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PURDUE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 22, 2015

Darrell Hazell

West Lafayette, Indiana

THE MODERATOR: Welcome to week four of Purdue football. We'll get an opening statement from coach and then open it up for questions.

COACH HAZELL: You take a look back at last week's game. Absolutely disappointing third quarter for us. A lot of it stemmed from really special teams play. It was a 24-17 game going into the half. We gave a big kickoff return for 78 yards that led to three points, then two possessions later we punted the ball, they ran it back 30 yards and gave up seven points off that drive. The next time we had the punt block. It was 17 points in that third quarter that turned the game from 24-17 to 41-17. Obviously, against a good football team, you can't do that.

We are going to make a quarterback change. That's going to happen this week. I know that the guys will be ready to adjust to that. There's still a great energy within our football team right now. We lost two games, one to a very good opponent this past weekend. But we're excited to take the field again on Saturday against Bowling Green.

THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions.

Q. Is David the starting quarterback now?
COACH HAZELL: Yes, David Blough will be the starting quarterback this week.

Q. What is the impetus for the change? The things that Austin didn't do? What do you see David being able to do?
COACH HAZELL: Austin's created energy and leadership for us. The one thing that we've always stressed, and will continue to stress, is the importance of taking care of the football. We need to do that better at that position.

Q. Beyond that, what needs to happen so you get better quarterback production, offensive production, defensive production?
COACH HAZELL: Everything needs to happen a little bit better. We have to protect a little bit better. We have to run a little bit better. I thought Virginia Tech did a good job last week of forcing the ball out of the tailback's hands.

We have to to make a concerted effort as a staff to make sure those two runningbacks get the football. They forced our hand last week a little bit taking the ball out of the runningback's hand and making the quarterback keep it. We were only able to get two or three yards on the quarterback run. We have to do a good job of making sure those tailbacks carry the ball for us.

Q. What would you like to see from your defense? Have you liked what you've seen and what needs to get better?
COACH HAZELL: A couple things, other than the missed tackles that we had. We had too many missed tackles. We were in position to make some plays, we didn't make those plays.

You can't put the defense on a 20-yard field. We did that probably four or five times on Saturday. I don't care what kind of defense you are, what level you're playing at, you can't put them on a short field like that. At some point in time the offense is going to score.

They played pretty good defense in the first half. They got a little bit tired in the fourth quarter, but they were out there a whole lot.

I thought we were good schematically. Obviously we need to make those tackles that we need to make and we'll get better as we are going forward.

Q. You're playing Bowling Green, number one in the nation in passing offense. They score a lot, play fast-paced. What do you see from them? What does your defense need to do to counter that?
COACH HAZELL: They're an explosive offense, they really are. They have a very good quarterback. He's very accurate. Gets it out of his hands very fast. He's mobile enough to keep the play alive. They have some guys on the outside who have made a lot of plays in the first three weeks.

We're going to have to do something a little bit different defensively to make sure we take care of the pass. They want to push the ball deep and they want to run a lot of plays.

There was one game I was watching, I can't remember if it was Maryland or the Tennessee game, but at the end of the third quarter, they had already run 80 plays. I think they ended up with 115 plays at the end of that game.

Q. You talked about the third quarter with the special teams. I know another point of emphasis, you look at the stat sheet, has to be the number of penalties. You've talked about this before. What did you notice? You go back and look at it, maybe a couple of bad calls. But overall were they deserved and what do you do to clean that up?
COACH HAZELL: Well, you got to make sure you're disciplined first of all. Some of those penalties, we had a holding call on a big run early in the football game that could have went either way. It's not the officials, it's us. We had a bad penalty with a personal foul after a touchdown that, again, you're kicking the ball from the 20 yard line, puts stress on the defense. A bad penalty by us.

We held the clock one time because Jimmy Herman got hurt. We had 10 men on the field. We have to be better in that area. You can't have penalties.

