Northwestern University Athletics
News Conference Transcript from Aug. 25
8/25/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Aug. 25, 2008
Northwestern Football Weekly News Conference
Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald
Opening Statement:
"I'd like to welcome everyone and thank you all for coming out. It's time for football. Looking back I think we had a great camp and I think guys came back in great shape. I've said it multiple times but it's a credit to our strength and conditioning coaches, Larry Lilja and Nick Zostautas and our speed coach, Tom Christian. They did a great job, along with our young men, coming into camp prepared. I thought it was a very fast-paced, up-tempo, physical camp. I thought we had great competition. We had some jobs that needed to be solidified and as you can see from our depth chart, we feel like we've had some guys step up. We also feel that through that competition, we have the best depth that we've had in a number of years. I feel like it was a productive camp and I really felt like we got game-week going the right way yesterday. We had a good, spirited practice last night and really started to turn our focus into game-week mentality and our focus on Syracuse.
From an injury standpoint, this group of men will be out for the opener against Syracuse: Drake Dunsmore, Kevin Frymire, Chris Jeske, Niko Mafuli, Bryce McNaul and Jeff Yarbrough. We hope to have some of those guys back with the exception of Drake, who will miss the season with a torn ACL that was repaired successfully and all things are pointing down a positive road for him.
As far as our goals, it is for us to consistently prepare. Last season, we didn't do that as a football program, starting with us as coaches all the way through to the last player that was on the bus getting ready to play our upcoming opponent. I felt like we started this week the right way and now the challenge for us is to stick to our values and get prepared for a very hungry football team, a team that I believe I saw improve last year on tape and, when healthy, is as good as anyone we played against last year. It's going to be a great challenge for us in the opener. There are a lot of unknowns for us in terms of two new coordinators and how we're going to work through our first game together, with a few new starters and new faces. Same thing for Syracuse. They'll have a few new faces in their starting lineup and they also have two new coordinators on their side.
I'm excited about our four captains. Our players voted on that, and to be a captain at Northwestern you really have to embody everything we stand for value-wise. C.J. Bachér and Eric Peterman on offense are two gentlemen who have not only stepped up on the football field but also off the field as academic all-Big Ten players and two young men that are very active in the Northwestern community. On defense is Prince Kwateng and our third senior captain, a player who has improved every year at Northwestern. He was injured his senior year in high school and came to our camp and has just stepped up and is as well respected a player as we have on our team. Then we have Brendan Smith voted as our fourth captain. Coming back from an injury, the playmaking ability that Brendan has, not only at safety but on special teams. I believe they are the four right men to represent our program and have done a great job throughout camp. That's why we vote for our captains after camp is over.
As you guys go around our facilities, you'll see some major improvements since last fall. We're just wrapping up our weight room that is completely renovated and second-to-none in the Big Ten Conference. While we were away at camp we had improvements to our meeting room facilities to help our teaching environment for players and coaches. As you move over to our indoor practice facility, you'll see the AstroTurf playing surface is being ripped up and hopefully by next Sunday we'll have a new FieldTurf all-weather practice facility, which will help keep our players healthier. Last and most significant to our players is a players' lounge in our locker room that they've been taking advantage of. Four things that go directly to our players, not only currently but for recruiting as well, that we are excited about."
On preparing for a Syracuse offense with new offensive coordinator Mitch Browning...
"There's a lot of unknown going into an opener regardless of whether there is a new coordinator or not. You go through the whole off-season with new personnel and typically teams will fit their formations and plays to their personnel. Based on the track record of Mitch in the Big Ten (at Minnesota) both for me and (defensive coordinator) Mike Hankwitz' experience against him, we're going to look at what Mitch has done in the past and take a look at what Syracuse's personnel has done in the past. There's a lot more on our defense's plate this week. Our plan will be solid and our guys have been doing some double duty watching Syracuse film and Minnesota film from 2006."
On approaching the non-conference portion of the schedule...
"Well, our focus is solely on ourselves and preparing for Syracuse and I think all our players would echo those sentiments. Come 11 a.m. on Saturday our focus has to be solely on Syracuse. It's important that you take what you've done in the off-season in the opener. You need to have your actions reflect your words. We'll take this week to have a physical practice and focus on situations that we think will be critical to the game. We'll be prepared."
On having Jeremy Ebert crack the two-deep lineup at wide receiver as a freshman...
"Jeremy had a great camp and came in in great shape. He was a quarterback in high school and his father is an athletic director so he is sort of a gym rat. He's just been competitive. We have great depth there and through roughly 20 practices he earned a role. He'll be very active on special teams, he has good ball skills and great savvy on the field. We're excited to have him compete for a job."
On players that have taken significant steps since spring practice...
"I was pleased with the camp that Desmond Taylor had. He's come back from battling some injuries and was very competitive. He can play multiple positions for us across the offensive line. When I look across the board up front, I thought Keegan Kennedy took a step forward, I thought Kurt Mattes took a step forward, and then Al Netter just continued to solidify that left tackle position. On defense, I was happy with the play of Malcolm Arrington, Prince Kwateng and Quentin Davie, our three linebackers. A guy that stood out to me as having the most growth was Ben Johnson, who you'll see not only at linebacker but on special teams, I thought he had a really strong camp."
On what Coach Fitzgerald wanted to accomplish with a very physical camp...
