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The Skip Report: 2015 Big Ten Media Day Primer
7/29/2015 5:00:00 PM | Football
Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald meets the nation's press Friday at the Big Ten's annual Football Media Day in Chicago. Before doing that he sat down to discuss the coming season with NUsports.com contributor Skip Myslenski, who opened their conversation with the question that's on every Wildcat fan's mind.
So. Who's your quarterback?
(A smile). One of three guys (senior Zack Oliver, sophomore Matt Alviti or redshirt freshman Clayton Thorson). Yeah, one of three guys. It'll be interesting to see how these next three weeks play out.
Is that good because it promotes competition? Or is it bad because you can't spend the fall honing a finished product?
I think it's really good. I think it's all about competition. When you don't have the success that you want, the consistency that you want, even if you were a starter last year, I don't think you should feel (secure). I mean, there's a handful of guys who have not relinquished their role and have really improved. The VanHoooses (senior corner Nick). The Harrises (junior corner Matt). The Henrys (senior safety Traveon). The Lowrys (senior defensive end Dean). The Gibsons of the world (senior defensive end Deonte). The Walkers of the world (sophomore linebacker Anthony). Offensively, the Moguses (offensive lineman Geoff), the Vitales (superback Dan). I could go on. But there are other guys who have not solidified their starting roles and there's guys who have been pushing them and/or want that same role. When we've been consistently successful here, that competition has really helped us improve. So we may play more players than we ever have this year. I don't know that yet. That'll play out. Especially as I've watched our freshmen (both true and redshirt) over the last five-and-a-half weeks, I really like the athleticism in that group. So we'll see. We've got to make sure we can't have happen what happened a year ago. When we got to the midpoint of the season, our depth got rocked and we just didn't have that competition. And when you have that lack of competition, as a program, you kind of handcuff yourself. You're just not able to continue to develop and grow as the season goes along. We can't do that again.
And when that depth got rocked, you've mentioned this before, wasn't it true that some of those twos weren't ready to be ones?
I think that was somewhat of a problem. I also think that, when those guys were put into their new-found roles and didn't have the success we all had anticipated, my answer was, 'No one.' That's a problem. That's a major problem. Way too many drops. Way too many mistakes in the kicking game. I think of the Minnesota game, that cost us the game (the Gophers' winning points came on a 100-yard kickoff return). Way too many turnovers late in the season that cost us a game (five in the season-ending loss to Illinois). You can just go through a lot of those things. So we've got to continue developing that competitive depth.
All that said, do you have a sense of what you have in this team yet?
Yeah I do. I feel really good, I feel good about what they've done since January. I think we're back to where we were a couple years ago. I think these guys have a brotherhood and a chemistry about them. I think they have love for each other. I know, like on every team, not everybody likes each other. That's OK. I'm all right with that. But I think there's a really strong brotherhood. I think the guys are all about the team. I feel like we're back to where we were a few years ago, when I felt we were poised to start to do some things. Now we've got to go do it, we've got to go earn it. That's going to be the thing. Everything we do, we're going to have to earn.
Is that something you stressed? Or let me ask it this way. Your new Leadership Council was elected in January. What was its point of emphasis to you or your point of emphasis to that group?
We collectively, totally agreed that our team needed to come together, and the brotherhood and chemistry needed to get back to where it had been. Some of our older guys were part of multiple teams that had it and then multiple teams that didn't have it, and they saw the evidence of success. Trust me. It's not the reason. But its the catalyst and it's the glue. What I mean by that, it's the catalyst to the attitude, it's the catalyst to the energy, it's the catalyst to creating those genuine relationships so when it gets hard, so when issues arise, so when there's adversity, that's the glue that keeps it all together. We had a hallmark here, a pretty strong calling card here, that we won a lo-o-o-ot of close games. You can play the stat game and say it all evens out in the end. Well, not for everybody, not if you keep that being your strength. Obviously, now I think we're 3-8 over the last two years in close games. Over time, we're more 8-3. Well, go 5-6, go .500 in those games (over the last two years), we're playing in the post-season for seven straight years. So we've got to get back to doing those things we've always done. We've kind of thrived in that moment and we've got to get our confidence level back to that, and I think that comes from having those genuine relationships and the trust that's forged because of that.
