Oct. 27, 2008

Coach Wannstedt Press Conference

Oct. 27, 2008

Notre Dame Week

 

Opening Comments:

“The first point that everyone will want to discuss is the status of Bill Stull. I’m not going to give you a whole lot of other personnel issues at this time because right now we’re still working through some possibilities at a couple other spots. The quarterback situation is that Billy was at practice yesterday observing things. We’re just going to take things with him day-to-day. Everything we’ve received from Billy and everything that we’ve received from the doctors has been nothing but positive, so that’s good news. It has not been determined whether he will play, or how much, or what his status is this week – that will be made at a later time. As far as other personnel things from the game, Robb Houser will have surgery tomorrow and at this point on the depth chart, C.J. (Davis) is listed as the center but we are evaluating that position and we’ll make a determination on what combination of players gives us the best chance to win this week. So it’s on the depth chart that C.J. will be the center but, again, that’s yet to be finalized. As to who is moving where or who is going to move to guard or tackle, it’s too early to talk about that right now. The last thing from the game, I’d like to make one point that I thought our players as a group, as ugly as some of the situations were Saturday, they never gave up. With nine-and-a-half-minutes to go and the score 31-34, we’re going to have the ball at the 40-yard line and we shoot ourselves in the foot again with a turnover. But then we fight back from that with 10 minutes to go in the game and it’s a 10-point game and we’re driving, and we turn it over again. So what I’m saying is that we were not the best team for three hours on Saturday. That’s evident. That’s why we didn’t win the game. Everybody would like to zero in on one particular play or player but that was not the case. This was a situation where as many good things as we did on offense and as many disappointing things as we did on defense, that ultimately was not the only reason why we didn’t win. We had good meetings yesterday with our players. We watched and evaluated the tape. We had a good practice last night. Our guys were disappointed as I expected them to be, but at the same time they came in and worked hard yesterday. They understand that everything that we talked about being able to obtain this season is still out there for us to get. We just have to go out and make it happen.”

 

 On the surprise of Rutgers offensive performance:

“We weren’t fooled by Rutgers’ numbers coming into the game against us. I stood up here a week ago and talked about the fact that even though they had not been producing a lot of offense or a lot of points, that both of their receivers will be playing in the NFL and both were 1,000-yard receiver guys a year ago. Their quarterback, I thought, was one of the better quarterbacks in the Big East two years ago. The players were there. The ability level was there. It just hadn’t happened. Why did it happen (against us)? A couple of times it was mental breakdowns, the other times they (Rutgers) just made great plays. The one down the middle of the field with Aaron Berry, he had the guy covered and he wasn’t fooled but we don’t make the play. So again, some of them were physical and some of them where mental. The thing that Rutgers did was they came out and threw the ball early. They hit a couple plays and then stayed with that game plan. I thought in the second half we settled down a little bit. We finally got into a little bit of a routine. I think we made them punt two or three times in a row but we weren’t able to generate anything offensively from that.

 

Now look at the other side of the coin; their defense had been giving up only (11 points) a game the last four weeks...to be honest, in the back of my mind, I was thinking about how we were going to score 17 points against them. Yet we come out with (nearly) 500 yards of offense. I think it was a complete flip on both sides. I think we didn’t expect to give up any points on defense and on the other hand, we weren’t sure how many points we could score on them. I wouldn’t have gone for the fake field goal if I would have known that we would have scored as many points as we did. I went for the fake field goal thinking that every chance we get to score or make first downs, we’re going to need the football.”

 

On trying different schemes against Rutgers:

“Most of what they did was play-pass. You could double cover those guys but to be honest with you I believed that they were going to come in and run the football. Every time we’ve played these guys they’ve run the football, played defense and played special teams. That’s how they beat Connecticut the week before. So we went in thinking that on first and 10, we needed to stop the run and we got hit by a big pass.”

 

On Rutgers Head Coach Greg Schiano’s game plan:

“I don’t know that what they did was his plan coming in. When they hit the first big play, they came back to it and had success. But that doesn’t have any bearing on it. You’re coaching with players you have and trying to utilize everybody you have. It changes every year and every game.”

 

On the mental mistakes:

“On the touchdowns, yes, those were the first times I’ve seen that happen. On the other side of the coin, if you go back and watch the Rutgers tape, they’ve had guys open, almost on a weekly basis. They would either overthrow them or drop the ball and things happen and they didn’t complete them. There’s still no excuse for it. We have to be better than that. We have to coach them better than that and we have to be fundamentally a heck of a lot more sound.”

 

On defensive changes in the second half:

“We did a couple things differently. But really, when they were running those routes in the first half, they kept both backs in and the tight ends. They were sending two receivers out and it was maximum protection. They neutralized our defensive line – I think they only ran five or six running plays the whole first half so Scott McKillop wasn’t much of a factor. They blocked us up front on play-pass but not on third down. If you look at third downs, I think they converted five of 15 third down conversions. So when they knew it was pass and we knew it was pass, we did a decent job. We’ve been around the thirty percentile every week – which is pretty good. It was the first-and-ten play passes that cost us.”

 

On the idea that future opponents will look to pass more:

“Yeah, I would think so. I would. Notre Dame may throw it 60 times this week.”