Q. Even though this is a relatively young team, it's an experienced younger team. By this stage in their careers, would you hope those penalties are not acceptable?
COACH HAZELL: Especially the personal fouls, definitely not acceptable. Some of these other ones are close. You're right, you can't have penalties and be successful, multiple penalties and be successful.

Q. In your thinking of going to David, he was good in the spring, good in the fall, I guess from a coach's standpoint, if you're going to make a change, you don't want him to start in Spartan Stadium, you'd rather him start at home. Did that go into part of the process or did you think now is the time to do it? Does the opponent not make any difference?
COACH HAZELL: The whole decision was driven by the one thing that we preach all the time: taking care of the football. To be honest, with our football team, I have to make sure we live up to that and govern ourselves. That's why we made the decision.

Q. Different eras, different teams. Bowling Green is 2-0 all time against Purdue. They've played very well in both of those games. They have a chance to be 2-0 against the Big Ten. Do you mention that to the guys? They're really playing for something here.
COACH HAZELL: There's a lot of things that I will mention. That's not one of them. There's a lot of things that we have to take care of, but we won't talk about that at all.

Q. Anything more you can tell us on injuries with Bailey and Herman?
COACH HAZELL: Yeah, got the injury report this morning. Jimmy Herman will be doubtful this week, hamstring. Markus Bailey's news came back. It was a confirmed ACL. He will have surgery and be done for the year.

Robert Gregory is fine. Michael Rouse has a bruised knee. He should be fine for Saturday's game.

Q. The positive news maybe for Bailey is that he squeaks under the threshold for being able to apply for a redshirt for him?
COACH HAZELL: We should be able to get him his full year back based on the timeframe.

Q. What would be your plan at linebacker, some things you would do if you were short at linebacker?
COACH HAZELL: This game will be a little bit different because of all the different personnel, the spread personnel they're using. If it were a normal Big Ten game, we would put Andy Garcia at the Sam linebacker, leave Ja-Whaun at the Mike, and leave Danny E at the Will backer, then get some of those other guys going.

Q. Do you need more production out of your return game than what you've been getting? What do you feel like you could do differently there both on punt and kick returns?
COACH HAZELL: Yeah, we only got one opportunity on the punt return the other day. We're not getting many opportunities in the first three weeks.

I know we have a good returner with Frankie and Danny back there. But we got to get chances because those guys will make some things happen for us.

Then our kickoff return team has to be a little bit better in sustaining those blocks. It will get rolling. It's still early. A lot of times we panic because this happens or that happens. Well, we're three games in. You can't push the panic button and go crazy after three games.

Q. With the way Bowling Green plays, the quick tempo, guys down the field, do you need some other corners to be able to play for you beyond just Frankie and AB a little bit this week? If so, how do you manage that?
COACH HAZELL: Yeah, that's part of the plan. Without giving up too much information, try to get a couple more guys on the field, make sure the ball doesn't go over the top of our heads because that's what they love to do.

Q. Offensively, this last weekend was a difficulty for the passing game in general. Do you need more production out of certain guys, receivers, in your passing offense than what you've gotten?
COACH HAZELL: You always do. We have enough guys. Some of the problem isn't always the receivers, some of the problems are the protections or it might be the throw. But you can't have enough productivity out of your wide guys. The ways you can get them the balls as much as you can get them on short routes deep down the field. We still got to push it down the field a little bit more. But it will happen.

Q. You didn't play as many guys this last week, but you have been playing so many guys. Is it important for them to know they might get a few opportunities but to take advantage of those that are there?
COACH HAZELL: Are you talking about in general?

Q. In general on offense at receiver.
COACH HAZELL: The issues we had on Saturday offensively were so few plays. We were having so many three-and-outs that it's hard to get into any type of rhythm or to make some of those substitutions to see those wide guys getting in there. We didn't run a lot of plays last week. We have to be able to sustain drives, to call more plays, and have more big plays.

Q. You mentioned the possibility of playing Gelen Robinson at defensive end. Is that a possibility for him, to be able to get him some more snaps on the other side, too?
COACH HAZELL: Not for this game.