Is there any value in looking back and examining why you lost that?
I think everybody knows. I think they know. I think we've moved on and the guys have really focused inward. I think they've focused on us and we've had our focus a little more singular than global. I'm proud of the guys, proud of the way they've worked through things. I think they and we have collectively been the target of due criticism because we've raised expectations, and I think that's a great thing. But that has nothing to do with the outcome of anything we do, and if you focus on things that don't matter, you put yourself in a recipe for disaster. That's what we've had the last couple of years. We've had plenty of opportunities to win a lot of games. The opportunities have been there and we've beaten ourselves. Again. It's a hallmark of what we haven't done around here. We've played really smart football, really strong fundamental football. We've been a team, if we lose, you're typically going to have to beat us. In the last two years, we've beaten ourselves.
When you say criticism, you mean the criticism you've gotten for losing?
Yeah. Sure.
And you feel that's deserved?
No doubt. I don't think anybody's a harder critic on themselves than themselves. So, preaching to the choir. And sometimes that can be a really good motivator, you know. But I don't like our guys focusing too much on the past that they can't control.
But they're not a happy group because of that past.
No. I think it's the other way around. I think they're a group that's realized you can't have your focus spread this way (here he holds his arms wide). It can't happen. It does not work, not in a team game. So I think they've started to hone things back in and focus on what we need to do. What's important right now? What are we doing right now? Don't worry about all the other stuff. There's a time and a place for that. But you preach and you preach and you preach, eliminate distractions in your life, and they've got more on their plate-- this generation's got more on their plate, and they allow it to be there. They give it away, they give away their trust, they let everyone follow them on Instagram and all this other nonsense. It's just one big distraction after another.
Isn't it interesting that (the golfer) Jordan Spieth turns off his phone during major tournaments?
That's why he's the best in the world. That's why he's the best in the world. He's got a purpose. He's got a singleness of purpose, and he's got a focus. Again, that's been one of our hallmarks here and that's what we'll continue to stress as we move through camp.
All through spring, there was an emphasis on finding the best 11, no matter their position. Beside the obvious aim of getting your best players on the field, is part of that approach a way to catalyze the competition you talked about earlier?
Again, there's some schools of thought here. If you've got clear-cut starters, they're probably going to be your guys and you're going to run with that. To me, those are All-Big Ten level players, and I think we've got a handful of those guys. Then that next group of starters are not quite at that level yet, and it all has to do with the guys pushing them. If the guys pushing them are close and we've got pretty close to a neck-and-neck competition going on, there's two ways to do it. Play 'em both. Play 'em both, especially early, and let competition--not only practice, but real competition--be the determining factor of where we're going to go from Big Ten play on. We've done that some. Will we do that more than we ever have? Potentially. If this were game week right now, I'd say you will probably see more of that than you've ever seen in our program, at least since I've been head coach. They're that close and hopefully that group will now kick up to where we get where we were a few years ago. Shocking, the lack of All-Big Ten players the last two years. Shocking to me where our record's (been) at. I thought there were some guys who were going to take that next step, and again that starts with us as coaches. We've got to get them there. But you've got to make plays, man. Players make plays. I think we have some talent. But they've got to make it happen, and we've got to get them confident enough to do that consistently in the arena.
Obviously one of those competitions is at running back (where the group includes junior Warren Long, sophomores Justin Jackson and Solomon Vault, and redshirt freshman Auston Anderson). And obviously you're not going to reveal what your plans for them are. But during the spring there was talk that they were competing for playing time not only among themselves, but also against the wide receivers and superbacks.
And the other way around. The offensive skill set, who's going to be the best 11, and then we'll put the pieces of the puzzle together. Again, going back to players, formations, plays. We'll figure it out as we go through camp, similar to the quarterback position. We've got a pretty good idea as we sit here today. A lot of guys have had a great off-season. And some guys look outstanding in shorts. But this is not a shorts game. I look forward to when they get hit back, especially offensively. Everybody looks good in shorts offensively. But until someone knocks your lips off and I see how you respond to it, that determines whether you'll be in that top 11-plus.
