one, they can't have four by three and two over one, but I don't know that we've been consistent enough to take people out of guessing which we're going to be doing and that type of thing. When all of that comes together, when we can become a consistent run team and I didn't think we did as good a job as we should have back side blocking last week. A bunch of threes could have been sevens, some fours could have been six or eights, if we'd have just been a little bit better back side, those types of things, and all of a sudden, you're going to have to -- kind of like what happened in our game with Texas, there was a point where they were running it well enough with both our back and the quarterback, we had to bring an extra guy in the box and all of a sudden that opens up the world in the back end and you need to get to that balance to really be good and that's where we need to get.
REPORTER: What's lacking in that, not aggressive enough, not physical enough?
TRESSEL: No, I don't think so. I think our guys up front have been very physical and will continue to be that and I think its simply you've got to go out and do it consistently.
REPORTER: Is that a tall task? Are there examples of teams that have been able to do that consistently or do you have to be really good at both those things?
TRESSEL: Well, it's a tall task, especially the more competition you play. Everybody's talking about the Florida/Tennessee shootout, there had to be some dropped punts and fake punts and so forth, but I still think that that's what you need to seek. You need to seek to have great balance and then you might have a chance to be the best and that's what we'd like to be.
REPORTER: Are these big games, like you just talked about one, you guys with Texas, that wasn't exactly a work of art from the standpoint of everybody executing things --
TRESSEL: Easy, yeah, right.
REPORTER: Is that because defenses are so -- in some of these games are so good, like Saturday coming up, do you expect it to be a semi-ugly game?
TRESSEL: Well, I wouldn't think it would be a semi-ugly game, but it's going to be a battle for every yard you can get, whether it's a battle for a special teams yard or our defense battling to take away every yard we can from what they're trying to get or us scratching for every inch on offense. I think when you get two talented teams together that are executing, the yards come tough. That's why you can't lose sight of the impact of those special teams. Look at the last few big games we've played with Iowa, the special teams have been huge. So I wouldn't call it ugly, though, because the defensive guys wouldn't say it's ugly when they're stepping up and hitting somebody and that type of thing.
REPORTER: Is there any motivation for your linebackers going against Iowa's linebackers as Iowa being one of the best in the nation?
TRESSEL: I would think our linebackers are going to be more concerned with Drew Tate and their running game, which is starting to roll a little bit, and their front, their receivers are good ones. I don't know that our guys are going to spend any time thinking about that, because that would take away from thinking about what they have to do. But I guess it's another added story line or whatever because their linebackers are good, so are ours.
REPORTER: Do you have an injury update on Marcus Freeman?
TRESSEL: Marcus won't be back. Rory Nicol and Jim Cordle won't. Trev will be out for a couple weeks. Curt Lukens won't be able to play.
REPORTER: Devon Lyons was on the sideline Saturday, is there something wrong with him?
TRESSEL: He's had an ankle since the start of the season. We've got to let him heal. To his credit, he went on a gimpy ankle for, gosh, four weeks. It's probably not the best thing for him or us.
REPORTER: Talk about the flexibility of Malcolm Jenkins.
TRESSEL: Malcolm Jenkins, we felt coming in, he was from an excellent program, three-time state champs in New Jersey, studied the game. He was a guy that was really into the game of football and you could just tell as he got here that he was maybe further advanced than the normal guy, and so what we've been able to do is play him in corner and move Tyler inside, nickel, plus play Tyler a little bit at the corner position and Malcolm has been on a bunch of special teams. And I think Malcolm is doing a good job. Now he's got to obviously take the next step as we go into the Big Ten, but I think he's done a nice job.
REPORTER: The honorary captain, is that more ceremonial? How hands-on are they during your week?
TRESSEL: The honorary captain?
REPORTER: What do they do?
TRESSEL: They meet with our guys for breakfast for five minutes.
REPORTER: On Saturday?
TRESSEL: Yeah, Saturday morning, and they're at the coin toss.
REPORTER: Do they speak in the locker room or just the meal?
TRESSEL: Pregame meal. Every once in a while. We kind of stopped them speaking in the locker room after Herbstreit talked to our guys when we were down 7-0 against Washington State. I told him, I said, I had to overcome your pregame speech. But most of them, it's just a pregame meal.
