Northwestern University Athletics
Transcript of Coach Fitzgerald's Weekly News Conference
10/9/2007 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 9, 2007
Northwestern Football Weekly News Conference
Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald
Opening statement...
"It's great to win our first Big Ten game. To watch the way our guys fought throughout the entire football game, I'm extremely proud of that fight and that continuing attitude of sticking together. Obviously there was a lot of room for improvement in the game, if you go back and you watch the tape; it's very similar to the week before against Michigan. There are maybe five or six plays as a defense now this week that we need to correct to take the steps in the right direction and make sure that we're playing as consistent football as we possibly can. I also feel the same way in the kicking game, there were some issues there that are definitely areas that we can improve and correct, and I thought that we addressed those properly today and I look forward to getting back out to practice tomorrow. I'm excited for this week, obviously, to have our second game at home with our students in session, to have homecoming, our fans coming back from throughout the country, this may be the only opportunity that they have to make it back to Evanston to experience Northwestern football. It's always an exciting week for homecoming, and we look forward to the festivities and taking part this weekend, and the parade on Friday and the pep rally on Friday with our football team, and then obviously for the game, all that stuff kind of goes out the window and you get ready to play. To have the atmosphere that we look forward to playing with at home for homecoming is exciting. I'd also like to give a special thank you to our band. We came back from East Lansing, and to have about 40-45 members of our band waiting for us as we got off the bus was really encouraging and a lot of fun. A big hearty thank you from our entire football program to the Northwestern University marching band and our fans for that support.
On whether the game was entertaining to watch . . .
" I [found it entertaining] on the bus ride home when I watched it going home. During the game, I don't know if I'd call it entertaining. I'm definitely grayer than I was on Friday. It was a Big Ten slugfest. Both offenses were playing at a high level, both teams were executing very well. Both defenses, I think if you were to look back, would say there were maybe five or six plays that if they had more population at the ball, if they tackled a little bit better, would have given themselves an opportunity to get off the field. I'm sure Mark's (Dantonio) saying the same thing up in East Lansing right now. You need to find those plays to be consistent as a football team. As far as an entertainment, I think the Big Ten Network got its money's worth."
On the continued improvement of the defense . . .
"I thought we finished strong. I thought we played our best football at the end of the game, the last 15 minutes of the game and then in overtime. That was a big bugaboo for us the week before: finishing, and I thought we finished the game stronger than we started. That will give you an opportunity. We've been successful in this program, since I've been here, winning games in the fourth quarter. I believe we are 6-0 in overtime in Big Ten football games. It's because of the conditioning level, the confidence that our guys have to play in that moment, and the belief that we're going to go out and make the plays we need to make to win, and it was encouraging to see."
On tackling and possibly too much emphasis on stripping the ball . . .
"I don't think so. Like I said against Michigan, I thought our defense had great swarm and great population at the ball, and when we went back to look at the stats of the game, we probably missed as many tackles or close to as many tackles against Michigan as we did against Michigan State, the difference was the population and the amount of people at the ball. Part of that I give Michigan State credit for, they were able to knock us down and get us on the ground, and that negated our inside out pursuit. The other aspect is, you need to have a burning desire to get to the football. I talk to our defense all the time, and tell them `Your hair is on fire, and the guy with the ball has the bucket to save your life.' And if you don't look at getting to the ball that way, your mindset is in the wrong place, and you need to get to the football on every single play. We did not do that very well on Saturday, and I thought that cost us dearly. It cost us maybe an opportunity to have that game go a little bit differently, and that will be a point of emphasis. But us trying to pull the ball out, negating our tackling? Absolutely not."
On the halfway point of the season . . .
"I don't ever put any expectations on a season, I would just look to improve each week and get better, and I thought we've improved now the last three weeks. Not in every aspect of our football, but I've seen improvement in a lot of areas that we've been putting a point of emphasis on. Now, obviously, with what we've learned from this week, to go out and put a new heightened awareness and a new sense of urgency on effort level of getting to the football. On offense, making sure we continue to make good decisions with the ball, I thought that it was the most consistent game of doing that, and continuing to finish games. A majority of Big Ten football games are won in the fourth quarter, and you need to give yourself to be in position to win at that point, and I fully expect this game to be that way against Minnesota. It will continue on that way; that's Big Ten football. Very few games are won in the first quarter, and you need to make sure that you avoid that, and that if you do get that opportunity to get up big, that you continue to press on, keep the pedal down, and continue to finish. Like I said, I've seen improvement from our team, but I don't put expectations on our team going into the season, I just look at taking it one game at a time."