But we both know the offense always starts with the line, and last year you often mentioned it suffered from paralysis of analysis. How do you get over that?
Simplify, which we thought we did a year ago. Simplify even more. Again, I think that's one of those positions that I'm talking about where I think we've got an All Big Ten level guy in Mogus (who played guard in the past, but worked at tackle in the spring). Then the rest is going to be a lot of competition. A lot of competition. Through that we're going to find guys that are going to go out there and play consistently.
But an offensive line has to work together to be effective. So when do you have to settle on five so they can grow into a cohesive unit?
You'd like to have it yesterday, right? But that's not the case, and I don't think you can force that. It organically has to happen. If you force that-- I think the game's changed a little bit. When you research some guys--and we've done a lot of research, as you can imagine--I think you have to have guys prepared up there to play multiple positions. Gone is the left tackle. OK. We're a spread offense. The left tackle is significant, trust me. He's got the blind side of our quarterback. I've got all that. But if our best tackle is our left tackle and his backup is pretty darn good, that backup's got to be ready to play right tackle too.
Then what about the interior of the defensive line?
We'll be fine. We'll play a lot of guys. When you get to the fall, you're trying to get to a pair and a spare. If you can have eight-plus-two, if you can have 10 guys in a rotation, you've got a shot. That's what we'll look to do.
(A chuckle) So a fan out there, reading this, he's going to think, "I'm not quite sure what I'm going to see this fall."
That should be exciting to you. I'd be excited. I'd be bored if I knew exactly what I was going to get. But we're the same way every year. We've had this conversation 10 straight years.
I don't remember there ever being this much uncertainty.
I think it's been similar. I really do. You go back, the quarterback situation, this is our third or fourth time being here now. For years, it was who's going to be the running back? The O line, wow, the O line is unknown, then we go out-- even last year, a guy (Jackson) who didn't even start the whole year ran for 1,400 yards. I think the overall theme is we're going to have to earn everything we achieve and there's going to need to be a higher level of consistency across the board in our football team, but especially offensively, for us to get where we want to go.
Finally, in the spring you said you didn't have to make any decisions about the depth chart until a week before the opener. Still true?
As we sit here today, yeah. We haven't played. If I were Chris Collins, we'd already have had a bunch of practices and I could tell you where we're at. I think, go back to the fan question, I think that's what makes this game so much fun. If I'm a fan right now, I'm sitting there looking at the Power 65 schools, we're all undefeated. There's a handful who feel, "No doubt we're playing for the national championship." There's a group in the middle that says, "You know what. We've got a lot coming back and there's higher expectations." And then there's a group like us, maybe we've underachieved the last few years as far as our record goes. But then you look at it as a coach and you say, "I think we're a little bit closer than maybe our record indicates and now we've got to be the catalysts as coaches to get us to that point."
As a fan you're, "Oh my gosh. The sky's falling. How good are we going to be?" To me that's what makes college football exciting, and every year it's about the same thing. There's guys who have a returning quarterback, and that quarterback isn't going to play very well. And then there's going to be schools like us that don't have a returning quarterback and you're going to go, "Wow, we didn't see that coming." We didn't expect (Kain) Colter and (Trevor) Siemian. How are you going to replace (Dan) Persa? How are you going to replace (Mike) Kafka? How are you going to replace (C.J.) Bacher? Gosh, didn't see that coming with Kafka.
Let's back up to be sure I understand you correctly-- you're one of those coaches who believes you're closer than your record indicates?
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You've watched those games. Again, I'll just pick one area. We've been really good in the fourth quarter and won a lot of (close) games over my time. If you take out the last two years, we've been really good, one of the best in the country. You add the last two years in, there's the reason we've stayed home. And that's just one area before I start talking about all the other things we've just talked about. So if we can improve and get back to who we've been-- we've got plenty of guys on the varsity, the third-, fourth-, fifth-year groups, that have been a part of those (successful) teams.
