Northwestern University Athletics
Weekly News Conference Transcript
11/23/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 23, 2009
Northwestern Coach Pat Fitzgerald
Weekly News Conference
Opening Statement...
"Looking back at Saturday, I think it was a great way to send our seniors out. As we look at the video we can still see that we can play a lot better and that's what's encouraging. But at the end of the day it was a great win, a great way to send those gentlemen out and to celebrate with their families. It was really something special and something that I'll always remember. We are obviously very proud of Mike and Stefan being named the co-players of the week in the Big Ten. We'll take this week to reflect a little bit and to give thanks. Our guys will leave here in the next 48 hours once their classes wrap up to be able to take advantage of the great Big Ten tradition which is Thanksgiving break, and charge the batteries a little bit mentally and maybe get caught up with some things academically before reading week and finals week, and then come back on Sunday. We'll practice next week. A couple of days during the week we'll run and lift. Around that, most of our coaches will be on the road recruiting, me included, and then from there we'll come back and have a recruiting weekend, have a few more practices, and find out who we have the opportunity to compete against.
I'm excited to have finished the way we did. 3-0 in November. I think it makes a statement about our program and where we're at, and hopefully the direction where we're going. Obviously there's a lot of unknown right now, but we'll worry about all of that when it matters. Now we'll just take this week to be thankful for 21 great seniors, a great football statement by our team this last month and a great job by our coaches. I really could not be happier or more pleased and more thankful for the great coaching staff that we have. We finally get to go back and be husbands and fathers for the next couple of hours and couple of days, and their wives hopefully have a long list like mine does for me to get some work done around the house."
On winning a bowl game...
"After Saturday, yeah, absolutely, I mean the goal, and it's been up there two years now, you know our number one goal at the end of the season is to win a bowl game, and we've put ourselves in position. Like I said on Saturday, and I said to the team again today, we're miles from that mountaintop right now. We have a lot of work to do over the next four weeks to get prepared for that opportunity and number one is to get healthy over the next couple of weeks and come back with the right attitude, get our conditioning level to a place where it would need to be to play in a warm weather bowl game, and improve and get better. This is spring ball number one for our young players and get things prepared the right way for whichever opponent we have the tremendous opportunity to compete against and get over that mountaintop."
"I'm just excited that we've earned the opportunity. You know on everybody's schedule at the beginning of the year it doesn't say the bowl destination. You have to earn that and I believe that's what we've done, so we're excited for that opportunity to be bowl eligible now three years in a row and we have an opportunity for back-to-back years with nine wins I think says where our program is at and where it's going."
On being able to relax before bowl...
"I think we'll all turn into Al Bundy in the next three days because we can. It's the great thing about being in the Big Ten, you get an opportunity to be done and enjoy Thanksgiving with your family and that's what our coaches will do. We have a handful of guys hitting the road recruiting today, and they'll be out today and tomorrow recruiting, but for another handful of our coaches we'll start Thanksgiving here in the next couple of hours at the end of the workday today and just recharge a little bit."
On team's play in the final month...
"I think we've worked hard all year to get better each week, and as I look at the way that we've played really in the last two months, we've probably been playing our best football. Now not all of them have led to victories, but in the last three we've played pretty well. Like I said, after watching the video from Saturday we still can play better. We can play better in the kicking game, obviously the self-inflicted wounds that we had from penalties that really set us behind the chains in the second half was damaging and then we didn't fit right and cover properly on a few plays. You have to give a lot of credit to Wisconsin, that's a darn good football team that we beat, and I think it's just the way that we've run our program. We talk about finish all of the time, and we had the opportunity to play, arguably, three of our better opponents this year at the end and I thought that we handled it well."
On bowl positioning...
"Well I don't know if there's a hotter team in the country right now than us. You know, we've really played well this last month, and we've put ourselves in position to play in the opportunity that presents itself. It's obviously out of our control, and if we'd played maybe a little better earlier, we'd have a few more wins under our belt, but reality is, we sit with eight wins, we're 5-3 in our league, and we sit in a position, right behind a team that we beat on the road in Iowa. Obviously we would have liked to have had a better outcome against Penn State, but you know, everybody else that we're ahead of I think we've put ourselves in position and we've made a statement, and from a bowl attendance history, I think the facts speak for themselves. We'll travel well wherever we get the opportunity to go. It's just an unfortunate fact that we have more fans throughout the country than we have here in Chicago. That's a reality and that's because we're a nationwide school, worldwide school with our alumni base, so we'll travel well and we just look forward to the opportunity wherever it is."
On season reflections...