"We wanted to improve fundamentally and technically. We wanted to be better tacklers on defense and we wanted to take better angles in playing team defense. The only way you can do that is to put our guys in as many game situations as we can. On offense, we wanted to solidify up front, solidify our ability to run the football and give confidence not only to the young men who might go out and start the Syracuse game, but also who is next. I felt like we needed to do that through the physical nature of practice as we did in the spring. I thought we were smart and the only injury we had coming out of camp during live reps was Drake (Dunsmore), which was a non-contact drill. It was probably our most physical camp since I've been the head coach."
On the roles that the defensive backs will find themselves in this year...
"We have great depth in the secondary. We recruited well last year and red-shirted most of those players. You see (Jordan) Mabin, (David) Arnold, (Brian) Peters and (Mike) Bolden across the board as our backups. You'll see them play not only in the secondary but on special teams to start the year. We have great competition there. I'm excited for Justan Vaughn who had a good camp but he's being pushed every day by Jordan Mabin and Mike Bolden and even David Oredugba who isn't listed in the two-deep. We have a good group of five DB's who can play in different packages and be active in special teams."
On aspects of Syracuse's team that stand out to him...
"They have good experience up front and the nature that Mitch Browning goes about running the football. They're going to be a downhill, attacking running team and they have good complements to play-action and take their shots deep. They have good balance and formation adjustments. I told the team probably our third objective for the game is to plan to adjust. You go to an opener with no empirical data from a film standpoint of what a team will do until a few series into the game. On defense, Arthur Jones jumps out to me. He's an all-league player in the Big East and a big, active player. At linebacker I like the way Jake Flaherty plays. He's a downhill, aggressive runner and they have great competition in the secondary where they will play a lot of players. They have all-league candidates in the kicking game so that will be a great challenge. The guy that jumped out to me and took me aback because he changed numbers is Max Suter. He used to be 48 and is now 24, so on the tape I kept asking, Who is this guy? I was hoping he graduated but unfortunately he just changed numbers. They have great special teams and we'll have our hands full."
On strengths and weaknesses entering the season...
"I hope as we move forward there will be a lot of strengths that I'll talk about but our areas of improvement were tackling better, playing better team defense and make sure that if we do have a guy out of a gap that we fill in for him and stick together through adversity on the field. Offensively, we want to run the football better and have more balance but at the same time put our guys in the best formations to execute plays that we think are our strength. Our first challenge and test will be this Saturday. Guys are excited. You go through the whole off-season for 13 opportunities and our focus is solely on our preparation and how we'll adjust to what Syracuse does against us."
On outsiders talking about a 9-0 start...
"I think our fans shouldn't read the Internet as much. Our focus is on ourselves, with two new coordinators and a handful of new starters, and the wrinkles that Syracuse we have that we can't see on tape before the opener. If we get distracted by anything else, we'd get exactly what we deserve at 11 a.m. on Saturday. We'll make sure our guys are ready and we won't worry about anything being said on the Internet or anywhere else outside of our football family. It beats being predicted 0-9, though, I'll say that."
On whether he'll hold anything back in the opener from the playbook...
"You need to play to win. We're not going to run everything because Syracuse will take things away schematically that we cannot run. At the same time, we need to go out and do what we do best and execute, stick together. This team hasn't faced too much adversity since we've been together in January, and our first big test will be Saturday. You try to put them in those situations in practice but at the end of the day, there's nothing like a game to experience adversity. That will happen Saturday and how we respond and how we stick to our values will determine our success or failure."
On how physical running back Tyrell Sutton has been in practice...
"Early when we first got into full pads we did some live drills where he was very active and as camp kind of tapered toward the end, we limited the full contact with not only Tyrell but also Omar Conteh. Those two young men have played a lot of football and been through a lot of battles. It's been a physical camp but both are 100 percent, both had great summers and came into camp in great shape. Thanks to the way we practice and the way we go about our business, both are in great shape for great senior years."
On how the offense has adapted to the no-huddle...
"When you rewind back to spring practice, the nuances and the communication factors were difficult, but then they go through it on their own during the summer and I think we had great retention from spring practice. That's the way that they worked together through the summer and that gave us a chance to throw a lot at them the first few practices. Our guys responded well and that's a sign of a veteran team. You think about having Stefan Demos back at punter, he's a true sophomore and this won't be his first go-around. Same with (long-snapper) Phil Brunner, (kicker) Amado Villarreal, and (kicker) Kyle Daley. They've been through a lot of Big Ten battles so we're excited about all of those guys."
On Amado Villarreal's progress through camp...
"He's had a great camp and been right around 100 percent in practice, give or take a couple here and there. He's coming off an injury that he had to rehab from but he was booming them last night, he had one of his best days of camp. Last night was probably our best day for specialists so far this year."
On any differences in his approach entering his third opener as head coach...
"You just try to eliminate distractions. Coming from camp where you had a football-only environment, we get back to campus and guys have a world of distractions between the Internet, TV, video games, girlfriends and so on. Your concern is always your leadership to make sure you are doing the right things, and I have faith in the leadership of our team. We're a hungry football team. They know they need to take care of business off the field, and a great asset for us is we don't start school until the week of the Iowa game (Sept. 27). Guys have the opportunity to study extra film, study our opponents and ourselves through practice. It's a great advantage for us."
