Northwestern University Athletics
Weekly News Conference Transcript
10/26/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 26, 2009
Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald
Weekly News Conference Transcript
Opening statement...
"To look back to Saturday, I said it after the game and I'll continue to reiterate, `Wow.' Football is a game of inches. When you look at a lot of the plays we made in the second half, some were because of the performance of our defense, which really gave us a chance when we shot ourselves in the foot with three turnovers. To go out and stop them three times and not give up any points in the second half proves to us that when we play the way we're capable of, we're tough to score on. That was very encouraging. To watch the way our special teams played in the second half, giving us good field position and make some plays. Obviously we had the big kick by Stefan (Demos) who has been consistent all year. I'm happy for him to be named the Special Teams Player of the Week in the league. It's an 11-man operation and I thought we had good protection all day on our earlier reps on PATs, the snapping of John Henry Pace and the holding of Zeke Markshausen were all solid.
I want to send a thank you to our students, I thought we had great support and it was fun to see them all out there. It was great to sing the fight song with them and it was great to see a lot of our old Wildcats come back and be part of the program. It was great to see Daryl Ashmore come back. I haven't seen him in a number of years since I was a player and to have him in the locker room after the game was a lot of fun.
Penn State is going to be a big challenge for us this week. We're playing a team that since its tough loss at home to Iowa has been playing its best football of the season. They play very well in all three phases and that's what you get when you face a Joe Paterno-coached football team. They're very consistent across all three phases, there's the emotion they play the game with, the way they execute: that's why they've been as successful as they've been in Joe's tenure. It's going to be a great challenge, we have a week to correct some things that happened to us in both halves on Saturday and we'll get to work right away on that."
On being able to come back multiple times this year...
"It just proves to our young men that when you play the game for 60 minutes good things can happen. Early on we weren't executing and we couldn't get in a rhythm on offense. We really spotted them 21 points between the long run, the long kickoff return for a touchdown and the bad punt and coverage to give them the ball in the shadow of our end zone. At a minimum, we gave up 17 but didn't get off the field and gave up a touchdown to give up 21. Really, we felt like we never got the fight started. Once we finally started playing the way we're capable of it was a completely different football game. That's on us as coaches. For the most part we haven't started perfect but we've at least gone out and started to play. For whatever reason on Saturday we didn't do that, but we answered the challenge and I know guys are a lot happier winning by one point than the alternative but we also realize there's much more that we have to do."
On Scott Concannon's rise to the top of the depth chart...
"Well, performance. He obviously played well on Saturday and took advantage of an opportunity. We've been by committee all year because of injury and performance. We're not trying to have everybody play perfect, we're just trying to get positive yards. I thought we played well in terms of protection and running the ball, and Scotty just saw the seams where there, took advantage of it, played between his pads. He starts the week as our starter and we'll go from there."
On how Scott Concannon arrived on the NU football team...
"I remember Scotty had an unbelievable ability to make big plays in high school. We were excited about his vision, his speed, his ability to make people miss, he caught the ball well and did well in the kicking game as a returner so we were really excited about the total package. He's a humble, quiet guy and he's been a great addition to our program."
On adjusting to playing in a night game...
"Well we were outside at 6:30 in the morning for practice so it's as dark as we need it to be. We practiced at night earlier in the year and we'll go inside occasionally where there's different lighting but we try to stay consistent. Our last three games with Penn State here at home have been great football games and there's something about Ryan Field at night that makes it seem that much more fun. We're just going to consistently prepare and get ourselves ready to play on Saturday and we've got a lot of work to do before we get there."
On the influence Penn State linebacker coach and former NU assistant coach Ron Vanderlinden has had on him...
"He was a great teacher of football, he taught you concepts, fundamentals, technique, he helped you understand what other teams were going to try to do. He did a great job communicating with you on what you needed to improve in your game, what your strengths were, and he was an all-around tremendous teacher and someone that I call one of my closest friends in the world. I'll be forever indebted to him and Coach (Gary) Barnett for giving me the opportunity to come here and be a Wildcat and I'll be forever indebted to him for being a great role model off the field, professionally, and there's a lot that I owe to him. I sent him a text last night saying I look forward to seeing him and I wish his team didn't look as good on tape as they did."