"I'll be thinking about Jack's (his son) birthday -- that's tomorrow. (laughter) We're going to have some fun with that and I'll be at his school and sing happy birthday, but I won't reflect on the season until after the year. There's so much work to be done. Number one with getting our guys home safe and sound, and having them be with their families and give thanks this week. We'll come back next week, and with our academic calendar, a lot of our guys will have some finals that they'll take next week even though it's reading week and then we'll have obviously finals week the week after. So they'll handle that business the right way, find out who we're going to play, and get prepared for that opportunity. There's a lot of work that needs to go into preparing for a bowl game. I thought last year we had a great plan. I thought we executed it for the most part, minus about eight minutes of that game. We're going to need to duplicate it plus some more. Obviously we've put ourselves in position for a very special bowl. It's going to be a great challenge whoever we have the opportunity to compete against."
On Mike Kafka's play on Saturday...
"I said it after the game, I don't know if there's one player that means more to their program than Mike means to ours. He really, I thought, took a huge step this off-season. It really started in the winter time when we came back from the bowl game, he was named to our leadership council, he really stepped up from a leadership standpoint. I thought he got better each week in spring practice and he took the team over in the summer. He worked hard all spring with Nick and he did some things to clean up his mechanics, and then he worked hard with Brett Basanez all summer long. It's not a bad deal to have an NFL guy to throw the ball around with a bit. It's a credit to both of those guys Brett, by giving back, and Mike by dedicating himself and doing everything he could to be prepared, and I agree each week I thought he got a little bit better. To me, no disrespect to any of the other quarterbacks in this league, but in my opinion he's the best quarterback in this conference. I think he's the best player in this conference. There's no question in my mind about that. I think you look at what player walks into the huddle or walks onto the field and makes his team better, and my opinion it's Mike Kafka."
On season's surprises...
"Number one, it was the injuries. Number two, I was really pleased with the way that our program stayed the course. We sat there in position before this month started where there was a lot of doubt maybe outside of our program, but there wasn't internally and we just stayed the course, we kept on working to get better and I was very pleased with the way our guys responded to that early season rash of injuries that we had."
On comparing the 1995 and '96 seasons to 2008 and '09...
"Number one, it starts with the university. We had tremendous support from above, from our president, from Jim Phillips, I think our fan support grew each game in those two years and I've felt the same way these last two years. Our fan support just continued to get better and better as the team improved, and at the end I think it's about the players. We've had a lot of young men step up and play their best football the last two years as seniors. I think back last year to our three receivers (Peterman, Lane and Ward), C.J., and I thought Corey played really well a year ago. Our linebackers, in Malcolm (Arrington) and also in Prince Kwateng played really well. Keegan Kennedy a year ago. Tyrell Sutton, Omar Conteh played really well a year ago as seniors and you can speak about Mike, Andrew Brewer, Zeke Markshausen on the perimeter that really played good ball this year. You look at our offensive line, the got better each week. You look up front in the defensive line Marshall Thomas, Adam Hahn, Corey Wootton really played their best football as the year went along. Then you have Sherrick McManis and Brad Phillips in the back half I think are two all Big Ten level players. Players, similarities, different names, different faces, but the upperclassmen really played their best football in these last two years."
On Stephen Simmons' penalty in Wisconsin game...
"You can't chop block. He just sank his hips, like I told the team today, he's four feet tall and, no disrespect to Steph(en), but he's not very tall. I think he's 5'7. He's 5'6 or 5'7. He sank his hips and went down and the guy tried to jump over him so it is what it is. In football there's good calls and bad calls. You make good calls as coordinators. It was a great call on my job on the punt return for a touchdown right so it's a part of the game. I disagreed with the call, and at that point in the game where we'd lost momentum a little bit and we started a drive inside the 10-yard line. I wanted to make sure that our friends that were calling the game knew that I disagreed with the call."
On the chop block...
"You can't block below the thigh boards on a kickoff play. Steph's I think 5'7. He's not the tallest guy in the world so he just sank his hips. He down to think being about four feet tall because he sank his hips. It's not an illegal block in my opinion, but it was called and we responded."
On upcoming bowl preparation...