Q. But down the road?
COACH HAZELL: Potentially down the road.

Q. What is it about him that would allow him to play both sides? Or do you feel you need more production at defensive end?
COACH HAZELL: Well, I just think he's such a good player that it's hard for him to stay on the sidelines very long. He's able to handle mentally both those positions, the rush and the end. He's physically strong enough to hold the edge as the end, do the things we need him to do as the rush.

Q. Is David your quarterback for every game the rest of the season or are you evaluating every single week?
COACH HAZELL: We're going in with David Blough as our quarterback.

Q. For this week?
COACH HAZELL: We're going in with David Blough as our quarterback.

Q. If David throws three picks this week, are you thinking about another quarterback for the next week?
COACH HAZELL: We'll evaluate it as it comes. That's not the way we're looking at it. We're going with David Blough as our quarterback so we can win football games.

Q. Was Elijah Sindelar considered?
COACH HAZELL: He was not.

Q. What did you see from David in the snaps he's gotten that makes you think you can win with him?
COACH HAZELL: Obviously he's the guy that we've always said he can create, keep the play extended, keeps his eyes down the field, can make the throws that we need him to make.

It's a close competition, as you know. But we went with Austin, and we needed to make the decision to go a different way right now.

Q. He's a young quarterback obviously. In a game like this where you're most likely going to have to score a bunch of points, are you worried about putting pressure on him to be productive?
COACH HAZELL: That's a good question. One of the things I said to him, I said, You don't have to play outside yourself, just play within the scheme of the offense. Don't feel like you have to be this guy that makes all these different plays. Just play within the scheme of things and things will work out the way they should work out.

I don't want him to put that pressure on himself and we don't need to put it on him as well.

Q. The scout teams are important for you guys every week obviously. With the challenge that you have this week, what they're going to have to simulate, do you talk to that group specifically before they go out to practice or is it business as usual?
COACH HAZELL: We constantly talk to our scout teams. We're going to do something a little bit different that we did in the past before I was here in terms of handling fast-tempo offenses and defenses. We're going to have a rapid fire two-group huddle going out, one right after the other, to try to simulate that tempo that we're going to see on Saturday.

Q. Generally for the scout team, you have young guys. Is that kind of a learning curve for them to be part of that process?
COACH HAZELL: Yeah, but they won't even run that. It will be varsity guys doing the tempo, the rapid fire. We'll run our plays, but we'll just send first huddle out, second huddle out, first huddle out, second huddle out, as fast as we can. It won't be the scout team, it will be the upper class guys.

Q. Do you expect Danny Anthrop to play this week and be good to go?
COACH HAZELL: He's definitely going to play for us this week. He's better yesterday than he was last Monday. I think the thing about him, we've got to get him into the flow a little bit more.

Once again, it comes back to you're behind the stakes on first and second down. All of a sudden you have a third down conversion you have to make. You don't make the third down conversion. It's three plays and out. We have to make sure we're in front of the chains a little bit and create more opportunities for everybody.

Q. With Bowling Green's offense, do they run a four receiver kind of look?
COACH HAZELL: They're a four receiver team as well as a three receiver team primarily.

Q. Typically your goal is to stop the run first as a defense. Is that different this week?
COACH HAZELL: It has to be because these guys, when they run the football, it's to keep you honest. They want to push the ball down the field.

Q. What are your goals for your defense this week?
COACH HAZELL: No big plays. No plays over the top of our heads. We understand they're going to get those little things underneath, but we can't let the ball over the top of their heads like the first three teams did.

They played man-to-man coverage on the outside, pressed the corners. This guy is a great fade ball thrower. He throws a nice, soft ball. He keeps it just outside the red line, the five yard stripe or four yard stripe outside the sideline. A difficult ball to cover. We can't let the ball go over our heads.

Q. Are you looking if your defense gets two or three stops, that could be a victory?
COACH HAZELL: You got to get a lot of stops, one. But you also got to score. That's the other part of the equation. You have to score because they're explosive. But we have to stop the deep ball. If we do, we'll be in good shape.