On his memories of playing Penn State...
"As a player, I have selective amnesia about those first couple games and I don't remember those. I definitely remember '95 and the electricity we had in Dyche Stadium and we had Keith Jackson to do that game, it's probably one I'll never forget. I think as a defense we were on the field for 48 minutes that game, at least that's what it felt like. We rose to the occasion and found a way to get the win. I remember going to Happy Valley a few years ago (2006) and it wasn't a great experience for us. But Coach Paterno is college football. I don't want to speak for other coaches but for me he's a role model and someone who we aspire to be. Obviously you hope to have a few victories, I don't know if anyone we'll ever get to where he is, and it's because of his consistency, his approach to coaching the game. The wins get a lot of notoriety but you see the success his players have had off the field, the graduation rates, where they are professionally, what they've done in the community and Coach Paterno is, I believe, a role model for college football."
On the fun fans can have at the game on Halloween...
"I hope so. Unfortunately I can't but I know (his sons) Jack, Ryan and Brendan will be having fun. Jack's going as Luke Skywalker, Ryan's going as Darth Vader and Brendan will be Yoda so I know my family will have fun. I'll let all the Wildcat fans follow their lead. Why not? It's college. Every time I get to go into a dorm I tell kids you only have a handful of days to be students, why not party like a rock star on Saturdays in the fall? With a 3:30 kick, they should have some fun, and I cordially invite them to a big party at Ryan Field."
On if he'd like to play more night games...
"I don't know if I have a vote on that. I think there's always something about night games that makes it special for our players. Most of them played on Friday nights in high school, which is such a different experience from college. A lot of times when you play at night it's a walk down memory lane to Friday night football. It always seems like night games at Ryan Field have been really entertaining games, even though they haven't always gone our way. This year we're having a Purplepalooza and having some fun with Darnell Autry painting himself purple like the Purple Pride Guy from 1995 and singing the song, he's being a great sport about it. I think he's going to look awesome painted completely purple and I look forward to seeing him Saturday I cant say thanks enough for him doing those kinds of things it's really neat to see him give back like that. I think it's a little bit beyond what we'd like to do. I think it has to do with our relationship with our community and obviously we're not Soldier Field, we're not down by ourselves. We're obviously in a community and we have to respect that and respect the wishes of the community and we'll go from there."
On if his defensive philosophy is derived from Ron Vanderlinden's...
"Well what's funny is (Ron) was on the staff at Colorado when (NU defensive coordinator) Mike Hankwitz was the coordinator and (Ron) was the assistant coach so it was actually then that he learned his defensive philosophies from Hank. The play on Star Wars I guess is it was Obi Wan Kenobi, right? What they do is they keep the ball in front, they play very fundamentally and technically sound, they play with great effort, they play well together, they know what the strengths and weaknesses of their concepts are, and it's a hallmark of Vandy's. They've been doing this a long time. This isn't their first rodeo. They have what they do and they do it well. They out-execute you. He's been in a lot more games where teams have beaten themselves and they've beaten them where Penn State's beaten teams and it's a hallmark of a well-coached team. They just execute. You can set your watch on Joe Paterno's team executing, playing hard, and playing together, and we're going to have to out-execute them and play smart, play clean, and have some fun. Cut it loose."
On Corey Wootton's first sack of the year...
"Well where I want him to be is where he wants to be. He has such high expectations for himself and if you had projected prior to the season that, all things being equal, you would've said that he would've gotten that first sack on the first series of the year. But that's not the way it is when you come off injuries and then he got injured against Purdue and he's battled, his attitude has been tremendous, and it was kind of like getting that monkey off his back. Hopefully the floodgates will open but his attitude is infectious and how important it is for us to be successful as a team is infectious and I couldn't be more proud of him. I'm happy for him to kind of get that monkey off his back and I have 20 more days of practice with him and four more games guaranteed and I look forward to every minute with him."
On injuries to Sherrick McManis and Brad Phillips...
