Northwestern University Athletics
Transcript from Coach Fitzgerald's Weekly News Conference
9/15/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 15, 2008
Northwestern Football Weekly News Conference
Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald
Opening Statement:
"Thanks for being here today, it's nice to be dry as opposed to the weekend weather. Looking back to Saturday's performance I'm really proud of the job our offense did taking care of the football. Watching it on tape when you can't see all of the plays because it's raining so hard and to see the way we took care of the ball, I'm proud of our guys. I'm really proud of the way Amado Villarreal kicked the football. The footing was great -- again I give credit to our facilities crew as I did Saturday. The field played outstanding but Amado had his feet underneath him the whole time and I thought he kicked well. Phil Brunner was 100 percent on his snaps and Kyle Daley was 100 percent on his holds.
Defensively, we shored some things up and made a few adjustments as we figured out what their game plan was. We managed to stop the run and gave up right around 60 yards in the second half. All in all, it was a good team performance but there was a lot of room for improvement. We need to take the ball away better on defense. Our lack of causing turnovers will be a point of emphasis this week, not that we don't focus on it every week. We need to heighten our awareness about taking the football away. We also didn't have the typical amount of big plays that we normally have offensively. Today's college football game is all about big plays. I believe C.J. Bachér did a good job managing the game and taking what the defense gave him. I believe Southern Illinois had a good plan to try and take away our deep throws. Obviously having better weather on Saturday will help us throw the ball vertically a little bit more and make some big plays.
It's going to be a great challenge this week. Ohio is three plays away from being undefeated. When I watch the way they played against Central Michigan, to jump out 14-0 against the reigning MAC champions, I was nothing but impressed. They were right there down to the wire to win that football game but a couple of late turnovers cost them. To watch them go to the Horseshoe the week before against Ohio State, the reigning Big Ten champs, and to have the lead going into the fourth quarter speaks for itself. We're fully aware of the team we're going to play. They're well-coached and Frank Solich's success is well documented. He's been extremely successful and this will be a great challenge for our team.
We're excited to have our students back. It's new-student week here and we haven't taken a class yet, still won't till next week, but we're excited to have students back on campus. It was great to have the band back last week, they were great. To all of our fans, a big hearty thank you for coming out. First of all, to get here. I had family members that had to take an ark from the south-side to be at the game so a big hearty thank you to all of our fans."
On C.J. Bachér's ability to find a balance between taking risks and taking care of the ball...
"I like how he is managing the game, I thought he did a better job of that this week than last week. We're proud that he's taking the coaching and really running with it. Saturday was tough to throw the ball vertically. We took a few shots early, it wasn't effective, now you're sitting there second-and-10, second-and long and situations you don't want to be in. I thought Mick (McCall) did a good job calling the game. They were taking it away from us but I thought we executed our quick game pretty well. Obviously Saturday will be different weather-wise and give us a chance to open up the playbook a little bit more."
On how the offense is progressing...
"We scored 30 points and 33 points in two of our three games so I'll take that. If we score over 30 points we should win the game. I think we're still in a phase offensively when we're coming together but we're close to having that break-out, explosion game from a yardage standpoint but I'm not as concerned about yards as I am about scoring down in the red zone. Yes, we'd like to finish those drives with touchdowns but to go six-for-six in the red zone is great. It's about taking care of the football, putting the ball in our playmakers' hands, and scoring points when we have the opportunity to do that so so far I think we're three-for-three. Can we be more explosive? Yes, we can but I'm encouraged by what I see."
On the absence of wide receiver Andrew Brewer on Saturday...
"He's been battling through some bumps and bruises and he's been fighting. It's tough to get on the field for us right because we have great competition at all positions. He's just battling through some injuries, nothing major, but it's a competition to get on the field and I'm excited about that depth we have at wide receiver. The way that Sidney Stewart is playing right now, we're playing Jeremy Ebert, we've got a lot of depth there right now so it's ultra-competitive."
On Jordan Mabin in his first career start...
"I thought he did well in the passing game. There were a few plays where he missed a few tackles but you're going to miss a few on (Southern Illinois running back) Larry Warner, he can make you miss in a phone booth. I don't know if the weather helped us or him more but he looked extremely quick and we're happy to move on with a win because he is an explosive back. I thought Jordan played well. He continued to play well on special teams even though he had a starting role at the cornerback position."
On how third-down efficiency affects red zone efficiency...
"We'd rather have touchdowns than field goals but I thought we moved the ball well. A few penalties and some lack of execution hurt us on Saturday but for the most part I think we've been pretty effective down there. It's been a little different each week. The first weeks I thought we could be better on third-down and Saturday we were better. The first two games we were pretty good in the red zone. We have a lot of work to do."
On what he takes out of the first three games in preparation for Big Ten play...
"I'm worried about tomorrow. I want us to improve on what we've seen on tape and we've learned a lot about ourselves. We're pretty deep across the board at a lot of positions. I love our depth at receiver, in the secondary, at linebacker we've had guys growing and getting better and I think the play of Quentin Davie speaks for itself. Up front, we played a lot of defensive linemen on Saturday. At running back we've played three or four guys and I think Tyrell (Sutton) is playing stronger than he ever has. Omar (Conteh) gives a good one-two punch for us. We've played about seven offensive linemen and a lot of superbacks. I'm encouraged by that and that credit goes to our players who worked hard this off-season. It's ultra-competitive for us to get on the field right now. That's what we've tried to add the past few years by recruiting athletic young men and it's showing. Watch Vince Browne run down the field on kickoffs, he's a 255-pound defensive lineman and he's one of the first guys down the field -- that speaks to the speed we have on the field right now. You also see the lack of consistency and execution we have that keeps me up at night. We have a long way to go. I liked Tyrell saying this morning that we didn't play very well across the board Saturday, so let's go watch the tape. We have the advantage not being in school this week and I like our attitude, we have a hungry football team looking to get better."