On the second quarter of the season . . .
"When I looked at the season, I thought that we needed to start fast. I thought we needed to be in position as a football program to play for something significant in the second half, and that's where we're at right now. We have an opportunity to play for something significant and have a special year, but that is all long term. In the short term, we need to work on getting one day better tomorrow, and improve this week. If we can get our football team two percent better, our football team is going to be headed in the right direction and make the improvement we need to make to give ourselves the opportunity to beat a very good Minnesota team. If we do not, we'll get exactly what we'll deserve on Saturday, and it's pretty simple at this point in the year for most teams. You have a pretty good idea of who your starters are at this point, you have a pretty good idea of who you can count on to make plays and who have made plays in games throughout the course of the year, now you need to put those guys in the position as a coaching staff, schematically. You need to get them in the right place, mentally, and on game day, you need to go out and execute and play at a high level, and have the intensity at the right spot. I think we know a lot about our football team right now."
On guys not being in the right spot . . .
"Well, we've obviously had some guys that are out because of injury, and you can't control that. We haven't let that be an issue at all, I think that our guys whose roles have changed have really stepped up and stepped up really well. They were prepared mentally, and had great focus, and did a nice job with there new found roles, and accentuate it, and taking it over. As I have looked at some guys that have really stepped up, I'm seeing C.J. (Bachér) mature. You know, obviously to have the game that he had on Saturday, to set a school record, to play within the framework of the offense, to spread it out the way he did, is very encouraging for me. And then on defense, I've seen some guys make strides and really start to play some pretty good football. I've seen Sherrick McManis start to play again, probably as healthy as he's been in a couple weeks on Saturday, go out there and make some plays and play at a pretty high level. I like the way that John Gill and Adam Hahn have played. I like the way that Adam Kadela has played also, and just to continue to stress to our young guys, that if they continue to work to get better each week, we'll give ourselves an opportunity to win games."
On the relationship between Bachér's and NU's success . . .
"I think that's just indicative of the spread offense. I think that when an offense is playing at a high level, the quarterback always seems to have a great game. A lot goes through the quarterback, obviously, it starts with the snap. We've been pretty good with it this year, where a year ago it was a bugaboo for us, we had some issues with the snap. We've been pretty efficient and pretty effective there, and it just goes on with the focus and the execution. I thought our offensive line played outstanding on Saturday. I really believe they've been improving each week, and to see the intensity and the attitude that they've played with, to have the number two-sack leader in the country, and not have a sack was very encouraging to me. I thought we had great awareness of what they were trying to do and how they were trying to attack us, and I thought C.J. threw the ball probably as well as he has, on time, all year. And that gave Eric (Peterman), and Rasheed (Ward), and Jeff (Yarbrough), and Ross (Lane), and Tonjua (Jones), and Kim (Thompson), I keep going on and on, an opportunity to catch the ball, and we caught the ball very well."
On why it took so long to play at a high level . . .
"I really don't care. I mean, I look at it that if we get better each week; we got a chance to improve. I thought in week one we got better than we were the week before in camp. I thought that when we went into our second game, I thought I saw improvement. We went out and didn't make plays at the end of a game, and lost a game that I think we'd all like to have back. We went to Ohio State and didn't execute very well. I look at the Michigan game, with an opportunity to finish the game; we didn't get the job done. But I've seen improvement each week. I think we maybe put together a complete game, but I think that we've been improving toward that, and now we need to raise the bar and raise our expectations this week. It's part of the maturation of a football team, you want to play your best football game in the last game, and if you continue to improve, you give yourself that opportunity, and hopefully that game is for something important; something significant."
On competition for defensive starting roles . . .
"There is always competition. You've heard me say it, and it makes you want to sometimes roll your eyes, but competition is what makes good players great and great players special, and if you don't feel like there is competition, you get complacent, and it's jut human nature. You have to avoid that and you have to overcome it, so there is always competition. You need to look at why there were breakdowns. Were there breakdowns because of something we were doing schematically? Were there breakdowns because we had a lack of focus or an execution of a fundamental technique or was it from an intensity level? You can answer, typically, breakdowns in one of those three areas, and those are easily correctable, and all the mistakes we made are easy to correct. A couple things we need to shore up structurally, I thought we did that throughout the course of the game. Obviously, we talked about getting population to the ball carrier and tackling better. And then, obviously, from an intensity level, you need to go out and make the tough plays, and at times, we did. And when it mattered, we did. You need to do that more consistently to be successful throughout the entire course of the game and get off the field on third down."
