Northwestern University Athletics
Weekly News Conference Transcript
9/27/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 27, 2010
Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald
Weekly News Conference
Opening Statement...
"First, our thoughts and prayers go out to the redshirt freshman Connor Cosgrove. I've known his father for a long time. As Connor's battling through and will be victorious in his fight against leukemia, our thoughts and prayers are with the Cosgrove family and with Connor in particular. It's obviously a tough challenge for a young man to be in college and have that type of adversity in his life and our thoughts and prayers are with him. I know he'll fight the fight and win this battle.
"It's going to be a huge test for us to go on the road. The good news is we've been on the road a few times, but not in an environment like this. I've watched a bunch of TV copies of the Gophers and in their new stadium, the crowd and fan support is outstanding. I've been very impressed with the way that they've played from a standpoint, they are a couple plays away from being in the same position we are from a standpoint of victories. But every head coach is going to get up in front of his team either today or tomorrow and talk about everybody's 0-0 and it's the second season and how there's forty days left of the year. Those 40 days dictate the direction of your season and everybody's back to 0-0 so it's going to be a great challenge against a team that came in here a year ago and I thought really took it to us. It's going to be a physical battle, there's no question about that. It's compounded even more with having to go up there on the road.
"We've got some guys playing pretty well. Danny's obviously throwing the ball very efficiently. We've played pretty well on the road in the last few years but we're playing a team that's won, that's been successful and gone to two straight bowl games under Brew [Head Coach Tim Brewster]. We know each other quite well, we've vacationed at the same place in Florida. This is a well-coached team that's just a couple plays away from being in the same spot we are."
On NU's substitution penalties vs. CMU...
"The perception that was articulated to me so we can coach our guys better is that we had twelve players on the field, and we have sixteen players on the field sometimes as we shuffle guys in and out. We'll get some clarification, it's never been an issue for us. The rule is about intent to deceive. Are you loading your huddle with an intent to deceive? Well, number one is that we don't huddle. And number two is that we're going to be shuttling guys in and out and sometimes we're just changing a one-for-one guy and it happened and we'll educate our guys a little bit better and make sure we're doing the right thing. I watched the Boise State game and they lined up in a fake field goal formation and ran a guy off and ran the kicker on. There might be an intent to deceive, I don't know. It's a judgment call and obviously we've got to do a better job of coaching our guys.
On NU's early spate of penalties...
A couple of the holding calls were warranted, and the facemasks were warranted. The facemask because we weren't running our feet or tackling properly, and that goes back to the way we tackled in practice on Tuesday. I thought our legs were a little heavy. I talked about that I think last Wednesday when we visited, I thought our legs were a little heavy. And it looked like it last Tuesday and that carried over a little bit in the game. Same thing with some of the blocking issues and we had the holding calls. But outside of that, I think we alluded to it in previous conversation.
On clarifying substiution penalities with the Big Ten...
"I'll talk to them later in the week. At the end of the day we didn't change anything we've done for five years. So I just want to make sure we're doing things right and coaching our guys the right way and we're substituting within the framework of the rules.
On how he knows Minnesota is one of the country's best-coached teams...
"I watch them on tape. Schematically they do an outstanding job in all three phases. You just have to pop in the tape and watch the way that right now they are a play away here or a play away there, a tipped ball, or a break away. They had a kickoff return against SC, they were playing outstanding against them. And there's a lot of different little things that happened. They've played very good teams. They went on the road and played an outstanding Middle Tennessee team, they played a team in their home-opener that almost beat Nebraska Saturday on the road, they played USC and they played a Northern Illinois team that's outstanding. Jerry Kill is one of the top coaches in the country and his program has gone to a bunch of bowl games. The cool thing for everybody is that right now we're all 0-0. The second season starts now. I learned along time ago from Coach Barnett as a player and then from a lot of my other coaching brethren that you have to be careful who you listen to. When things are going well and winning games, those little mistakes go away. When you're not, those losses compound themselves and people get impatient. That's OK, that's what we sign up for as coaches. We take the good with the bad. Tim is a great coach, they have a great staff and outstanding players. This is going to be a huge challenge on the road for us."