On missed tackles against Southern Illinois...
"You can always get better as a tackler, it's a lost art in football. It's tough because you only have X-amount of players and if you tackle live, there's a huge risk of injury. We start every practice defensively with a tackling circuit. On Saturday, maybe we weren't playing as fast, not trusting our feet, but we should have because the field was in great shape. I thought we played faster as the game went on and I saw a dip in our missed tackles. We had better pursuit to the ball as the game went along. Earlier in the game, we had guys miss a tackle, which is going to happen, but our pursuit and swarm wasn't as good as it needed to be and it got better as the game went on."
On avoiding complacency against 0-3 Ohio...
"All you have to do is pop on the tape and it's very evident we are playing a very good football team, a team that took Ohio State into the fourth quarter with the lead on the road. They play a lot of different players and Coach Solich is a tough coach who will have them playing physical football. They're a team that's two years removed from being in a bowl game and easily could have been in one last year, losing close games to Toledo and Wyoming. We'll be prepared. Our focus is on us. We've got a long way to go before we play four quarters of Northwestern football, we have not done that yet. I thought last week's practice was better and now we need to be one week better than that to give ourselves an opportunity to be prepared for the game."
On who might stand out as kick return specialist the rest of the way...
"Well, we've only had one guy returning punts, Eric Peterman. Only on punt-safe do we keep Brendan Smith back. Now with Stephen Simmons banged up we've had different guys returning kickoffs. I like what Jordan Mabin is doing back there. He was dynamic as a kick returner in high school. We've got Omar Conteh who can go back there, Tyrell can go back there if we need him to, Dan Persa, Andrew Brewer, Sherrick McManis. I think you'll see Omar and Jordan as our main kick returners in the immediate future."
On whether going undefeated in the non-conference schedule was a team goal...
"My goals are to consistently prepare and improve each week. All those other things are insignificant as to whether we'll have an opportunity to win a football game. Our focus is on us. For us it starts on Monday at 7 a.m. when we watch the previous game's tape. Our guys are doing a great job taking points of emphasis and making them carry over. We had good attack up front to get off the blocks, I thought we tackled better as the game went on, and we can't allow guys to get behind us and give up an explosion play. Offensively we have to score touchdowns in the red zone. Lots of room for improvement."
On preparing for a mobile quarterback like Ohio's Boo Jackson...
"First of all, you have to have an awareness of rush lanes regardless of whether we bring three or four defensive linemen. He does a great job of feeling the rush and moving his feet. If anything breaks down, his ability to scramble and throw on the run is extremely impressive. They do a great job of getting open once Boo gets out of the pocket and he did that against Ohio State and Central Michigan. He's a very dynamic athlete and it's impressive for a transfer to come in and have the success he's having. You have to understand the play is never over. You have to play from the snap to the echo of the whistle as a defensive player. His arm strength on the move is impressive to me, and they've missed a couple but the ones they have made have made teams pay and almost won them the game at CMU."
On the play of the linebacker unit...
"I think they're improving each time they get out on the field. I think Malcolm (Arrington) had half a sack on Saturday and a couple tackles for loss. I thought as the game went along Malcolm played better and better. I think Prince (Kwateng) has played better every game. I thought Saturday, there were a lot of plays away from him and it was kind of the same thing for Brad Phillips at safety. Brendan Smith was at the point of attack on about 11 plays and Brad was only involved in about four. A lot of the plays were just away from our weak side. I think it was a byproduct of the game."
On challenges facing the defensive line against Ohio...
"Watching the tape, they aren't very conventional offensively. You'll see more of a spread attack than you've seen in the past and some similarities to our offense. You have to go out and execute your job. If your job is to be gap rusher, you need to be a gap rusher. If your job is to contain, you need to contain. If you're a deep third player and Boo starts to scramble, you have to be disciplined and not leave your area, you have to man up in your zone. At the end of the day you just have to do your job a little longer against a mobile quarterback because the play may progress longer than it typically does."
On familiarity between Mick McCall and Frank Solich from their days coaching against each other...
"I think the awareness of each other impacts each team equally. Ohio knows the offense Mick ran at Bowling Green but it's different than what we run here. The players we have are different than the ones Mick had at BG. We put our players in the best formation we can to try to execute against the defenses we'll see and try to do things how we want to do it. I think they have the film on us like we do on them we have so we'll both be able to game plan. It's a wash when it comes down to that."
On receiving votes in the national coaches' poll...
"It's insignificant to our football program. I've always had coaches tell me football is like a horse race, it doesn't matter where you start it's where you end. That's the bottom line. Polls are great for you guys to put in the paper, in magazines, on the Internet. You can imagine, I'm ecstatic when we see a preseason poll. Nobody's played a game yet. Now we're three weeks in and we all know a little bit about each other, but there is so much football left to be played, polls do not mean a thing. What matters for us is we get better and improve. We're 3-0 and it feels good to be improving and we have to find a way to go 1-0 this week."
On C.J. Bachér's progression since last year...
"To see where we're at from a turnover standpoint and taking care of the football is huge. Everything goes through the quarterback and you have to manage the game the right way. When we call plays, he has multiple opportunities to get us into certain plays if he doesn't like it or wants to spread the ball around based on his reads. He's been taking what the defense gives him and not forcing what's not there. When we dial it up to take shots vertically, we need to make more big plays, but we don't need to do it by sacrificing the game and making poor decisions. At the end of the day it's an 11-man operation and the quarterback gets a lot of attention in our program, positively and negatively, but I think he's done a great job."