On the defensive play in the fourth quarter . . .
"It was really encouraging. It wasn't great, it wasn't a Picasso, you don't look up there and say `it was a work of art,' but I do when I look at the finish. When I look at the finish, the way we played as a football team in the last, probably 19 minutes of the game, I'm encouraged with the direction of our football team, we've got positive momentum going into the second half of the year."
On MSU's last offensive series . . .
"I know our defensive calls were exactly what we needed to call, that's all I focus on. I thought Greg (Colby) mixed it up pretty well. I thought that we had a little bit of a breakdown on the first play, coverage wise, and we got away with something. You know, it's tough in overtime, you always want to go on defense first, and that way you know exactly what you need to do as an offense, and sometimes you press. I think we got away with one on first down, I think our guys really stepped up on second, third, and fourth down."
On the return of former NU offensive coordinator Mike Dunbar . . .
"Obviously, Mike is held in the highest respect and highest regard in this program. A great member of our family that brought so much success to the program while he was here, and a great impact on our recruits and a lot of our young men. Obviously, we miss him because he's a great friend, but outside of that, when you get into game weeks against your friends, you're as competitive as you always are, and I think he'd say the same thing. I hope he wins every game, and do well, except against us, and I'll feel the same way next week when we play Jeff (Genyk of Eastern Michigan. It's great to have friends in the profession. You're always lifting them up and encouraging them, except for when you play each other, then you're ultra competitive. Outside of that, I know that I'm not going to out with a helmet on and neither is he. It'll be a lot of fun and great to see him."
On whether a 6-6 record is good enough for a bowl game . . .
"I'm not worried about it. I'm not worried about it at all. I think what's important is that when you win a football game, you understand why you won the game, and we won the game because I thought our attitude was in the right spot going into the week. We were hungry to win, so our focus and our preparing were in the right spot. Number two, I thought we had great focus going on the road trip. I thought our guys were locked in, loaded, and ready to go. We came out of the tunnel ready to come out fighting against a football team, I think, is as physical as anybody in the country. In a hostile environment, and to be able to play the way that we did and to stick together is encouraging to me, and we're going to build off of that, take strength from it, improve on the things that we need to improve on, and focus on the things we need to improve on, and focus on going 1-0 in the third quarter [of the season]."
On whether the "lock-in" is ever missing . . .
"I think as you mature as a football team, you learn a lot about each other, you learn a lot about yourself, and I was encouraged with the way that our leadership stepped up. I thought we learned a tough lesson at Ohio State. When you go on the road, you need to make sure you come out of the tunnel swinging right away; you need to make sure you give yourself a fighting chance to play for four quarters on the road. It's tough to win Big Ten games on the road, real tough, and I thought our guys learned from that experience. We've grown from that over the last few weeks, and you need to now play with that same kind of focus and intensity at home and use your emotion and home crowd to your advantage."
On Yarbrough's play this past weekend . . .
"It's just Jeffrey being Jeffrey, I mean, he's very fast, he's an athlete that catches the ball well, that takes great pride in his blocking. It's been a tough road for him early in his career, being injured and banged up. He's dealt with that adversity, it's made him stronger. I think he appreciates and is humbled by his opportunities to play, and is excited to play. This year, he got a little dinged up. He stayed the course, and took advantage of his opportunities, made a nice catch, and I think he showed his speed. That's why Jeff came here; he wanted to be a part of this offense. He understands that we're going to get the ball in his hands, like Eric (Peterman) and all of our wide receivers, in multiple ways, screens, handing the ball of to him, throwing the ball vertically down the field, a lot of different ways, and he's taken full advantage of that opportunity. Maybe last week he was a little fresher [than other NU receivers] because he hadn't played in a couple weeks, but Jeff has great speed. We have a lot of guys that can really run, and Jeff's just one of a handful of guys that can really run and have great speed for our offense."
On whether he knows if Tyrell Sutton will play this week . . .
"Not yet. I don't look at my injury report until later today. He was with our athletic trainers today."
On the impact of momentum from one week to another . . .