On the play of the defensive line...
"I thought early in the season this was the deepest group we've had top to bottom, it may not have the flash name of a (Corey) Wootton or (John) Gill, or a (Luis) Castillo or (Barry) Cofield. Hopefully by the end of the year we will. We're playing a lot of different guys. Inside we have a nice little wave of five guys, then on the outside we're in the same position where we're playing a total of nine or 10 guys. Marty Long does a great job developing that group and Mike Hankwitz, the attitude he wanted them to have when he came in here was to attack. We changed our mindset a little bit so our classmen have been in that scheme for a number of years. When you look at the size of Minnesota's offensive line, we're going to have our hands full, those guys are massive."
On the play of Mike Trumpy...
"I thought Mike ran with an attitude, he ran hard and was decisive. Some of the previous games, the looks were similar but we had a zero gain or a negative rush, but Mike turned some of those into one or two-yard gains. Those were his most productive runs because we didn't set ourselves behind the chains and there's a big difference between second-and-12 and second-and-8. Those four yards are huge in whether or not we can be successful. His ability to be a little more decisive than maybe we had been in the previous three games led us to have more success running the ball in the second half. We have a lot of depth so the way guys practice and play will determine what direction we go in. It's a great position to be in as a coach. They all want to play and help our team win, they're all involved in the kicking game, so it's a very productive room for us. That competition is making that room better."
On the fatigue level of his team early last week...
"I thought (tired legs) carried over into last Tuesday's practice, I don't think it carried into Saturday. We backed some things down last week, took some periods off practice based on the communication our guys gave us. That's the program we have. We have open lines of communication and when I met with the leadership council on Monday they alluded to their legs being a little heavy. As a very wise coach I pushed them hard on Tuesday and they were tired after practice. You could see that, so we backed it down on Wednesday and Thursday. I thought we played fast Saturday so the way we adjusted was good. When you're going down and playing in that kind of heat at Rice, then getting back on the plane and flying two-and-a-half hours, that takes a little more out of you than you think."
On the injury status of the secondary...
"I think some guys are going to be practicing more, whether or not we get them back we'll find out as the week moves along and I'll make that announcement on Thursday. I don't think injuries had anything to do with it, I think we had some communication issues that led to big plays and we had guys in position, we just need to make plays. It's not real complicated. I give credit to Central Michigan, their receivers made some nice catches. Fourth-and-15 we have four guys standing around taking pictures of the guy catching the ball. I'd like to see their (photo) reel, they had an awesome camera angle to watch a guy catch the ball. Come on, you have to make a play. But I've also been there, and you have to feel free to be able to go make a play and not worry about the other end. Jerry Brown and Hank do a great job with our secondary and we'll be fine."
His opinion on if a player can lose his job due to injury...
"If you're playing well, you're helping our team win, we're going to play the hot hand. You're not going to lose a job because you were hurt but you have to come back after an injury and produce. The good news is when you get some guys back from injury you have competition. Here we go back to that broken record, but what we've tried to do is create a program where we have competition, top to bottom, at every position. We don't walk in after Kenosha and say, `All right, jobs are done, everyone's good, we'll talk at the end of the year and maybe in the spring you can compete.' It's the other way around. Every rep matters. Every play counts in practice and games. Our guys understand that and we reserve the right to play the best 11 guys every play regardless of what's happened, I don't care if you're a senior or a walk-on. I think that's why our guys enjoy playing here, they know if they compete they have a chance to play. You can't make the club in the tub so you have to get healthy if you're going to make the trip."
On on-field communication issues...
"It was all on the field. We didn't hand-signal well enough, it was the loudest we've had our crowd in a long time, that's a good problem to have and a good challenge. I can't remember the last time I had to use crowd noise (in practice) before home games to get our defense ready. Lesson learned, bad coaching and we'll fix it for Purdue. Playing on the road, we'll have crowd noise for our offense this week. But gosh, it's a great problem and I don't know if I've been this excited about it in a long time."
On Niko Mafuli...
