Northwestern University Athletics
Transcript from Coach Fitzgerald's Monday News Conference
10/13/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 13, 2008
2008 Northwestern Football
Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald
Weekly News Conference
Opening Statement...
"Thanks everybody for being here. Obviously looking back, to start off with a recap of the Michigan State game, we didn't execute very well early. It's obvious when you saw the game live, but when you go back and look at the tape and you see the opportunities that we had, just to not execute, especially in the kicking game, leads me to hope. We did not play very well early, but to see the way that the guys continued to fight and battle and respond, and to really be a play away on numerous occasions from being right back in that ball game and giving ourselves a chance to win is encouraging to me. Most importantly, what we need to do is learn from it, grow and move on. I believe our guys did that. They came back this morning with a great attitude. We understand what we did poorly early, and we understand why we got back in the game. Again, a couple plays here or there and I think it's a different game.
Big thank you to our fans. It was just a great atmosphere when we arrived with the entire student section purple. We're looking forward to being even better this week at homecoming. With all our students back and a great group of alumni coming back to the different reunions this weekend, it's just an exciting time to be on our campus and an exciting time to be a part of Northwestern football.
We have two honorary captains coming back to Evanston this week to not only be a part of homecoming weekend but to support our players and be around Friday and Saturday. One is an All-American from 1982, Chris Hinton. He was a first-round draft pick and played in the NFL from 1983 to 1996. Then another All-American from 1983, John Kidd. He was a fifth-round pick and just had an illustrious NFL career. They're going be around our team on Friday and I'm looking forward to their inspiration and having them be honored before the game. Just great memories of our football family and it's great to have them back.
We're looking forward to the challenge against Purdue, a football team that I believe has just gotten better each week. (Quarterback) Curtis Painter looks to be getting better each week. He's one of only four players in Big Ten history to throw for over 10,000 yards and he's carrying the ball a little bit more this year than I've seen him carry the ball in the past. His backfield mate, Kory Sheets, has gotten more touches as the season's gone along. It'll be a great challenge for our front seven because they don't give up a lot of sacks. They've thrown the ball over 250 times and only given up 10 sacks. For our secondary, obviously, a team that can throw it as prolifically as Purdue, we're going to have our hands full. On offense, they're very deep up front. They've rotated eight guys, and it seems like those guys have been playing there forever. We'll see a very versatile secondary that they move around a bit--safeties move to corner, nickel package and some different things. But Brock Spack has just done a great job over his tenure with their defense. In the kicking game, they've had some well-documented struggles in their field goal execution. But Carson Wiggs has only attempted, I think, three over 50 yards and one 60-yarder and had plenty of leg so they've settled in there. (Against Michigan State) we didn't execute well early, especially in the kicking game, and if we get back to playing our style of football, we'll give ourselves a chance to compete in this game. That's our focus as we start this week."
On what changes might be made in the kicking game...
"What I look at from the first five weeks of the season is a group of special teams guys that have played pretty efficiently. They've executed well and given us an opportunity to win. I look at a performance like Saturday and I would characterize that as being out of character. So we need to do a better job of coaching them, we need to execute better. Will there be maybe some small personnel changes? Sure, if guys go out and continue to practice better. But I'll go ahead and have confidence that our guys are professionals, and that guys that are out there are performing and doing their jobs."
On Jordan Mabin's play against MSU...
"Well, he's a redshirt freshman so I think it's been a learning experience for him this whole season. Iowa threw at him, Ohio threw at him and so on. But he's performed very well; he missed one tackle against Michigan State. Part of playing defense and tackling is understanding where your help is. There's a right way to attack a play and a wrong way to attack a play. When you attack it the wrong way and you miss, you can really compromise the defense and that's what happened on that one play. For the most part, he's played consistently all year, and I'm happy with his growth."
On the timing rules affecting the ability to come back in the MSU game...
"As I look back at the game, we had a two-minute mentality right away in the second half to try to really up the tempo on both sides of the ball and try to get back in the game. When you're down three scores, you have to try to steal a possession here or there. Looking back on it, I don't know how much the timing rules changed it but being down three scores with the timing obviously compounded the situation we were in."
On learning to respond to defeat this far into the season...
"You need to worry about what you control. What we control is we're 0-0 again and for us to be prepared for Purdue we need to consistently prepare, put our attitudes in the right spot, work hard and learn. We need to learn what we'll see from our opponent because it's different than what we've seen so far this year but more importantly we need to worry about what we can control which is playing more consistently on Saturday."
On the failed onside kick attempt against Michigan State...