 

On Notre Dame’s offense:

“We expect them to come out and throw the football. That’s what they’ve been doing. They have been throwing it and I think their quarterback is getting better. He’s got a lot of talent. Last year was a rough year on him but he’s gotten better. They have a lot of receivers who can make a lot of plays for him. He’s got a good supporting cast. They came out against North Carolina and ran the first 15 plays without a running back on the field. They went with four wide receivers and a tight end and throw it every down. They did that by choice. I expect them to come in against us and be balanced. They’ll probably run the ball and play-passes. It’s no different than they’ve been doing. They try to be balanced but they ran it 50 times last week against Washington for 250 yards. They are very capable of running the football.”

 

On utilizing LeSean McCoy and the running game a little more:

“I think we’ll have to wait and see how the week unfolds. I think our running game has been the backbone of what we’ve done. I think our ability to run the ball has allowed us to throw the ball a little more than we’ve been able to in the past. I think it’s been a combination of both and you can’t abandon one or the other. We’re going to have to throw the ball to score enough points – there’s no question about that.”

 

On the possibility of Greg Cross being involved in the offense:

“He could. We’ll wait and see once we start finalizing our game plan and take a look at what they’re doing on defense and what gives us the best chance.”

 

On the possibility of some depth chart changes:

“Well Ricky Gary played a little bit as did Elijah Fields. We had a couple of packages on Saturday where we had both those guys on the field at the same time. We’ll continue with that. I’m not going to stand up here and tell you that we’re going to have changes but we are evaluating everyone on what we’re doing and who we’re dealing with.”

 

On changes to the punt return game:

“We’re evaluating that too. You’re constantly trying to make the best decisions and we want to handle the ball. Sometimes you have a guy returning back there who we feel can catch it but might not give you the best chance to get a good return but, yes, we’ve definitely put the ball on the ground a few times and we need to fix that.”

 

On the possibility of still being able to contend for the Big East title:

“That’s not the focus. I did not address that yesterday with the team. I told them the same thing I’m telling you know – we can take this thing as far as we want to take it – but what and how is really insignificant. We’re totally focused on Notre Dame and playing this game this week. We’re trying to find a way to get win number six. What everybody else does or how it all plays out – there’s a lot of football left.”

 

On Pat Bostick now compared to last year:

“I would hope that he would have a lot better understanding of what it takes to go out there and perform. I would hope that he would have a lot better of an understanding of the offense that we’re running. I think he’s definitely more prepared today than he was a year ago today. We didn’t do one thing different Saturday when he came in. It’s unfortunate that he made three nice throws and took us down the field and then he got some pressure in his face and we had the turnover.”

 

On Notre Dame being a non-conference game:

“I don’t think it has any factor. It’s a big national TV game and one that we have to go out and win to get back on the winning track, regardless of who we’re playing. It has no bearing at this point as to who we’re playing.”

 

On talking to the players about the mystique of Notre Dame:

“That’s probably something I’ll talk to them about at a later time. Right now our only thought process is to get the game plan in. We want to go out and work and get better fundamentally. We have to coach better and we have to play better. As the week goes on, I’ll probably address the idea because I’ve played and coached a bunch of times up there.”

 

On the big wins coming on the road:

“That’s really what is so disappointing to me personally to be very honest. As a team, we want to play well and win that game last week for a lot of reasons. Those kids are playing in front of their families, coaches, friends and fellow students. Why we’ve had the big wins on the road, I don’t know the answer. I can tell you that we didn’t prepare any different last week or take anything for granted.”

 

On Jonathan Baldwin’s production in the offense:

“I don’t think there’s really much that he hasn’t seen…Right now he’s in the regular rotation. I think he played about 60 percent of the game and we’ll continue that. The way we’re rotating Kinder and all those guys, Jonathan will get more than his share of plays.”

 

On the difference between Notre Dame in 2005 and this season:

“Defensively…they’ve got (Jon Tenuta) from Georgia Tech so they’re bringing a lot more blitz and pressure than what they were doing three years ago. Offensively, the running plays from 2005 are very similar. He (Charlie Weis) hasn’t really changed that. They had a veteran group in 2005 in terms of the line and their backs. It was the quarterback’s first start in his system and he threw a bunch of screens. They were probably a bit more conservative passing-wise at that point and more with the run. Now being in the system and being around the kids, it will be a little more wide open. That will be the difference between then and now.”

 

On Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen:

“He’s getting better. I think you can see the talent. He’s a better athlete than what I first thought. By that, I mean that when he gets under pressure he can move around and make all the throws. I know that’s a coach’s cliché, but there’s some truth to that. I’ve seen him throw the deep-outs across the field. They’ll throw deep balls up. I guarantee we’re going to get half a dozen on Saturday. They’re going to take their shots. One guy can’t cover everybody and we’ve only got four guys in the secondary so we need to find ways to get certain players matched up. We do the same thing with Jonathan Baldwin. We try and move people around and get situations where a guy like him will be in one-on-one coverage.”

 

On LeSean McCoy’s improved running vision:

“I thought that our offensive coaches had a very good plan on how to attack Rutgers and all their movements and pressures. That’s a credit to the blockers but also a credit to LeSean. He knew where the crease would be and he just wasn’t out there getting the ball and running. He’s maturing and starting to see the big picture. Yes you have to run reckless but at the same time you have to do the little things and I think that’s what everyone’s seeing.”