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Postgame Press Conference From No. 1/1 Ohio State vs. Northern Illinois
No. 1/1 Ohio State (1-0, 0-0 Big Ten) 35, Northern Illinois (0-1, 0-0 MAC) 12
COACH TRESSEL: I think a lot of this ball game is what we expected and that is that we were going to play against a tough football team who happened to have a great back. They were going to be a team that was going to fight you all the way to the end. Sometimes you get in these types of games and you get an early lead, you get a little bit sloppy, I think, but we can't have a holding penalty, which stalls the drive on offense. We can't have turnovers that keep us from scoring points. We can't miss tackles. We missed some tackles.
Despite how good Garrett Wolfe is, there are some guys we play in the next 11 weeks that are pretty darn good as well. We're going to have a chance to learn a lot. Lots of guys got lots of snaps. I don't know how many total plays there were in the game. They were saying in the Thursday games there were about 20 less plays per game because of the clock change. I don't know how many plays we had in this game totally, but we wanted to get as many snaps as we could. Got a lot of guys that need experience. Got a lot of guys that have been working hard and deserve those snaps, and it was a good victory against a tough football team. We had excellent leadership the winter, spring, and preseason and I think we took a step forward today.
STEVE SNAPP: Troy, your thoughts on the game, and we'll do the same with the rest of the captains.
SMITH: For the most part, I thought we did a good job the whole way around. Offensively, I think the guys up front did exactly what we game planned to do, get a hundred-yard rusher every game, protect the quarterback, and we did just that. I can't speak enough about the offensive line, time in and time out. Without them, the game doesn't get played the way it needs to be played. Defensively, I think they did a great job in holding them under 13 points, which was one of our goals, and all around I think we did good.
PITCOCK: Defensively, I think we did well. We went in second half and looked over our -- their stats and we noticed that really the only thing defensively we weren't consistent on were mistakes we were making when we were making the big plays. We tried to correct it the second half and made a little more mistakes. A lot of times, it's not all 11 players doing their job consistently, which is what we need to do every week. Other than that, I think up front, put a lot of pressure. I think we got a couple sacks, which is what we need to do all year long, and again, consistently doing that all the time.
PATTERSON: Again, on the defensive side of the ball, I was just happy with the effort by everyone on defense. Like Quinn said, we did make a few mistakes, but we rallied to the football and that helped us out, and also I was impressed with how the younger guys helped us. We had a couple breakdowns out there, but we got together and we knew that the next play was the most important and we tried to handle that and come back and keep playing.
DATISH: I think that -- I'm not going to echo what Troy said, but offensively we had some new guys come in, they filled in, did a good job being consistent. I think that we gave Troy some time, without watching the film, it's hard to get that. I think we could have been a little more consistent in the run, and I was happy with how the offensive line performed so far.
REPORTER: In the first quarter, Troy threw for 149 yards in the first quarter. You had a game where you had just a great start after all this time that you waited for today, first four times you touched the ball, you scored a touchdown. Talk a little bit about the onset of the game.
COACH TRESSEL: Well, we did come out and strike with some big plays. The nature of their defense was such that they were going to make sure they crowded the box and tried to wrap up and play some man coverage outside, and when you have good protection, and the guys covering man aren't quite as fast as the men they're covering, you've got to execute and make those plays, and we, I thought our receivers ran good routes, opened up the game with just four verticals, and
Brian Hartline made a play right off the bat on down with Teddy and Gonzo and that whole crew. It starts, as Troy mentioned, it's not a cliche, but it starts with time. The passing game is all about protection. And we've got guys that can complete passes and we tease them sometimes and I tell them, shoot, I can complete that with all that time. But it starts up front, and Troy did a great job putting the ball on the money for the big plays, and our guys made the catches and we got off to that good start.
REPORTER: To Coach and to Troy, is it important that Teddy become the go-to guy or does it matter? Just as long as you find one, I guess.
COACH TRESSEL: Well, I'll answer it and Troy will answer it and we'll see if it's the same answer. The go-to guy I would like to have is the guy that's open. If Teddy gets open on the route design, we better get it to him. That last one we threw, I was afraid we didn't get it to him and he was pretty open and he did a good job of playing a nice, high, vertical ball, but Teddy can do some things with the ball now, and so if we can design things trying to get him open, I hope Troy goes to him.
SMITH: I think it's just, we've got plays called, you have a progression that you have to follow, if your number one guy is there, you take number one. If number one is not there, then you go accordingly. We try to get all our playmakers balls. At any given time, a guy could be the go-to guy. You know, pretty much to piggy-back on what he said, but we have a play called and we have a number one and number two and number three and the dump and that's the way the play is ran.