"He's just stayed the course. I thought he had a solid offseason, came into camp in the best shape of his career then had a little setback at Vandy, but he's back sooner than we thought he'd be back. That's because of him and our athletic training staff, an advantage of us not being school so Niko had two weeks to rehab that 24/7 before we started class, so that credit goes to him and our athletic trainers. He's having fun because he's out there playing more, and I'm proud of him. He has a great attitude and I love coaching him."
On who the quarterback of the defensive unit is...
"It goes from the centerfielder to the pitcher, our safeties to our linebackers. Then it kind of goes the other way on other calls. That's a 12-man operation, it's on us as coaches to make sure we're not giving our guys too much on their plate, then also the guys making sure they're communicating. We can be a lot better there. It's the first time it's really been an issue so maybe we didn't have them as prepared for the crowd noise as we need to. We're not looking for excuses, just finding ways to create solutions."
On the rotation of defensive linemen...
"It's depth. We're trying to get our best 11 and play guys to their strengths. Some of it is dictated by the personnel of the offense, some is dictated by the situation - third down, red zone, goal line. When you have guys who are close on the depth chart, if you give them all some sort of role in the game plan, it makes them that much more attentive and helps them prepare a little more consistently. If guys are playing well we're going to keep them in. You'll see more of Corbin Bryant and Jack DiNardo, but you'll see other guys with more specific roles. When we get into nickel situations, we look for our four best pass rushers, who can affect the quarterback. We've done that for years. A couple years ago we put Corey Wootton on the nose position in the bowl game. We're going to be creative and try do some things we see on tape to help our guys be successful. Our staff does a great job with their defense."
On opening the playbook when Big Ten season starts...
"I think we've been pretty open, we've been creative. We're playing to win every game so I don't think there's any thought of `Let's hold out chapter four and save that for Purdue.' There's no discussion like that in any of our meetings. What are we doing, what are our strengths, how can we continue to play to that and build complements after that so we're not too predictable. It's all about execution. You can be as creative as you want, if you don't go out and execute it won't matter. We saw Rice jump into a trick formation and we tackled them for an eight-yard TFL. We practiced that one time because we thought they might jump into it. It's not always about trickeration and gimmickry it's about execution in all three phases. We're not there yet, we need to do a better job coaching our guys and playing to our strengths, but we're definitely improving."
On Minnesota native Bryce McNaul...
"Oh I know (Minnesota offered him a scholarship). Absolutely. Tim Brewster came in the year we were recruiting him so there's no question the Gophers recruited him. I think it was because of the relationship we had built with Bryce and his family prior to the coaching change. We had him already committed and I remember Tim saying they were going to do everything they could to keep every player in state, so we took that to mean they were at least going to give guys an opportunity to see if it was a fit. That happens every year when there are coaching changes so I think it was all about the relationship and trust we had. It had nothing to do with him wearing No. 51."
On NU's dominance in the third quarter this season...
"We've adjusted a little at halftime, not as much as one might think. We've settled down a little at halftime a couple games. You think about the second quarter vs. Vanderbilt, we lost momentum then came out and seized it. Same thing at Rice. I don't know if it's as much how we're playing in the third quarter as it is we need to play better in the second quarter. That's how I look at it right now, the area we can really improve and that's the second quarter. We need to finish drives, get up the field. We've given up scores twice in two-minute drills at the end of the first half. We can't do that and expect to win Big Ten football games so there is a lot to correct, the good news is our guys' attitudes were great today. They came in and took a look at the tape critically, I had a great leadership council meeting, they understand what they need to work on and they're hungry to do it. Danny has started only four games, we have a lot of young guys. I told you last Monday it would be a stiff test based on what we saw on tape and it's the same thing this week. This is the best team we've played. They have great athletes all over the field. Timmy has recruited outstanding, they're getting guys back in the secondary this week, their offensive line is huge, Adam Weber has been there for 18 years. I thought Eric Decker might be coming back watching the tape. That combination was deadly for a couple years. I don't know if there is a better athlete in the country. He's 230 pounds and runs the way he does, he's impressive to watch."