"It started with the execution because we were offsides so the play after that doesn't matter. We didn't kick it right where we wanted it and their young man made a nice play but we broke down in two spots. Like I said I was trying to steal a possession, we were down two scores at that point and trying to get momentum on our side. We didn't execute but we still had a chance to get back in the game. We had plenty of opportunities even though we didn't start the way we needed to."
On the play of C.J. Bachér...
"I think for a guy at his point in his career, it just comes down to being as efficient as you possibly can. He knows what he's doing, he understands the concepts and the expectations. Sometimes on third-down running out of bounds, punting the ball is the best thing that can happen. Guys who have played in the NFL still have to learn that. I think he'd like to have that decision back but other than that he played pretty well and gave us an opportunity to win the game. There'll be times when we throw the ball the way we do and the decisions he makes with the ball in his hands decide the outcome of the game. But the play of our offensive line, when we throw it 61 times and only be sacked one time shows real progress up there."
On the idea that Northwestern beat Northwestern against MSU...
"You look at your preparation, why we didn't execute in the kicking game, and how we can improve. I wouldn't say it's frustrating, it's a great opportunity for us to teach especially to our younger guys that were out there who maybe didn't execute the way we expected. How did we teach them? How can we improve our teaching to help them go out and execute. Guys watching the tape have been very critical of themselves as we've been critical of ourselves as coaches and we have a great football family here, we just have to stick together."
On how the team played overall...
"I have to give credit to Michigan State, I thought they played clean and executed well. You can't erase that first quarter. I look back to last year at Ohio State when we didn't play well early against Ohio State and the wheels came off and the outcome is well documented. To see how we kept battling, I'm proud of how we came back. We didn't win the game and you can learn from a loss, but you never accept a loss. You flush it and you move on. We had 27 newcomers that had never lost a game before so now you do something about it. I told the team life is 10 percent what happens and 90 percent out how you respond. We need to see how we can lead from our seniors, our leadership council, our whole program will be tested but I believe in our guys and they believe in each other."
On Purdue quarterback Curtis Painter...
"You can tell he knows the system inside and out and that he is a great student of the game. He sees rotation and movement by the defense and he knows how to get Purdue in the exact place to be. He has executed what he's been expected to do. He puts the ball in his playmakers hands and more often than not makes great decisions with the football. He's running the ball a little bit this year, playing tough and not taking a lot of sacks."
On the play of the superbacks thus far...
"I think Saturday's game was an anomaly being down 17 points and you go into a two-minute mentality but they've been playing well, blocking well at the point of attack and playing tremendously on special teams. Josh Rooks, Mark Woodsum and Brandon Mitchell have played well. It really just depends how we see our best 11 guys fitting in the game plan and they're always a major part of that."
On trying to get more takeaways on defense...
"There were opportunities where Sherrick (McManis) was close to intercepting a couple balls, Vince Browne pulled the ball out and they held on to it. You go back to stripping the ball in practice, working on recovering the ball, getting your hands up on the defensive line and breaking on the ball in the secondary. It's always a point of emphasis but we need to be able to gain some positions on offense and our inability to do that on Saturday was costly."
On the big-play capability of the offense...
"We had opportunities to take what the defense was giving us and when we threw the ball down the field we had a little success. Once you go down 17, their aggressiveness and ability to jump up on our receivers changes. I thought C.J. did a nice job getting the ball out and Ross Lane had a great game, probably his best of the year especially with yards after the catch. I like how we're calling the game, we just need to finish drives and score in the red zone and we obviously can't turn the ball over in the red zone because that was a huge momentum swing."
On the reasons behind not playing well early...
"I don't think we were flat. Back when I first became a coach I used to try to analyze pre-game warm-ups with my linebackers and if they weren't knocking each other's lips off I'd get mad and throw chairs in the locker room. I'd rip them and then I'd look at Coach Walker and he'd just be stoic. I think our pre-game was as good as it's been all year, I thought our talk in the locker room was great and we came out ready to play but we didn't execute. You just have to be consistent in how you go about your business. In six weeks we haven't seen a big change in what we do."
On how NU's spread offense compares to Purdue's...
"Coach Tiller's `basketball on grass' was a little bit more spreading out to throw initially and once you got spread out their quarterbacks did a great job checking how many people were in the box based on the call and running the football accordingly. Philosophically, we try to be balanced, spread you out to run the ball and take what the defense gives you passing. Early on in 2000 or 2001 when we had Zak (Kustok) we maybe ran the ball more with the quarterback but C.J. runs better than you think and we definitely want to have that as a part of our offense."