I think those types of (close) wins are forged in the summer, are forged in the off-season, and we've had our best off-season this summer than we've had in the previous two. That's what gives me great encouragement. I think it's a great opportunity.
So. Who's your quarterback?
(A smile). One of three guys (senior Zack Oliver, sophomore Matt Alviti or redshirt freshman Clayton Thorson). Yeah, one of three guys. It'll be interesting to see how these next three weeks play out.
Is that good because it promotes competition? Or is it bad because you can't spend the fall honing a finished product?
I think it's really good. I think it's all about competition. When you don't have the success that you want, the consistency that you want, even if you were a starter last year, I don't think you should feel (secure). I mean, there's a handful of guys who have not relinquished their role and have really improved. The VanHoooses (senior corner Nick). The Harrises (junior corner Matt). The Henrys (senior safety Traveon). The Lowrys (senior defensive end Dean). The Gibsons of the world (senior defensive end Deonte). The Walkers of the world (sophomore linebacker Anthony). Offensively, the Moguses (offensive lineman Geoff), the Vitales (superback Dan). I could go on. But there are other guys who have not solidified their starting roles and there's guys who have been pushing them and/or want that same role. When we've been consistently successful here, that competition has really helped us improve. So we may play more players than we ever have this year. I don't know that yet. That'll play out. Especially as I've watched our freshmen (both true and redshirt) over the last five-and-a-half weeks, I really like the athleticism in that group. So we'll see. We've got to make sure we can't have happen what happened a year ago. When we got to the midpoint of the season, our depth got rocked and we just didn't have that competition. And when you have that lack of competition, as a program, you kind of handcuff yourself. You're just not able to continue to develop and grow as the season goes along. We can't do that again.
And when that depth got rocked, you've mentioned this before, wasn't it true that some of those twos weren't ready to be ones?
I think that was somewhat of a problem. I also think that, when those guys were put into their new-found roles and didn't have the success we all had anticipated, my answer was, 'No one.' That's a problem. That's a major problem. Way too many drops. Way too many mistakes in the kicking game. I think of the Minnesota game, that cost us the game (the Gophers' winning points came on a 100-yard kickoff return). Way too many turnovers late in the season that cost us a game (five in the season-ending loss to Illinois). You can just go through a lot of those things. So we've got to continue developing that competitive depth.
All that said, do you have a sense of what you have in this team yet?
Yeah I do. I feel really good, I feel good about what they've done since January. I think we're back to where we were a couple years ago. I think these guys have a brotherhood and a chemistry about them. I think they have love for each other. I know, like on every team, not everybody likes each other. That's OK. I'm all right with that. But I think there's a really strong brotherhood. I think the guys are all about the team. I feel like we're back to where we were a few years ago, when I felt we were poised to start to do some things. Now we've got to go do it, we've got to go earn it. That's going to be the thing. Everything we do, we're going to have to earn.
Is that something you stressed? Or let me ask it this way. Your new Leadership Council was elected in January. What was its point of emphasis to you or your point of emphasis to that group?
We collectively, totally agreed that our team needed to come together, and the brotherhood and chemistry needed to get back to where it had been. Some of our older guys were part of multiple teams that had it and then multiple teams that didn't have it, and they saw the evidence of success. Trust me. It's not the reason. But its the catalyst and it's the glue. What I mean by that, it's the catalyst to the attitude, it's the catalyst to the energy, it's the catalyst to creating those genuine relationships so when it gets hard, so when issues arise, so when there's adversity, that's the glue that keeps it all together. We had a hallmark here, a pretty strong calling card here, that we won a lo-o-o-ot of close games. You can play the stat game and say it all evens out in the end. Well, not for everybody, not if you keep that being your strength. Obviously, now I think we're 3-8 over the last two years in close games. Over time, we're more 8-3. Well, go 5-6, go .500 in those games (over the last two years), we're playing in the post-season for seven straight years. So we've got to get back to doing those things we've always done. We've kind of thrived in that moment and we've got to get our confidence level back to that, and I think that comes from having those genuine relationships and the trust that's forged because of that.