REPORTER: Coach, could you talk about the offensive line? Troy was not close to being sacked at all and maybe just to elaborate on what you have to improve.
COACH TRESSEL: I think the offensive line did an outstanding job. Most sacks occur on missed assignments first. So I don't think we had any missed assignments and that's a heck of a start up front. And that means the guy in the center is making the right calls and sending them to the right places and that type of thing. And then it's technique. It will be interesting to watch the film, but it looked to me from where I stood that their technique was excellent and we had the time we needed. We're very aware that the guys rushing the passer next week are going to maybe be a little more skillful than the ones that were this week, but we got better today up there and didn't make assignment errors and that's a heck of a start, and it starts with Doug. Wait a minute now,
Doug Datish is supposed to -- are you in charge of this or am I?
STEVE SNAPP: Obviously it's not me.
DATISH: Today I thought we took some big steps on the offensive line. We overtested some guys, and they did a great job for us. I thought we did a great job on communication, we communicated up and down the line so I could get the right call and that makes my life easier, and I thought we did great with that.
COACH TRESSEL: All right, Steve, you're in charge.
REPORTER: Troy, in all your thoughts leading up to this game, could you have imagined a smoother, crisper start for yourself and this offense?
SMITH: No, I think it's just a credit to everyone around me, without the other guys on the field, without the staff making the right calls, putting us in the right situations, I can't start the way I started, Ted can't start the way he started.
Antonio Pittman can't run the way he runs. It's all a collaborative effort.
REPORTER: Troy Smith looked like a classic drop-back passer today without all the running, is that because of all the protection or are you making a conscious effort to keep him out of the pocket running more often?
COACH TRESSEL: One time I called a run where he had a chance to run, he looked like me running out there. So we're going to have to get back and get a little bit better at that maybe. Our design today was based upon what defense that Northern brings and the things that I thought we need to get good at and we didn't think the way they deployed some of our design quarterback runs were the best things. And they'll always be part of our plan. I don't know if we even called a quick option pitch or anything today. It wasn't part of what we were going to go in there and do. I think -- I don't know what a classic drop-back passer is, but I think
Troy Smith can make all the different throws, and when you can make all the different throws, now you have guys that can protect him and you have guys that can run the routes because he'll make every different throw and he'll hurt you with his feet too. We didn't have any step-ups or anything that we typically do in a ball game, but we'll have plenty of those as the season goes.
REPORTER: Troy, if you see Ted has single coverage on the outside, do you automatically almost assume that he's going to get open and you almost want to wait a half a second longer just to see if he will shake loose like when you hit him on a couple of those deep ones?
SMITH: Sometimes. If it's all within the route, then we call it. If it's always in the play that we call, protection is there. You have to give the receiver enough time to get open, any receiver, not just Ted. You give
Anthony Gonzalez enough time, he'll get over,
Brian Robiskie and on down the line. So to answer your question, sometimes I do when it's in the play.
REPORTER: Jim, you and David, with Grant's interception, 21-0, they come right back down the field, and how big a play was that?
COACH TRESSEL: I'm sure emotionally that was a huge play for their offense, because they finally just got it going a little bit and made some plays. I think it was shortly after that screen that went down maybe or one of those, and then for us to come up with that big turnover, I'm sure some of the guys are going to be on Larry for running out of gas there. I'm not sure who caught him, but I thought it was the left tackle. That was a heck of a play and I think that really gave our defense a rise up that, hey, we've got guys that are going to step up and make plays and as David said, guys when we're in an adverse situation, we're going to rise up. I'm sure on their end of things, it was disappointing to all of a sudden give us the football back across mid field.
REPORTER: Troy, you had talked a lot about all the studying you did in all summer and preseason, could you feel that today? Could you feel the defense unfolding as you expected and what you saw on film is what happened in the game and you could take advantage of that?
SMITH: Yeah, the film study definitely paid off. It was still certain points of the game where I had certain reads and didn't make a throw. So film study is something that's got to be mandatory. It's a necessity and I will continue to do it.
REPORTER: Coach, in all due respect to Northern, given your opponent next week, were you hoping not to have to dive too deep into the play book today?
COACH TRESSEL: Oh, I don't know, because usually your play book has got a little bit of everything for according to what kind of defense people play, and I haven't watched any Texas film, can't remember all the way back to last September, we've had so many games in between, but the design of what we did today was based upon the design of what Northern Illinois does and what we practice and what we've worked on through the spring and the preseason, against our defense, and the things that we thought would do well against good defenses and so forth. So, no, there wasn't really a play book issue.