"Momentum carries over though the trip home, or through your walk out of the locker room, but then after 24 hours you have to let it go. You have to mentally let it go, win or lose. At 5 o'clock yesterday, we just about wrapped up as a staff, and I said, `Alright, 24-hour rule, let's get back to work and let's get ready to know our next opponent.' That's maybe a little coachspeak, but that's the truth. If you dwell on what happened on the previous Saturday, you're going to get exactly what you deserve the next Saturday, be it if it's a win or a loss the previous Saturday. You need to learn and grow from the experiences you go through as a football team. I've seen that happen, and I like the progress of our offense, I really like the way the offensive line is starting to come together, and play with the attitude that we need to play to be successful, and we need to continue to do that to give ourselves a chance to win."
On the upcoming opponent . . .
"It's early in the week, so I can't say that I'm an expert at this point on Mondays about all of our opponents, but what concerns me is, obviously, the play making ability on both sides of the ball. You watch the games that I've watched so far on tape, and they're making plays left and right. For instance, I'm watching the Indiana game, a guy trips and falls down and gets an interception, just seems like momentum may not be on your side, and plays like that happen against you. Indiana's quarterback made a couple of spectacular plays on Saturday. I see a football team that, as they are moving forward week to week, are finding ways to get the ball on offense in the playmaker's hands that they have, and on defense, are very aggressive. They are very similar to the last three weeks that we've seen. They're going to pressure us, they're going to do some things, try to overload a side, try to play a man against us, and be multiple in their looks. We just need to trust in what we see, trust in our plan as we formulate that today, and handle what we can control, and that is ourselves."
On the unpredictability of your team . . .
"It makes for good articles, that's what I would think. When I watch our team play, I see a group or guys that are tight. We stuck together on Saturday; it was an up-and-down game. We seized momentum; we had something happen to us where we gave it right back. What I believe we really did a good job of was making the plays we needed to make at critical times, when the crowd and momentum was about ready to swell, and we didn't do that the last time we were on the road in a Big Ten venue, and that's something I'm really proud of our young men, sticking together. We stayed together, and gave ourselves an opportunity to win. We've been through a lot together, and our guys have learned a tremendous amount, and that's part of the maturation of a team and a program."
On the ability to win "crazy" games . . .
`When you look at the stats, if we're in the game in the fourth quarter, we're giving ourselves a great opportunity to win the football game. Our guys believe in that. We understand that each Big Ten football game is going to be down to the wire. It's going to be close. Just watch every Saturday. If it ends up being a two-score game, it ends up being a two-score game with maybe four minutes left. Most games are really close in this league. They are hard fought. There are great athletes on both sidelines. It really comes down to who has focus, who executes, and who sticks together through the highs and the lows of the game. Because of the character of the guys we recruit, it is not a surprise to me that we win those games in the fourth quarter. Larry Lilja, Nick Zostautas and Tom Christian, our strength and conditioning staff do a tremendous job getting our guys in shape. We take pride in that. We had a great workout this morning. It was as hot a football game as I've been a part of since '96, when we went to Wake Forest. That was one of the warmest nights out there in football. It was tough, I think, on both sidelines. I didn't see guys going down. I think we were prepared. I didn't see guys cramping up. Both teams handled it really well. It was a hard-fought victory.'
On the defense and turnovers...
"We're getting closer. If you look at the Michigan game, there was no doubt we had better opportunities to get turnovers. We had better population at the football than we did than we did at Michigan State on Saturday, and that's the key. Get as many people at the football as you can. The first and second guys secure the tackle and the third and fourth guys in go for the football. Usually in zone coverage, tip equals pick. If you can tip the ball, getting it moving around in the air, you have an opportunity to intercept the pass. If you're in man coverage and you get good pressure and you get the quarterback to throw out of rhythm, you get guys before they're out of their break and a chance to make a big play. All those things kind of feed into each other and you need to make sure you're playing as one heartbeat to give ourselves an opportunity to make big plays."
On whether he wanted to go first in overtime...
"Not really, because it goes against the book. The book says that you go on defense first, so that you know exactly what you need to do on offense. That really helps the coordinator out on offense knowing that `Hey, I need seven or eight or three to win the football game or send it to the next inning of overtime.' So, no, not really. We were going to go out on defense regardless. I'm just glad that we got to go on the tunnel side. At the end it was kind of a wash, but we didn't really put together any long drives on them in the last 10 minutes. They were all big plays. We didn't really grind it out. I was just glad we went on the tunnel side and not the student side."