"Sherrick moved around a little bit today in our warmup and again he has an injury that he's been battling all year. He's trying like heck to get healthy and unfortunately it didn't respond well in the second half based on some things that happened in the first half. So we hope to have him out there and it's been similar the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately on Saturday he wasn't able to finish the game where against Michigan State, Miami and Purdue he was able to play so hopefully it'll respond through a week of treatment and we'll have him ready for Saturday. Brad came in and played and he's battling through some injuries himself. Hopefully he'll be able to continue to do that and continue to play. He ran around great today so I anticipate him playing on Saturday."
On people filling in for injured starters...
"We'll I have the confidence in all of our young men if they do the things in practice and prepare properly and that's what Ricky (Weina) has done throughout his career. He's a great student of the game, he's up here studying, he understands his strengths and the areas he can improve in, he understands what we're doing conceptually, and he just went out and played with discipline. He played a really clean game. He didn't get a million reps in practice last week with our ones, but he really pays attention to detail--like a lot of our players do--and the opportunity presented itself and he stepped up."
On managing emotions for the afternoon game...
"I think you always have to educate your team on how they need to think, who they need to listen to and the way we need to approach each week. We need to go in with the focus of improving this week in practice and getting ready to play our best game of the year. We haven't put together four quarters of three-phase football yet and that's what's scary about our football team. We just have to keep grinding on it, and keep working to improve, and when we do that 3 o'clock, 7 o'clock, 11 o'clock it doesn't matter. You get an opportunity to go play the game you love with the teammates that you love. The atmosphere may be this and the lights will be that, all of those things. We do that each week to be quite honest with you, but it doesn't matter what we say we need to listen and kind of follow the direction and come to play on it."
On the rules regarding the downing of kickoffs near the end zone...
"The goalline, like a touchdown play, once the ball breaks the plane it's a touchdown, once the ball breaks the plane it's a touchback, but on that play the young man possessed the ball at the 1-yard line so technically the ball was down. They ruled that he possessed it. Obviously they reviewed it, they called it a touchback on the field and they reviewed it and they said from up top that they had that he possessed the ball in the field of play. The previous week, the ball bounced over our head, broken the plane before we possessed it, which automatically makes it a touchback. We coach our guys all of the time that we want the ball just inside the 20, it doesn't have to be on the one-inch line. We got inside the 5-yard line, simulating the catch on the eight and so we made the ball bounce, anytime the ball bounces with it being up long you never know where it's going to go. I though we executed that pretty well, and based on the rule it's the right call when they reviewed it."
On playing 12 straight games...
"First of all, with the practice standpoint if I saw a lot of guys getting hurt in practice then I change a lot, but the way we approach practice, Tuesday's our workday. We do a lot of heavy work on Tuesday from a physicality standpoint, it's also our heaviest mental day with the game plan installation. So we really try to throw a lot at our guys on Tuesday. We're smart, it's all in a controlled setting, but at the end of the day you need to get some work done. But you want to get to Saturday feeling good mentally, feeling good physically and feeling ready to play emotionally. So that's kind of our approach as we go through the week. I think injuries are a part of football, it's been a part of football forever and you pick up the flag and just keep moving forward. I don't know if this year is any different than others, but I feel for any guy that gets banged up, especially for the seniors. My heart pours out for them, but it's part of the game. That's why you train the next guy and you get him ready and it's their job and their responsibility to step up for their teammates and for the team and for the most part we've been able to do that. Not just this year but for the last couple of years."
On number of games...
"I don't think they're going to allow us to have our cake and eat it too. We talked about it as head coaches in the Big Ten. We'd like to be able to set the 13-week schedule how we see fit, and I'd love to be able to have a bye week and be able to send our players home for the Thanksgiving break. Everybody else on all of our Big Ten campuses go home for Thanksgiving break, but you force your players to report in August and stay through Thanksgiving, it's a tough deal. Let's look at it from human nature and from a standpoint of just being a young person so I'd love to be able to set your 13 weeks however you want to do it. We're going to play 12 games, I don't believe we get a vote in that as coaches, so we're going to play 12 games and I like to be able to have a bye-week. I'd like to be able to send our kids home for Thanksgiving break. That would be great, there's nothing wrong with moving the season up a week. I see nothing wrong with that, and I think that would allow us to be able to do that."
On passing game vs. Indiana...