Q. How many winning performances has Da'Wan Hunte had the first three games?
COACH HAZELL: Don't know offhand.

Q. How would you evaluate the way he's played?
COACH HAZELL: He's played well. He can play better.

Q. Can Robert Gregory and Brandon Roberts play at the same time, to allow Leroy Clark to do something else?
COACH HAZELL: That is part of the equation, yes.

Q. Back to Austin quickly. It sounds like you told him already because you wouldn't have told us.
COACH HAZELL: Correct. Too much respect for those guys. I'm always going to share information with those guys before I present it to the media.

Q. How did he respond? He thought he was the best quarterback you had and worked hard to be a better player.
COACH HAZELL: Austin is a competitor. We're all competitors. We had the discussion. We'll see how he responds. He's going to handle it like a pro, like I think he would.

Q. You mentioned earlier that you're not going to panic. Three games into the season, you're making a quarterback change. Is that based maybe on more than these three games of the season, that you've seen a tendency for him to make a mistake?
COACH HAZELL: This is not a panic move. This is based on our base philosophy that we're not going to turn the ball over, period. We're not panicking inside our walls.

Q. Do you think this gives the perception that you're panicking?
COACH HAZELL: What people perceive me as, that does not matter. All that matters is what we see and how we respond to do the right thing. Perception on the inside is one thing. Perception on the outside is completely different.

To answer your question even further. I was walking over with a gentleman, one of our players, and he thought it was a great move for us. If that answers your question about perception.

Q. Who was the individual?
COACH HAZELL: That's irrelevant (laughter).

Q. Moving David to this position, I don't know how far you're going to answer this, does this mean that you want the offense to play faster, at a higher tempo?
COACH HAZELL: We couldn't play fast last week because we just couldn't get into a rhythm. But we would like to push the pace. I don't think having David or Austin in there had any influence on pushing it faster or slower.

Q. As you move forward, do you want a higher tempo from your offense?
COACH HAZELL: I thought if we could get 90 plays in a game, that would be a good situation for us.

Q. I know you want 90 plays this week. Is that kind of the standard for every game that you would like?
COACH HAZELL: Yes, uh-huh.

Q. This is the third straight year you've changed quarterbacks during the season.
COACH HAZELL: Okay.

Q. From an evaluation standpoint, are you missing the mark in the initial evaluation in camp or spring ball? Are these three in your mind tied together from a decision standpoint? We're dealing a little bit with perception. This is the third straight year you've had to do this.
COACH HAZELL: No, I don't think we missed the mark at all in making Austin our starting quarterback. He took care of the ball through spring, through fall training camp. That's why we made that decision.

Q. David hasn't worked with the number ones a lot here recently. What do you anticipate from him?
COACH HAZELL: I anticipate him to run the offense as well as he did in pre-season camp. He was out there taking 50/50 snaps with the number one offense throughout the entire pre-season camp. I expect him to be as efficient as he was at that particular time.

Q. What was his reaction to being named the starting quarterback?
COACH HAZELL: He didn't say much. You could tell he was excited. After we discussed about playing within himself, his typical, Yes, sir, and left the office.

Q. When did you arrive at the decision to make the change?
COACH HAZELL: You deliberate over it for a couple days. You think everything through, all the different scenarios through. You don't want to make any quick judgment decisions.

But it came to terms a night or so ago. Coach Shoop and I talked about all the pros and cons and then we made the decision.

Q. With this game Saturday, is there a balance between you have to get in the end zone, but you don't want to give them the ball too many times? Is that any kind of balance you look at this week as far as keeping the ball out of their hands but also putting the ball in the end zone?
COACH HAZELL: The number one goal is to put the ball in the end zone. That has to be priority. Obviously if you can eat time up while you're doing that, that also helps the cause.

Sometimes that's not always the case, though. Sometimes you strike quickly and you give them the ball back. But that's where we have to be good defensively, is to slow them down and not let them score as fast as they've been scoring in the past three weeks.