REPORTER: I talked to some guys from Iowa that said the duties have changed a little bit because of all the losses, they can't react like they did last year. Do you notice that at all? Has anything changed in their play at all this year?
TRESSEL: Well, their scheme hasn't changed and it's been a little bit difficult to tell because Ball State, you know, couldn't compete with them.
Iowa State, I just thought that was a good, hard, tough football game. They lost 23-3, but one touchdown was right at the end of the game and one touchdown was an interception return. So that was just a hard-nosed -- you see them and then last week, Chad had like 22 tackles. So I don't know, they're still good. Now, just like any of our guys, we have expectations as to how good we would like to be and we're not satisfied. I'm sure they feel the same way.
REPORTER: How hard is it to gauge Iowa when they've played Ball State and a Division I AA team?
TRESSEL: I thought Northern Iowa looked good in the game, had some great ideas and did the best they were capable of doing. Ball State, I think was under some suspension duress, so it was not a great situation. But Iowa State, shoot, they're a Big 12 football team that's going to win a lot of games, and I thought they did an excellent job on both sides. I think you can gauge enough. Plus Iowa is going to be Iowa. That's kind of what I love about them. They are who they are. They do what they do, and every day they get better at it, so they're not going to change.
REPORTER: Coach, Maurice Wells has gotten real close to doing some pretty fantastic stuff. He ran the option at least once or twice last week, I think as was his style from high school a little bit. Troy took the ball out to him. And also the competition, it seems like that's kind of motivated Antonio Pittman a little bit to find someone like that nipping at his heels.
TRESSEL: I think Mo Wells is going to be a good back. Every snap he gets -- I thought he had a nice little draw play in the ball game and showed good movement. I like the direction he's going and we're counting on him to help.
REPORTER: Will Mike D'Andrea be back this week?
TRESSEL: This week, no. Our goal for Mike D'Andrea is Penn State. That's the doctors talking.
REPORTER: Is he a guy you could use like Bobby, where he has flexibility, you could use him on the end?
TRESSEL: I think Bobby Carpenter, Mike Kudla, Mike D'Andrea bring explosiveness, play-making ability, all that, good play edge-type things and linebacker-type things. We have so many different schemes where our D linemen drop a little bit, our edge players on zone blitzes, things like that. Those three guys, in my mind, can do all those things. Plus Mike D'Andrea is a natural Mike linebacker as well. So I think defensive guys will enjoy the luxury when he gets back.
REPORTER: Looking at things the last few weeks, is there any adjustment, maybe, that Ted needs to do, maybe defenses maybe focusing on him or what's maybe limiting him to not getting as many touches as perhaps he'd like?
TRESSEL: Well, we've got a lot of good guys out there and I don't know what our breakdown of receptions is, but it's fairly even, which isn't a bad thing, because sometimes you can go into a game and say, okay, against these guys, we're going to double this guy, because these guys can't beat you. I'd like to think that can't happen in our case and I think the adjustment of playing every snap, all that kind of thing, is -- he's really a first-year, all-the-time player and he'll keep getting better. Time for one more, Marla, then our guys are -- Mike Kudla, Anthony Gonzalez and David Patterson are here, so Marla, last question.
REPORTER: (Inaudible)
TRESSEL: Santonio had two returns called back that were extraordinary returns and we were getting all kind of kicks, kicks out of bounds, rolling kicks, on kickoff we're getting pooches and squibs and that type of thing. To me, the beauty of what we have is we've got a couple guys back there that we don't care who they kick to. We have it designed such that we know where they're going no matter who gets hit. I think they're both pretty special.
REPORTER: Do you see a common thread on all those flags?
TRESSEL: As I mentioned at the outset, I think the common theme was our guys on the return teams feel such a responsibility to see if we can spring those guys that at times when they shouldn't, they put their hands on someone and we talk a lot about, if in doubt, don't, but people are flying around there pretty fast and think if they can get a hand on them, our guys can go out the gate. Darrell Hazell tells them all the time about strain, just give it a little more, those guys are gone. I think those guys -- those are mistakes of passion as opposed to something lazy and we've just got to eliminate those because I don't know how many yards we've had called back in returns and run plays that we have to eliminate those.