"We saw some things that we thought we could take advantage of from some of the things that they were doing conceptually. We try to throw the ball vertically and sometimes we get the ball off. Sometimes Mike has had to scramble. We have a pretty good success ratio when all of the cylinders are clicking as one. At other times we kind of break down in a route, so it hasn't been perfect, but we want to throw the ball vertically. Penn State is going to take 10 shots on Saturday. I guarantee you there are going to be 10 deep balls on Saturday. That's typically what you see from most teams. Most offenses are going to take eight to 10 shots, and when you win the home run derby usually you have a chance to be pretty successful on defense too. Like Indiana, they took their deep shots and fortunately for us we made the plays on Saturday. The week before against Michigan State, they took their deep shots and we didn't win enough. That's what you need to be prepared for each week. I watched the Michigan State-Iowa game after I got home from recruiting on Saturday and sure enough there they are. The deep balls come up in every game, so I don't think it's any different from any week to week, it's just what the defense is giving you and how you can take advantage of it."
On the performance of the offensive line against Indiana's two defensive ends...
"Yeah I thought we did a really good job. I thought from the standpoint I think they're two and three in the history book at Indiana in sacks. You know we're going to have another challenge this week with four guys up front that can really come. They run some really nice pressure schemes that really try to take advantage of your protection so the bar just keeps getting heavier and heavier, but yeah I thought our offensive line did a nice job of protecting for us. We started to settle into some things in the run game, and I thought we opened up some good holes there in the second half."
On Penn State's toughest player to game plan against...
"I wish there was just one guy. When I watch Daryll (Clark) manage their offense I told the defensive staff that Evan Royster is one of those backs that you just don't see anymore. He's really physical, he has great vision, he catches the ball well out of the backfield, he protects well. He's that full package with good size. We have him at 6'1'' 213 lbs. that's what they have in their media guide. He has a great tight spin move when tacklers come on he has a great ability to make people miss. They spread the ball out to all of their receivers. It's not one guy that has an inordinate amount of receptions when you look at their stats, their tight ends are good. They have a couple of different combinations up front with the offensive line. On defense, all four guys are capable of winning the one on one battle and then they have great depth at the defensive line, they're going to rotate a bunch of guys through. The line-backing core is as deep as we've seen. Very similar to Michigan State. You have two Butkus Award candidates and two national defensive player of the year candidates in Sean Lee and Navorro Bowman. In their secondary they're really sound, they understand the concept of what they're running so I hope that answers it for you but I wish it was just one, but not from what I've seen. We're going to have our hands full."
On cornerback depth chart...
"I start practice tomorrow buddy at 8:50, and we get Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to evaluate where we put all of the pieces to the puzzle, and that's kind of where we are right now. It may say starter right now, but we need to see performance consistently in practice and consistently in games, and we're going to continue to try and find the right combinations, and I'm not trying to threaten our guys, I'm just trying to find a way to win and they know that and they know what they need to do and they know how they need to do it, and they have the right attitude to do it. We just had a great meeting with our leadership council, and that's what we talked about. You work your tail off for eleven months of the year to make the last four significant, and when you look across the board in the country there are a bunch of teams sitting in right in the same position in Division I football with their last four being something of significance. You can't win them all in one day and you can't win them all in one week. So you have to put your focus on what's important and that's being consistent in your approach and preparing the right way and I believe that our guys are focused for that."
On the play of Ricky Weina...
"I'd love to say that our unbelievable recruiting staff found him under a stone somewhere up in Union Grove, Wis., but no. We identified Ricky as a guy who could potentially walk on, and he came down here with his family. I can remember the meeting. Same thing with Jacob, I remember coming down visiting with him. All I know is you're going to have an opportunity to play, and that's what all of our walk-ons in some way shape or form. It seems like every young man that has walked-on to our program has had that opportunity and some guys have really capitalized on it. I was texting with Barry Gardner the other day, and he's the one that sticks out to me. He really got the walk-on program going to another level with Barry who played in the NFL for 10 years or nine years and Brian Hines who ended up being a captain for us. We've had a great tradition of guys walking on for us. You get into Northwestern on your own, you're a pretty special young man, and Ricky just really stepped up. The Big Ten honored Stef (Demos) as the player of the week, but we honored Ricky as our player of the week for special teams. I thought he did a nice job and can continue to do that."