Is there any value in looking back and examining why you lost that?
I think everybody knows. I think they know. I think we've moved on and the guys have really focused inward. I think they've focused on us and we've had our focus a little more singular than global. I'm proud of the guys, proud of the way they've worked through things. I think they and we have collectively been the target of due criticism because we've raised expectations, and I think that's a great thing. But that has nothing to do with the outcome of anything we do, and if you focus on things that don't matter, you put yourself in a recipe for disaster. That's what we've had the last couple of years. We've had plenty of opportunities to win a lot of games. The opportunities have been there and we've beaten ourselves. Again. It's a hallmark of what we haven't done around here. We've played really smart football, really strong fundamental football. We've been a team, if we lose, you're typically going to have to beat us. In the last two years, we've beaten ourselves.
When you say criticism, you mean the criticism you've gotten for losing?
Yeah. Sure.
And you feel that's deserved?
No doubt. I don't think anybody's a harder critic on themselves than themselves. So, preaching to the choir. And sometimes that can be a really good motivator, you know. But I don't like our guys focusing too much on the past that they can't control.
But they're not a happy group because of that past.
No. I think it's the other way around. I think they're a group that's realized you can't have your focus spread this way (here he holds his arms wide). It can't happen. It does not work, not in a team game. So I think they've started to hone things back in and focus on what we need to do. What's important right now? What are we doing right now? Don't worry about all the other stuff. There's a time and a place for that. But you preach and you preach and you preach, eliminate distractions in your life, and they've got more on their plate-- this generation's got more on their plate, and they allow it to be there. They give it away, they give away their trust, they let everyone follow them on Instagram and all this other nonsense. It's just one big distraction after another.
Isn't it interesting that (the golfer) Jordan Spieth turns off his phone during major tournaments?
That's why he's the best in the world. That's why he's the best in the world. He's got a purpose. He's got a singleness of purpose, and he's got a focus. Again, that's been one of our hallmarks here and that's what we'll continue to stress as we move through camp.
All through spring, there was an emphasis on finding the best 11, no matter their position. Beside the obvious aim of getting your best players on the field, is part of that approach a way to catalyze the competition you talked about earlier?
Again, there's some schools of thought here. If you've got clear-cut starters, they're probably going to be your guys and you're going to run with that. To me, those are All-Big Ten level players, and I think we've got a handful of those guys. Then that next group of starters are not quite at that level yet, and it all has to do with the guys pushing them. If the guys pushing them are close and we've got pretty close to a neck-and-neck competition going on, there's two ways to do it. Play 'em both. Play 'em both, especially early, and let competition--not only practice, but real competition--be the determining factor of where we're going to go from Big Ten play on. We've done that some. Will we do that more than we ever have? Potentially. If this were game week right now, I'd say you will probably see more of that than you've ever seen in our program, at least since I've been head coach. They're that close and hopefully that group will now kick up to where we get where we were a few years ago. Shocking, the lack of All-Big Ten players the last two years. Shocking to me where our record's (been) at. I thought there were some guys who were going to take that next step, and again that starts with us as coaches. We've got to get them there. But you've got to make plays, man. Players make plays. I think we have some talent. But they've got to make it happen, and we've got to get them confident enough to do that consistently in the arena.
Obviously one of those competitions is at running back (where the group includes junior Warren Long, sophomores Justin Jackson and Solomon Vault, and redshirt freshman Auston Anderson). And obviously you're not going to reveal what your plans for them are. But during the spring there was talk that they were competing for playing time not only among themselves, but also against the wide receivers and superbacks.
And the other way around. The offensive skill set, who's going to be the best 11, and then we'll put the pieces of the puzzle together. Again, going back to players, formations, plays. We'll figure it out as we go through camp, similar to the quarterback position. We've got a pretty good idea as we sit here today. A lot of guys have had a great off-season. And some guys look outstanding in shorts. But this is not a shorts game. I look forward to when they get hit back, especially offensively. Everybody looks good in shorts offensively. But until someone knocks your lips off and I see how you respond to it, that determines whether you'll be in that top 11-plus.