Q. Looking at this high-tempo Bowling Green offense, what do you like most about the way your defense matches up with them?
COACH HAZELL: I think we have a scheme that we talked about extensively yesterday that will slow them down and eliminate some of those big plays. We're going to work it pretty good today in practice.

Q. You talked about Gelen a little bit. After watching the tape, how do you assess his first game back?
COACH HAZELL: I thought it was a B performance for him. I thought he came out and played well. He made some plays, had some negative plays, negative tackle plays for himself. Needs to continue to get his game speed behind him and his game effort behind him.

I thought for the first time being out there in a while, he played probably at a B performance.

Q. Was it where you expected him to be or do you think he was held back a little bit missing the first two weeks?
COACH HAZELL: Certainly. There's nothing like game experience. He'll continually get better as the weeks go on.

Q. Despite the outcome of Saturday, the defense still racked up 10 tackles for loss. What does that say about your unit?
COACH HAZELL: You're going to think I'm crazy when I say this, but when you watch the film, they played pretty good defense. They were put in a lot of bad positions, a lot of bad positions. At some point in time it's going to break down.

But you talk about the first half, it's a 10-0 football game. The offense gave the points to them, then they gave up a long drive. The drive right before the half hurt us pretty good. Other than that in the first half they played pretty good defense.

Q. You talked about the importance of eliminating some of those penalties. What was the difference in week three?
COACH HAZELL: You're playing a better football team, playing better players. They move a little bit quicker. Got two of those holding calls because you're playing probably a better football defensive line.

Like I told you before, the personal fouls are unacceptable, unacceptable. Then we had a couple false starts. We had one defensive holding passing interference on Frankie. He was battling for the ball. Could have went either way. Sometimes those things happen.

Q. On Danny Anthrop, you said he feels better. The last couple weeks the decision has been up in the air on playing him in the return game. Is that going to be a week-to-week decision?
COACH HAZELL: We'd love to play him back there. If he's healthy enough to play back there, we're going to play him back there because he's a weapon for us.

Q. When you get ready to play a power conference school, Big Ten, do you get them ready for that, thinking they have something to prove?
COACH HAZELL: It's probably something that happens. As a coach you prepare every single week the same way: you play to put yourself in the best position to win the football game. That's from top to bottom. You talk about all the checklist things that you have to go over.

But I'm sure in some of those players' bellies, there's a fire that burns.

Q. With Bowling Green, how impressive is it to go into places like Tennessee and Maryland and rack up 500 yards?
COACH HAZELL: They did a good job both of those games. They opened up at Tennessee, which is a hard place to play. They did a good job. I thought Tennessee did a really nice job battling them off because they had made a couple surges at them. Then they went back to Maryland and did a really nice job of converting those third down situations and deep red zone situations, made a lot of plays.

Q. With your guys, the loss last year to Central Michigan, is the notion of not losing to another MAC team in their minds?
COACH HAZELL: That's never in our mind. We think completely different than the general public. We think about what is the best way to win this football game, period. We don't think about what happened 10 years ago, five years ago, last year. That's not our way of thinking.

Q. How important is a win this week going into Michigan State?
COACH HAZELL: Obviously every week's important. That's why you prepare as hard as you do. You study the film. You try to put your players in the best position to make the plays that they need to make.

One of the disappointing things from last week was that punt that was blocked. That's the thing that we work on every single day, the only play we work on every single day in practice. When that goes the way you don't want it to go, that's where the disappointment was. We'll make sure we get it fixed and make sure those things don't reoccur.

Q. Austin is your number two, right?
COACH HAZELL: He is.

Q. It seem as lot of MAC teams are going to more gambling defenses hunting for turnovers to counter some of the high-powered offenses. Is it sustainable or does it only work in high powered offense of your own?
COACH HAZELL: You look at Bowling Green, the first three weeks, they're not gambling a lot. They're a zone team. Every once in a while they'll bring some blitz down deep inside the five yard line, they'll bring double-edge pressure. But in the field they are playing coverage. Their mindset is not to bring pressure.

I think each team takes on its own identity.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you for your time.

COACH HAZELL: You're welcome. Thank you.

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