"Next week will be a pretty heavy emphasis on the young guys. We'll still practice, but they'll be in shells for a couple of weeks until we know who we're playing. We'll do more conditioning, more lifting, trying to get stronger here in the next couple of weeks. We've gotten stronger each week this year, we put a heavy emphasis in the weight room during the season, and Larry Lilja and our strength staff do a great job continuing to work to get our guys stronger. We're in a good spot there but then we'll ramp up our conditioning a little bit. We're in good football-shape but it's going to have to be taken to another level, especially for the varsity, and then this will be spring practice number one. We'll get the board drill going next Saturday (Dec.5) -- this is my favorite time of the year. We get after it pretty hard here for our first two weeks because we really don't know who our opponent is. We put a very heavy emphasis on ourselves and getting better and competing and then we'll really work hard to improve our kicking game. From there, what we'll do is figure out who we're playing and put our emphasis on who we're playing. Getting back more into a routine very similar to maybe a couple of weeks to prepare as if we had a bye, and still use that time to get our young guys spring practice number one."
On why this has been such a fun season for you...
"It starts with the young men in our locker room. They just stayed the course, kept working to get better. We have a very coachable group of young men. That's all you can ask for as a coaching staff. If we ask them to do something, they try to give us everything they have. Then to our coaching staff, they just stayed the course. We played a lot of different faces out there in all three phases. Something that goes unseen a bit is that most of our special teams players are defensive football players. Our running backs have also been really good special teams players. We've had a lot of injuries on defense and in our running back room and that really depleted our special teams out there in the middle of the season. But we just kept working through it. We had some young guys out there going through some growing pains and cutting their teeth. I just had a fun time coaching. These guys had a great attitude the whole year. They battled through it and they just kept getting stronger and improving. Like I said, I don't know if there's a hotter team than us right now. They're excited, they're really excited for this opportunity. We know the challenge ahead of us, but we also know the opportunity and legacy that we can leave for our seniors."
On how the successful year is affecting recruiting and if it's having an impact...
"Absolutely, and I've been pretty busy on Facebook and on the phone. Without a doubt, not only in this class, which we're getting pretty close being done with, but also, the fun part about bowl practices, is that now we can really start to have the junior class come take a look at us in practice mode in the next couple of weeks. Not only that, high school coaches here in Chicago can come visit. To try to give back and have them be a part of our practices. We thought that helped us a year ago, we had every top Chicagoland area recruit in our building in the month of December and we'll try to do the same thing again this year. Also with the coaches, we had 70 to 75 coaches here on Saturday and over 50 recruits, so it was a big day from the recruitment standpoint."
On playing games past Thanksgiving (starting in 2010)...
"I believe that we should have the opportunity to set our 13-week schedule however we want to and I'd like to move it up a week. I think the great tradition that we have in the Big Ten is when the students get an opportunity to go home, our student-athletes get an opportunity to go home. We've been here since August, we've been here longer than our students, and I think our young men need that break, especially right here before we embark on finals. I just believe in that tradition. I loved it as a student-athlete. I love the fact that I can go home and be dad right now and be a husband. I'm going to get a little bit more that I want with Stacy heading to Jamaica on Thursday for her brother's wedding, but that's the neat thing about being close to all the parks so my mom and dad better buckle it up because I have four rascals, me included, coming home for Thanksgiving. It's something that's been a tried true and tested tradition in our league. I would like to see that it's something that continues. Obviously it won't next year but I'm for both. We should be able to have our cake and eat it to. I think we should be able to have the bye week however we want to set it, and I think we should have the opportunity to have our young men to go home for Thanksgiving like our students."
On other programs looking to hire his coaches...
"I think it's a catalyst. I think I'd be the most naïve coach in the country to think that my coaches wouldn't be recruited by other schools, but we've got tremendous support and if it's the right thing professionally and the right thing for them and their families, there's going to be no bigger person in their parade than me. I believe that we have the best coaching staff in the country, so with that being said I'd be naïve to think that we're not going to have some guys recruited. If you asked them I think their families and them and are very excited to be here, they love working with our young men and they love being a part of Northwestern, and our Evanston community. You look back to the run that we had in '95 and '96 when Ron Vanderlinden became the head football coach at Maryland, some of the other opportunities opened for some of the position coaches to become coordinators, and if that's the case I'd do everything I could to help those guys get those opportunities. Those are good problems to have."
On the play of Brad Phillips and could he pass a physical if asked to take one today...
"Yeah he can pass the physical or he wouldn't be able to play, but he needs his rest more that anyone. I think Brad symbolizes our football program. He'll do anything for our football program, and he arguably saved his best for last. He played an unbelievable football game on Saturday and I couldn't be more proud of him. Just a tremendous job. It was a great week for him. He had his third interview with a big company here on Thursday of last week and I think things went well there for him. He would love to have the opportunity to play on Sunday and he's going to prepare for that, but that's not important now, but you have to prepare for those things, and he's playing his best football right now. I thought it was a pretty special week. I saw his mom and dad and his sister here for Senior Day so it was a pretty special day."