But we both know the offense always starts with the line, and last year you often mentioned it suffered from paralysis of analysis. How do you get over that?
Simplify, which we thought we did a year ago. Simplify even more. Again, I think that's one of those positions that I'm talking about where I think we've got an All Big Ten level guy in Mogus (who played guard in the past, but worked at tackle in the spring). Then the rest is going to be a lot of competition. A lot of competition. Through that we're going to find guys that are going to go out there and play consistently.
But an offensive line has to work together to be effective. So when do you have to settle on five so they can grow into a cohesive unit?
You'd like to have it yesterday, right? But that's not the case, and I don't think you can force that. It organically has to happen. If you force that-- I think the game's changed a little bit. When you research some guys--and we've done a lot of research, as you can imagine--I think you have to have guys prepared up there to play multiple positions. Gone is the left tackle. OK. We're a spread offense. The left tackle is significant, trust me. He's got the blind side of our quarterback. I've got all that. But if our best tackle is our left tackle and his backup is pretty darn good, that backup's got to be ready to play right tackle too.
Then what about the interior of the defensive line?
We'll be fine. We'll play a lot of guys. When you get to the fall, you're trying to get to a pair and a spare. If you can have eight-plus-two, if you can have 10 guys in a rotation, you've got a shot. That's what we'll look to do.
(A chuckle) So a fan out there, reading this, he's going to think, "I'm not quite sure what I'm going to see this fall."
That should be exciting to you. I'd be excited. I'd be bored if I knew exactly what I was going to get. But we're the same way every year. We've had this conversation 10 straight years.
I don't remember there ever being this much uncertainty.
I think it's been similar. I really do. You go back, the quarterback situation, this is our third or fourth time being here now. For years, it was who's going to be the running back? The O line, wow, the O line is unknown, then we go out-- even last year, a guy (Jackson) who didn't even start the whole year ran for 1,400 yards. I think the overall theme is we're going to have to earn everything we achieve and there's going to need to be a higher level of consistency across the board in our football team, but especially offensively, for us to get where we want to go.
Finally, in the spring you said you didn't have to make any decisions about the depth chart until a week before the opener. Still true?
As we sit here today, yeah. We haven't played. If I were Chris Collins, we'd already have had a bunch of practices and I could tell you where we're at. I think, go back to the fan question, I think that's what makes this game so much fun. If I'm a fan right now, I'm sitting there looking at the Power 65 schools, we're all undefeated. There's a handful who feel, "No doubt we're playing for the national championship." There's a group in the middle that says, "You know what. We've got a lot coming back and there's higher expectations." And then there's a group like us, maybe we've underachieved the last few years as far as our record goes. But then you look at it as a coach and you say, "I think we're a little bit closer than maybe our record indicates and now we've got to be the catalysts as coaches to get us to that point."
As a fan you're, "Oh my gosh. The sky's falling. How good are we going to be?" To me that's what makes college football exciting, and every year it's about the same thing. There's guys who have a returning quarterback, and that quarterback isn't going to play very well. And then there's going to be schools like us that don't have a returning quarterback and you're going to go, "Wow, we didn't see that coming." We didn't expect (Kain) Colter and (Trevor) Siemian. How are you going to replace (Dan) Persa? How are you going to replace (Mike) Kafka? How are you going to replace (C.J.) Bacher? Gosh, didn't see that coming with Kafka.
Let's back up to be sure I understand you correctly-- you're one of those coaches who believes you're closer than your record indicates?
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You've watched those games. Again, I'll just pick one area. We've been really good in the fourth quarter and won a lot of (close) games over my time. If you take out the last two years, we've been really good, one of the best in the country. You add the last two years in, there's the reason we've stayed home. And that's just one area before I start talking about all the other things we've just talked about. So if we can improve and get back to who we've been-- we've got plenty of guys on the varsity, the third-, fourth-, fifth-year groups, that have been a part of those (successful) teams.
I think those types of (close) wins are forged in the summer, are forged in the off-season, and we've had our best off-season this summer than we've had in the previous two. That's what gives me great encouragement. I think it's a great opportunity.
••••••
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