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UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 8, 2015

Tracy Claeys

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Q. Tracy, your guys got a lot of credit for playing a very good football team. How hard do you have to work so they don't get to believe in that too much or do you want to promote, enjoy your successes?
TRACY CLAEYS: It's still going through the process preparing. That's what good defenses do. Confidence is a lot better to have than to not have, there's no question. Got a good group, and I expect them to work hard and get ready to go.

Q. How did you grade out Cody and Julian in their debuts?
TRACY CLAEYS: Really everybody played pretty solid. We only had a couple assignment mistakes, but none of them were critical-critical.

I thought overall the kids that played in the game, we didn't have anybody just play bad. But obviously we got some things we've got to clean up.

Q. To do the things you did with Julian, like Coach mentioned Denicos Allen, were there any other inspirations for that over the years, like guys who have been able to play D-end like that?
TRACY CLAEYS: Well, when you're playing a -- they don't have a lot of blocking schemes, and so to put somebody on the edge of the defense and he's strong and he's a good athlete, so we got in the injury situation one time at Southern Illinois, and James Cloud played a stand-up backer like that on the edge, too, in the same defense, so we've done it before. This was more of a -- not that Julian is not capable of doing it. This was more for a depth purpose. I didn't want to get down to the end of the game and be tired at defensive end. So we found a way to rep a couple linebackers there the last seven or eight days. That's really the reason for that is we figured we'd probably have to play 90 snaps and wanted to have somebody fresh there.

Q. I know your job is never to be satisfied, but as you've had a few days to look at film and digest this game, how pleased were you with the defense Thursday night?
TRACY CLAEYS: Except for the opening drive of the third quarter, and in that drive, the quarterback, he made a couple plays in there. We had a chance to get them off the field and he made a couple plays. But yeah, I thought, you know -- I think that's probably one of the best offenses in the country for what they do. The quarterback puts you in several conflicts as far as playing the pass or playing the run. And they work at such a high speed.

So I was disappointed we lost, but overall I thought our kids gave us a chance to win. I think had we not missed a couple assignments and cleaned a couple things up, we could have been closer to a 17-point range, which is our goal, and against that much athletic ability, how good they are on offense, I think our kids played pretty good.

Q. What kind of threats are there with a Mike Bobo offense and how much is Higgins a focal point?
TRACY CLAEYS: You know, it's hard to say because the opening game that they played, the running backs made an awful lot of plays in space, and the receivers made a lot of big plays. Again, you've got a little no-huddle thing, but they add the two-back thing to it, so you've got to find a way to work on the two-back running game and play action pass, and then also some big all-tight ends.

The challenge will be you're going to deal with three or four different personnel groups where TCU you're really dealing with two.

That'll be the challenge. Then knowing what they have, you know, we've studied an awful lot of Georgia's film in the off-season to give us an idea of some of the things that he might like to do. But a lot of times offensive coordinators get to be head coaches, and there's things they didn't get to do at the previous school because they weren't the head coach, and so now you see some new wrinkles, and those are the things we're not going to know is what those new wrinkles are. We've got experience back there and we should be able to make the adjustments, at least to get through the series.

Q. It sounds like Travis, we'll see later in the week, but just in terms of your depth if you need to tap into it there, I know that was kind of a concern going into camp, just safety depth, how do you feel about the last month or so?
TRACY CLAEYS: I think we'll be fine there. We'll be fine there. I mean, kids have done good, and I'm not -- we came out of the game really well, so I'm not concerned at all with that.

Q. You've talked in the past about setting a goal as far as points a lot. Do you set any kind of goal with the kids as far as turnovers on the season or in a game --
TRACY CLAEYS: I mean, we have a goal of three a game, but I'll tell you, offenses have a lot to do with that. I think rather than turnovers in general, I think that's overrated. I think turnovers differential tells you a lot. You know, if your offense doesn't turn the ball over and you don't cause any turnovers, you're still going to have a chance to win. And the more turnovers you get, obviously the better your chances are of winning, but I think teams are good at taking care of the ball and tucking the ball away. They're awfully hard to get turnovers on those types of teams.

So we work on it, do all types of drills, but I don't want to be -- I want to rely on good fundamental defense. We get the turnovers, we get the turnovers and don't rely on those to bail us out all the time.

Q. With their receivers, it sounds like there's a lot of -- not just Higgins, but when they've got one at that level, is it tempting to have Murray just be able to pick one of them off like that? How do you play that hand?
TRACY CLAEYS: I guess we'll see when we get there. You know, we just played against some pretty fast people. But all our guys in the secondary played pretty good. It's hard to do things like that when you don't know how people are going to line up. You don't have enough film to know what they're going to line up and all that. We'll just have to see how the game develops and make any adjustments we need to. But right now, we're going to just line up and play.