REPORTER: Coach, how does the threat of Ted on the outside and Troy at quarterback open things up for maybe
Antonio Pittman's running or
Brian Robiskie or tight ends making plays?
COACH TRESSEL: I think that's the whole thing, if you can have playmakers at every position and have an offensive line that can protect the passer and knock people off the ball with run blocking, you have a good chance to have a good offense, and I think seeing some of those young guys run through, you saw
Brian Hartline make a catch in his first play as a Buckeye, I think
Brian Robiskie had a couple catches, and I think
Ray Small had a couple good catches and the veterans came through also with Gonzo and Teddy and veteran tailbacks came through in Antonio, young tailbacks got to play a little bit in Beanie and Mo. And so I'd like to think we could be explosive.
Rory Nicol caught a ball or two. We want to be good across the board. We took a step. The next step is higher, we understand that, but I thought we took a step.
REPORTER: Just wanted to ask if the running back rotation was about what you hoped it to be in terms of the split and also if you learned anything about your kickers today or was it a fair assessment of that with the long tries?
COACH TRESSEL: Antonio had 19 carries and Chris 10 and Mo 5. I'll be interested to see if the game was shorter like some people were saying. I don't know how many total plays, let's see. Total plays, 63 and 63. 126 plays. The average game in the NCAA last year was 141 plays. So it was a shorter game, so we didn't have quite as many carries maybe as we would have liked. As far as kickers, we went into it with the idea that they both have opportunities to kick off and we were hoping we could earn the right for them to have an opportunity to do PATs and field goals, and I mentioned to one of the coaches late in the game that it wasn't the ideal game for a guy being the first time out there under the gun because kicking is all about your plant foot, and there was a little slippage in your plant foot. You couldn't really attack the ball maybe like you normally do and especially if you're a rookie. So we got to see a little bit, and I don't know where the balls went through on goal posts and we don't just evaluate whether they made it or not, we want it to be straight down the middle. So we'll do all those evaluations. I thought they kicked off pretty well, though.
REPORTER: Coach, David mentioned some of the younger guys on defense rising up and facing adversity. With all the talk of the starters, how would you grade those new starters today, the defense as a whole with so many young guys in there?
COACH TRESSEL: You know, it was so hard to keep track of who was in because we played so many guys, which I think was a good thing. That was one of the real good things about today. We got a lot of guys to play against a good offense and great back. So I don't know how I'd grade it. You know, as Troy mentioned, we kept them to under the goal, which was less than 14 points. I don't know how we did in the turnover margin exactly, the take-aways, and I don't know how many missed tackles, we had. I don't know how many missed assignments. We grade so many different things before we assign a total grade, but as David mentioned, the effort was good and if the huddle dynamics were good, no one was panicked and no one had those big saucer eyes and all that, only these guys can evaluate that, then I'd say the grade was good. Now, we'll watch the film and have plenty to talk about, I'm sure.
REPORTER: To David and Quinn, Garrett Wolfe ran for 171 or something like that, could you talk about him and playing against him, both of you?
PITCOCK: I think he's a great running back. As I watched him on film and saw him firsthand here, very fast. He has great vision. He sees the opening and takes off. I think he's going to do well, great, this season. I wish him the best of luck with the Heisman race, but we've still got my buddy here next to me I'm wishing for. But he's a great player and I wish him all the luck.
PATTERSON: Yeah, just to kind of echo what Quinn said, he's an amazing tailback, they have a great scheme for him and they know how to give him the ball where he can make plays, a couple swing passes, a couple good runs, he gets out there behind those pullers. I think he's a great running back and I think it was really good for our defense to go against such a great player early on in the season.
REPORTER: Jim, I know they're a good MAC program, but do you think they were really ready for Ted's speed when they were trying to single him up? Three years of experience, how long does it take to adjust to that kind of speed?
COACH TRESSEL: You know, it's hard to adjust to speed until you've had to try to cover it and the thing that you admire about Northern Illinois as you watched all their films is they didn't change who they were against anybody and they played the same way, they believe in what they do, you know, we knew that going in. We knew that perhaps we could show them some speed that maybe they hadn't seen before and that's tough duty. The one, the long touchdown, down toward the south end, right at the snap, the guy kind of moved up and tried to play press man with no help behind him, and I don't know, that's tough duty. But that's what they do. And so Teddy ran by him.