Q. When you go into that altitude, do you come in prepared to play a few more people, or how do you look at that?
TRACY CLAEYS: No, I think that's overrated myself. I think that's all mental BS. We ain't there long enough for it to bother us. It won't be a factor.

Q. Do you like how the D-line, the pressure and stuff, even though Boykin is so quick getting rid of it?
TRACY CLAEYS: They performed awfully well. You're not going to get a lot of sacks against TCU. He gets the ball out quick, the ball is thrown quick, the way he runs around. So I thought our guys up front put a tremendous amount of pressure on him. He was throwing the ball sooner than he wanted to at times, and for the most part kept him in the pocket or made him scramble to the right places. I thought our defensive line kids did a great job of not getting frustrated because you're just not going to get to him and get a lot of sacks with all the space that they have. I think they performed awfully well.

Q. When you look at the way that last year's TCU game went, the defense really didn't come out -- obviously they gave up 30 points, but they felt like they did a lot in that game to help their confidence. Is that the same way in this game where you came out with a loss, but when you look at the way you were able to hold that type of offense --
TRACY CLAEYS: I think so. We didn't give up any plays over 30 years against them, which is hard to do. They depend on the big play a lot. Our 3rd downs, they got one more than what our goal would normally be. I think playing them last year, I mean, because everybody wants to talk about all the speed they have, and they can run, believe me, they can, but having played them last year, our kids knew that we could run with them. We're good enough to run with them. I think that -- yeah, I think confidence is a great thing. I think from us playing them a year ago we got a lot of confidence back there, and kids knew we could play with them.

Q. Are you facing any better passing attacks than TCU?
TRACY CLAEYS: Probably not with more weapons. Their pass routes are -- most of them are quick. You'll see better, I think, down the field passing games. That's not one of their best things that they do. But as far as being able to make you play balanced in the secondary because of how much speed they have on both sides, that's as tough as it gets. And then you have the quarterback scrambling. As far as a whole package, that's as tough as it'll get for us all year long.

Q. Will you reach out to TCU's staff at all for just feedback in general for what your strengths and weaknesses are?
TRACY CLAEYS: No. I mean, we will in the off-season now. We'll go and visit them and that. If they did everything, all the different personnels, maybe you would, but like I said, they're basically 10 personnel most of the time and no-huddle. So I don't know that there's anything there for us on our side that would help us right now.

Q. Can you compare, Tracy, the level or quality of the TCU offense from a year ago to what you faced last week?
TRACY CLAEYS: They're better than what they were a year ago on offense. I don't think there's any question. Those kids, I thought their offensive line improved proved a bunch. Their offensive line was a lot better than what they were a year ago. You know, they do, they put some guys out there that's got some size and can run around. I told the kids, they're going to be better, but also we're had a year to develop, and I think we're better than what we were a year ago, also, and so that was a good challenge. Like I say, the thing that I don't like about that game is we didn't have a chance to play a lot of young kids, and so you lose a game to try to develop some young kids before the Big Ten.

So that's the only bad thing about playing a game like that.

Q. Back to Cody, we didn't really get a chance to ask you, the starter, the decision to make him over Everett, how close was it, and again, how do you do that --
TRACY CLAEYS: Well, the truth be known, that decision was never made because we never played one snap of base defense. It was all nickel or dollar. Really that decision will be made this week because there will be some two-back stuff and that. So that decision hasn't been made yet. Out of nickel it was Jack and De'Vondre who started the game, so really neither one of them started. So now we'll have to see what happens with the two backs this week.

Q. How many young guys would you have liked to have gotten in there that you weren't able to?
TRACY CLAEYS: All of them. As many as we could have gotten in I would have liked to have get in and get a chance to play. I think it's one of those things that you don't get to play a game like that very often, so you went with your older kids, your more experienced kids, no different than they did, so it's just not a game that you use to develop younger kids. But yeah, we would have liked to have played as many as possible. I'm talking even sophomores. You just can't replace game experience. But we did what we tried to do to win the ballgame.

Q. Colorado State, they throw the ball, too?
TRACY CLAEYS: Yeah, very similar in their one-back stuff. The thing that they'll add is the two-back running game. They make you stay honest, so practice-wise you just can't spend it all on one-back like we did against TCU. You've got to work in the two-back stuff. That's a challenge, and then the hurry-up and no-huddle stuff. That's the challenge they'll get for us is how we play versus two backs against them.

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